Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and presentLe Moine, J. M. (James MacPherson), Sir
History
Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present
Le Moine, J. M. (James MacPherson), Sir
Québec (Québec) -- Description and travel; Québec (Québec) -- Suburbs
Adventurous tourists who have risked themselves there in the sultry days
of July, have found themselves dazed at the sight of the wonders of the
place. Among other indigenous curiosities, they have there noticed what
might be taken for any number of aerial tents, improvised no doubt as
protection from the scorching rays of a meridian sun. Attached to ropes
stretched from one side of the public way to the other, was the family
linen, hung out to dry. When shaken by the wind over the heads of the
passers-by, these articles of white under-clothing (_chemisettes_),
flanked by sundry masculine nether-garments, presented a _tableau_,
it is said, in the highest degree picturesque. As regards ourselves,
desirous from our earliest days to search into the most recondite
_arcana_ of the history of our city and to portray them in all their
suggestive reality, for the edification of distinguished tourists from
England, France and the United States, it has been to us a source of
infinite mortification to realize that the only visit which we ever made
to Dog Lane was subsequent to the publication of the _Album du Touriste_;
a circumstance which explains the omission of it from that repository of
Canadian lore. Our most illustrious tourists, [112] the eldest son of the
Queen, the Prince of Wales, his brothers, the Princes Alfred and Arthur,
the Dukes of Newcastle, of Athol, of Manchester, of Beaufort, of Argyle,
of Sutherland, Generals Grant and Sherman, and Prince Napoleon Bonaparte,
it is said, took their leave of Quebec without having visited that
interesting locality, "_la Ruelle des Chiens_," Sous-le-Cap street,
probably unconscious of its very existence! Nevertheless, this street
possesses great historical interest. It has re-echoed the trumpet sounds
of war, the thundering of cannon, the briskest musketry; there fell
Brigadier-General Arnold, wounded in the knee: carried off amid the
despairing cries of his soldiers, under the swords of Dambourgès, of the
fierce and stalwart Charland, of the brave Caldwell, followed by his
friend Nairn and their chivalrous militiamen. Our friends, the
annexationists of that period, were so determined to annex Quebec, that
they threw themselves as if possessed by the evil one upon the barriers
(there were two of them) in Sous-le-Cap street and in Sault-au-Matelot
street; each man, says Sanguinet, wearing a slip of paper on his cap on
which was written "_Mors aut Victoria_," "Death or Victory!" One
hundred years and more have elapsed since this fierce struggle, and we are
not yet under Republican rule!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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