Proud old city, have you then no more defenders to put forth, in your supreme hour of woe and desertion! Has then that dauntless race of _Gentilshommes Canadiens_, d'Iberville--Ste. Hélène--de Bouville --de Bécancourt--de Repentigny, disappeared without leaving any successors! And you stern old de Frontenac, you who replied so effectually to the invader through the mouth of your cannon, is your martial spirit quenched forever, in that loved fortress in which rest your venerated remains, you who at one time (1689) were ready, at the head of your Regulars and fighting Canadians, [123] to carry out the rash scheme, hatched by deCallières: the conquest of New York and destruction of the chief settlements in New England, a scheme which involved the dispersion of more than eighteen thousand people, as sixty-six years later (in 1755), a British Commander tore from their homes the peaceable Acadians of _Grand-Pré_. [124] I could enlarge to any extent the gloomy picture which the history of this shameful period discloses. Two skilful novelists, the one in the English language, Wm. Kirby, [125] Esq., of Niagara, the other in the French, Joseph Marmette, [126] of Quebec, have woven two graphic and stirring historical romances, out of the materials which the career of the Intendant Bigot and the desertion of the colony in its hour of trial, by France--so abundantly supply. One redeeming _trait_, one flash of sunshine lights up the last hour of French domination: the devotion of the Canadian militia towards their oblivious mother- country, their dauntless courage at the Beauport engagement--after the battle of the Plains, 13th Sept., 1759--and at the battle of Ste. Foye, on the 28th April 1760, a day glorious to French arms, but at best a useless victory. _RUINS OF THE INTENDANT'S PALACE._ "It is the voice of years that are gone! they roll before me with all their deeds."--OSSIAN. "'The descriptions, or perspective sketches,' says Mr. Walkem, 'according to the fancy or whim of the artist or the photographer, of what is left of the ruins, convey no adequate idea of its real capacity and magnitude in length, breadth or height. My present object, therefore, with your permission, is to supply this deficiency from plans and elevations drawn to a scale of feet about the year 1770--when some repairs were effected by the Military Engineers,--five years before its destruction in 1775. And more especially do I feel it my duty to submit this plan, &c., for publication since it has become part of the military history, not of Quebec only, but of Canada.