Famous Firesides of French Canada Part 1

Famous Firesides of French Canada.

by Mary Wilson Alloway.

PREFACE.

In offering this little volume to the kind consideration of Canadian and American readers, it is the earnest wish of the Author that it may commend itself to the interest of both, as the early histories of Canada and the United States are so closely connected that they may be considered identical.

We have tried to recall the days when, by these firesides, we re rocked the cradles of those who helped to make Canadian history, and to render more familiar the names and deeds of the great men, French, English and American, upon whose valour and wisdom such mighty issues depended.

The recital is, we trust, wholly impartial and without prejudice.

It is to be hoped that the union of sentiment which the close of this century sees between the two great Anglo-Saxon peoples may cast a veil of forgetfulness over the strife of the one preceding it; and be a herald of that reign of peace, when "nation shall no more rise against nation, and wars shall cease."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Signature]

MARY WILSON ALLOWAY

MONTREAL, May 24, 1899.

INTRODUCTION.

About twelve years after the first Spanish caravel had touched the sh.o.r.es of North America, we find the French putting forth efforts to share in some of the results of the discovery. In the year 1504 some Basque, Breton and Norman fisher-folk had already commenced fis.h.i.+ng along the bleak sh.o.r.es of Newfoundland and the contiguous banks for the cod in which this region is still so prolific.

The Spanish claim to the discovery of America is disputed by several aspirants to that honour. Among these are the ancient mariners of Northern Europe, the Nors.e.m.e.n of the Scandinavian Peninsula. They a.s.sert that their Vikings touched American sh.o.r.es three centuries before Isabella of Castille drove the Moors from their palaces among the orange groves of _Espana_. Eric the Red, and other sea-kings, made voyages to Iceland and Greenland in the eleventh and following centuries; and it is highly probable that these Nors.e.m.e.n, with their hardihood and enterprise, touched on some part of the mainland. One Danish writer claims that this occurred as far back as the year 985, about eighty years after the death of the Danes' mortal enemy, the great Saxon King Alfred.

Even the Welsh, from the isolation of their mountain fastnesses, declare that a Cambrian expedition, in the year 1170, under Prince Modoc, landed in America. In proof of this, there is said to exist in Mexico a colony bearing indisputable traces of the tongue of these ancient Celts.

The term Canada first appears as the officially recognized name of the region in the instructions given by Francis I to its original colonists in the year 1538.

There are various theories as to the etymology of the word, its having by different authorities been attributed to Indian, French and Spanish origins.

In an old copy of a Montreal paper, bearing date of Dec. 24, 1834, it is a.s.serted that Canada or _Kannata_ is an Indian word, meaning a village, and was mistaken by the early visitors for the name of the whole country.

The Philadelphia _Courier_, of July, 1836, gives the following not improbable etymology of the name of the province:--Canada is compounded of two aboriginal words, _Can_, which signifies the mouth, and _Ada_ the country, meaning the mouth of the country. A writer of the same period, when there seems to have been considerable discussion on the subject, says:--The word is undoubtedly of Spanish origin, coming from a common Spanish word, _Canada_, signifying a s.p.a.ce or opening between mountains or high banks--a district in Mexico of similar physical features, bearing the same name.

"That there were Spanish pilots or navigators among the first discoverers of the St. Lawrence may be readily supposed, and what more natural than that those who first visited the gulf should call the interior of the country _El Canada_ from the typographical appearance of the opening to it, the custom of illiterate navigators naming places from events and natural appearances being well established."

Hennepin, an etymological _savant_, declares that the name arose from the Spaniards, who were the first discoverers of Canada, exclaiming, on their failure to find the precious metals, "_El Capa da nada_," or Cape Nothing. There seems to be some support of this alleged presence of the Spanish among the early navigators of the St. Lawrence, by the finding in the river, near Three Rivers, in the year 1835, an ancient cannon of peculiar make, which was supposed to be of Spanish construction.

