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
Palace or the Palais gate is the third and last of the old French
portals of the city, and derives its title from the fact that the
highway which passed through it led to the palace or residence of the
Intendants of New France, which has also given its name to the present
quarter of the city lying beneath the cliff on the northern face of
the fortress, where its crumbling ruins are still visible in the
immediate neighborhood of the passenger terminus of the North Shore
Railway. Erected under French rule, during which it is believed to
have been the most fashionable and the most used, it bade a final
farewell to the last of its gallant, but unfortunate French defenders,
and to that imperial power which, for more than one hundred and fifty
years, had swayed the colonial destinies of the Canadas and contested
inch by inch with England, the supremacy of the New World, when a
portion of Montcalm's defeated troops passed out beneath its darkening
shadows on the fatal 13th September, 1759. After the capitulation of
Quebec, General Murray devoted himself at once to the work of
strengthening the defences of the city, and the attention in this
respect paid to Palace gate appears to have stood him in good stead
during the following year's campaign, when the British invaders,
defeated in the battle of St. Foye, were compelled to take shelter
behind the walls of the town and sustain a short siege at the Hands of
the victorious French under deLévis. In 1791, the old French
structure, now a decayed ruin, was razed by the English, but, in the
meanwhile, during 1775, it had gallantly withstood the assaults and
siege of the American invaders under Montgomery and Benedict Arnold.
The somewhat ornate substitute, by which it was replaced is said to
have resembled one of the gates of Pompeii, and seems to have been
erected as late as the year 1830 or 1831, as, in the course of its
demolition, in 1874, an inscription was laid bare, attesting the fact
that at least the timbers and planking had been put up by local
workmen in 1831. It is not intended to rebuild this gate under the
Dufferin plan, on account of the great volume of traffic, more
especially since the completion of the North Shore Railway, to whose
terminus the roadway which leads over its site is the most direct
route. To mark that memorable spot, however, it is intended to flank
it on either side with picturesque Norman turrets rising above the
line of the fortification wall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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