The Mariner of St. Malo : A chronicle of the voyages of Jacques CartierLeacock, Stephen
History
The Mariner of St. Malo : A chronicle of the voyages of Jacques Cartier
Leacock, Stephen
America -- Discovery and exploration -- French; Cartier, Jacques, 1491-1557; New France -- Discovery and exploration
There is rumour, also, that the National Library at Paris contains an
old print of Cartier, who appears therein as a bearded man passing from
the prime of life to its decline. The head is slightly bowed with the
weight of years, and the face is wanting in that suggestion of
unconquerable will which is the dominating feature of the portrait of
St Malo. This is the picture that appears in the form of a medallion,
or ring-shaped illustration, in more than one of the modern works upon
the great adventurer. But here again we have no proofs of identity, for
we know nothing of the origin of the portrait.
Curiously enough an accidental discovery of recent years seems to
confirm in some degree the genuineness of the St Malo portrait. There
stood until the autumn of 1908, in the French-Canadian fishing village
of Cap-des-Rosiers, near the mouth of the St Lawrence, a house of very
ancient date. Precisely how old it was no one could say, but it was
said to be the oldest existing habitation of the settlement. Ravaged by
perhaps two centuries of wind and weather, the old house afforded but
little shelter against the boisterous gales and the bitter cold of the
rude climate of the Gulf. Its owner decided to tear it down, and in
doing so he stumbled upon a startling discovery. He found a dummy
window that, generations before, had evidently been built over and
concealed. From the cavity thus disclosed he drew forth a large wooden
medallion, about twenty inches across, with the portrait of a man
carved in relief. Here again are the tufted hat, the bearded face, and
the features of the picture of St Malo. On the back of the wood, the
deeply graven initials J. C. seemed to prove that the image which had
lain hidden for generations behind the woodwork of the old Canadian
house is indeed that of the great discoverer. Beside the initials is
carved the date 1704.. This wooden medallion would appear to have once
figured as the stern shield of some French vessel, wrecked probably
upon the Gaspe coast. As it must have been made long before the St Malo
portrait was painted, the resemblance of the two faces perhaps
indicates the existence of some definite and genuine portrait of
Jacques Cartier, of which the record has been lost.
It appears, therefore, that we have the right to be content with the
picture which hangs in the town hall of the seaport of St Malo. If it
does not show us Cartier as he was,--and we have no absolute proof in
the one or the other direction,--at least it shows us Cartier as he
might well have been, with precisely the face and bearing which the
hero-worshipper would read into the character of such a discoverer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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