The origins of the names of Montreal and Quebec are equally open to discussion. Many stoutly a.s.sert that Montreal is the French for Mount Royal, or Royal Mount; others, that by the introduction of one letter, the name is legitimately Spanish--_Monte-real_. _Monte_, designating any wooded elevation, and that _real_ is the only word in that language for royal.

The word Quebec is attributed to Indian and French sources. It is said that it is an Algonquin word, meaning a strait, the river at this point being not more than a mile wide; but although Champlain coincided in this view, its root has never been discovered in any Indian tongue. Its abrupt enunciation has not to the ear the sound of an Indian word, and it could scarcely have come from the Algonquin language, which is singularly soft and sweet, and may be considered the Italian of North American dialects.

Those who claim for it a French origin, say that the Normans, rowing up the river with Cartier at his first discovery, as they rounded the wooded sh.o.r.es of the Isle of Orleans, and came in sight of the bare rock rising three hundred feet from its base, exclaimed "_Quel bec!_" or, What a promontory! The word bears intrinsically strong evidence of Norman origin.

Cape Diamond received its name from the fact that in the "dark colored slate of which it is composed are found perfectly limpid quartz crystals in veins, along with crystallized carbonate of lime, which, sparkling like diamonds among the crags, suggested the appellation."

Famous Firesides

--OF--

French Canada

THE CHATEAU DE RAMEZAY.

A few yards from the busy munic.i.p.al centre of the city of Montreal, behind an antique iron railing, is a quaint, old building known as the Chateau de Ramezay. Its history is contemporary with that of the city for the last two centuries, and so identified with past stirring events that it has been saved from the vandalism of modern improvement, and is to be preserved as a relic of the old _Regime_ in New France. It is a long one-storied structure, originally red-tiled, with graceful, sloping roof, double rows of peaked, dormer windows, huge chimneys and the unpolished architecture of the period.

Among the many historical buildings of America, none have been the scene of more thrilling events, a long line of interesting a.s.sociations being connected with the now quiet old Chateau, looking in its peaceful old age as out of keeping with its modern surroundings as would an ancient vellum missal, mellowed for centuries in a monkish cell, appear among some of the ephemeral literature of to-day.

A brilliant line of viceroys have here held rule, and within its walls things momentous in the country's annals have been enacted. During its checkered experience no less than three distinct _Regimes_ have followed each other, French, British and American. In an old doc.u.ment still to be found among the archives of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, it is recorded that the land on which it stands was ceded to the Governor of Montreal in the year 1660, just eighteen years after Maisonneuve, its founder, planted the silken Fleur-de-Lys of France on the sh.o.r.es of the savage Redman, and one hundred years before the tri-cross of England floated for the first time from the ramparts.

Somewhere about the year 1700 a portion of this land was acquired by Claude de Ramezay, Sieur de la Gesse, Bois Fleurent and Monnoir, in France, and Governor of Three Rivers, and this house built.

De Ramezay was of an old Franco-Scottish family, being descended by _Thimothy_, his father, from one Sir John Ramsay, a Scotchman, who, with others of his compatriots, went over to France in the 16th century. He may have joined an army raised for the French wars, or may have formed part of a bridal train similar to the gay retinue of the fair Princess Mary, who went from the dark fells and misty lochs of the land of the Royal Stuarts to be the loveliest queen who ever sat on the throne of _la belle France_. De Ramezay was the father of thirteen children, by his wife, Mademoiselle Denys de la Ronde, a sister of Mesdames Thomas Tarieu de La Naudiere de La Perade, d'Ailleboust d'Argenteuil, Chartier de Lotbiniere and Aubert de la Chenage, the same family out of whom came the celebrated de Jumonville, so well known in connection with the unfortunate circ.u.mstances of Fort Necessity. The original of the marriage contract is still preserved in the records of the Montreal Court House; with its long list of autographs of Governor, Intendant, and high officials, civil and military, scions of the n.o.bility of the country, appended thereto. The annals of the family tell us that some of them died in infancy, several met violent and untimely deaths, two of the sisters took conventual vows in the cloisters of Quebec, two married, having descendants now living in France and Canada, and two remained unmarried.

De Ramezay came over as a captain in the army with the Viceroy de Tracy, and was remarkable for his highly refined education, having been a pupil of the celebrated Fenelon, who was said to have been the pattern of virtue in the midst of a corrupt court, and who was entrusted by Louis the Fourteenth with the education of his grandsons, the Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou and Berri. Had the first named, who was heir-presumptive to the throne, lived to practice the princely virtues, the seeds of which his preceptor had sown in his heart, some of the most b.l.o.o.d.y pages in French history might never have been written.

De Ramezay, for many years being Governor of Montreal, held official court in the Council chamber to the right of the entrance hall of the Chateau, which is now a museum of rare and valuable relics of Canada's past.

The Salon was the scene of many a gay rout, as Madame de Ramezay, imitating the brilliant social and political life as it was in France in the time of _Le Grand Monarque_, transplanted to the wilds of America some reflection of court ceremonial and display as they culminated in that long and brilliant reign. From the dormer windows above, high-bred French ladies looked at the sun rising over the forest-clothed sh.o.r.es of the river, on which now stands the architectural grandeur of the modern city. How strange to the swarthy-faced dwellers in the wigwam must the old-time gaieties have appeared, as the lights from the silver _candelabres_ shone far out in the night, when the old Chateau was _en fete_ and aglow with music, dancing and laughter.

What a contrast to the burden-bearing squaws were the dainty French women in stiff brocade and jewels, high heels, paint, patches and tresses _a la Pompadour_, tripping through the stately measures of the minuet to the sound of lute or harpsichord!

"O, fair young land of _La Nouvelle France_, With thy halo of olden time romance, Back like a half-forgotten dream Come the bygone days of the old _Regime_."

The servants and retainers, imitating their lords, held high revel in the vaulted kitchens; while dishes and confections, savoury and delicious, came from the curious fireplace and ovens recently discovered in the vaults. These ancient kitchen offices, built to resist a siege, are exceedingly interesting in the light of our culinary arrangements of to-day. They were so constructed that if the buildings above, with their ma.s.sive masonry, were destroyed, they would afford safe and comfortable refuge. The roof is arched, and, like the walls, is several feet thick, of solid stone, lighted by heavily barred windows, with strong iron shutters. In clearing out the walled-up and long-forgotten ovens, there were found bits of broken crockery, pipe-stems and the ashes of fires, gone out many, many long years ago. As indicated by an early map of the city, the position of the original well was located; in which, when it is cleaned out, it is intended to hang an old oaken bucket and drinking cups as nearly as possible as they originally were.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient kitchen and fireplace of the Chateau de Ramezay.

COPYRIGHT.]

Some time after the death of de Ramezay, which occurred in the city of Quebec in 1724, these n.o.ble halls fell into the possession of the fur-traders of Canada, and many a time these underground cellars were stored with the rich skins of the mink, silver fox, marten, sable and ermine for the markets of Europe and for royalty itself. They were brought in by the hunters and trappers over the boundless domains of the fur companies, and by the Indian tribes friendly to the peltrie trade.

As these hardy, bronzed men sat around the hearth, while the juicy haunch of venison roasted on the spit by the blazing logs, relating blood-curdling tales and hairbreadth escapes, they were a necessary phase of times long pa.s.sed away, but which will always have a picturesqueness especially their own.

Instead of the white man's influencing the savage towards civilized customs, it was often found, as one writer has said, that hundreds of white men were barbarized on this continent for each single savage that was civilized. Many of the former identified themselves by marriage and mode of life with the Indians, developed their traits of hardihood and acquired their knowledge of woodcraft and skill in navigating the streams. In pursuit of the fur-bearing animals in their native haunts, they shot the raging rapids, ventured out upon the broad expanse of the treacherous lakes, and endured without complaint the severity of winter and the exposure of forest life in summer.