Westward with the Prince of Wales Part 6

In the bleached and severe corridors of this great building the Prince examined many historic pictures of Canada's past, including a set of photographs of his own father's visit to the city and university. He also went from Laval to the Archbishop's Palace, where the Cardinal, a humorous, wise, virile old prelate in scarlet, showed him pictures of Queen Victoria and others of his ancestors, and stood by his side in the Grand Saloon while he held a reception of many clerics, professors and visitors.

The afternoon was given to the battlefield, where he unfurled a Union Jack to inaugurate the beautiful park that extends over the whole area.

The beauty of this park is a very real thing. It hangs over the St.

Lawrence with a sumptuous air of s.p.a.ciousness. Leaning over the granite bal.u.s.trade, one can look down on the tiny Wolfe's cove, where three thousand British crept up in the blackness of the night to disconcert the French commander.

It is not a very imposing slope, and a modern army might take it in its stride. Across the formal gra.s.s of the park itself the learned trace the lines of England and of France.

At the town end there is a slight hill above a dip. The British were in the dip, France was on the hill. That hill lost the battle. It placed the French between the British and the guns of the Citadel in days when there was neither aerial observation nor indirect fire.

A wind, as on the day of the battle, was blowing while the Prince was on the field. The British fired one volley, and the smoke from their black powder was blown into the faces of the French. Bewildered by the dense cloud, uncertain of what was in the heart of it, the French broke and fled. In twenty minutes Canada was won.

There is a plain monument to mark the exact spot where Wolfe fell; the Prince placed a wreath upon it, as he had placed wreaths on the monuments of Champlain and Montcalm earlier, and as he did later at the monument Aux Braves on the field of Foye, which commemorates the dead of both races who fell in the battle when Murray, a year after Wolfe's victory, endeavoured to loosen the grip the French besiegers were tightening round Quebec, and was defeated, though he held the city.

On the Plains of Abraham--it has no romantic significance, Abraham was merely a farmer who owned the land at the time of the battle--French and English were again gathered in force, but in a different manner.

It was a bright and friendly gathering of Canadians, who no longer permitted a difference of tongue to interfere with their amity. It was also a gathering of men and women and children (Quebec is the province of the quiverful), notably vigorous, well-dressed and prosperous.

The thing to remark here, as well as in all the gatherings of the people of this city, was the absence of dinginess and dowdiness that goes with poverty. In the great ma.s.s of stone houses, pretty brick and wood villas, and apartment "houses," the upper flats of which are reached by curving iron Jacob stairways, that make habitable Quebec there are patches of cramped wooden houses, each built under the architectural stimulus of the packing-case, though rococo little porches and scalloped roofs add a wedding-cake charm to the poverty of size and design. But though there are these small but not mean houses, there appear to be no poor people.

All those on the Plains had an independent and self-supporting air (as, indeed, every person has in Canada), and they gave the Prince a reception of a hearty and affable kind, as he declared this fine park the property of the city, and made the citizens free of its historic acreage for all time.

From the Plains His Royal Highness went by car to the huge new railway bridge that spans the St. Lawrence a few miles above the town. It was a long ride through comely lanes, by quiet farmsteads and small habitant villages. At all places where there was a nucleus of human life, men and women, but particularly the children, came out to their fences with flags to shout and wave a greeting.

At the bridge station were two open cars, and on to the raised platform of one of these the Prince mounted, while "movie" men stormed the other car, and a number of ordinary human beings joined them. This special train was then pa.s.sed slowly under the giant steel girders and over the central span, which is longer than any span the Forth Bridge can boast.

As the train travelled forward the Prince showed his eagerness for technical detail, and kept the engineers by his side busy with a stream of questions.

The bridge is not only a superb example of the art of the engineer, perhaps the greatest example the twentieth century can yet show, but it is a monument to the courage and tenacity of man. Twice the great central span was floated up-stream from the building yards, only to collapse and sink into the St. Lawrence at the moment it was being lifted into place. Though these failures caused loss of life, the designers persisted, and the third attempt brought success.

There was, one supposes, a ceremonial idea connected with this function. His Royal Highness certainly unveiled two tablets at either end of the bridge by jerking cords that released the covering Union Jack. But this ritual was second to the ceremonial of the "movies."

The "movies" went over the top in a grand attack. They put down a box barrage close up against the Prince's platform, and at a distance of two feet, not an inflection of his face, nor a movement of his head, escaped the unwinking and merciless eye of the camera.

The "movie" men declare that the Prince is the best "fil-lm" actor living, since he is absolutely unstudied in manner; but it would have taken a Douglas Fairbanks of a super-breed to remain unembarra.s.sed in the face of that cold line of lenses thrust close up to his medal ribbons. And in the film he shows his feelings in characteristic movements of lips and hands.

The men who did not take movies, the men with plain cameras, the "still" men, were also active. Not to be outdone by their comrades with the machine-gun action, they sprang from the car at intervals, ran along the footway, and snapped the party as the train drew level with them.

It was a field day for cameras, but enthusiastic people also counted.

Men and women had clambered up the hard, stratified rock of the cuttings that carry the line to the bridge, and they were also standing under the bridge on the slopes, and on the flats by the river. They were cheering, and--yes, they were busy with their cameras also--cameras cannot be evaded in Canada, even in the wilds.

One had the impression, from the difficult perches on which people were to be found, that wherever the Prince would go in Canada, to whatever lonely or difficult spot his travels would lead him, he would always find a Canadian man, and possibly a Canadian woman standing waiting or clinging to precarious holds, glad to be there, so long as he (or she) had breath to cheer and a free hand to wave a flag. And this impression was confirmed by the story of the next months.

IV

Sat.u.r.day, August 23, was supposed to give His Royal Highness the half-day holiday which is the due of any worker. That half day was peculiarly Canadian.

The business of the morning was one of singular charm. The Prince visited the Convent of the Ursulines, to which in the old days wounded Montcalm was taken, and in whose quiet chapel his body lies.

The nuns are cloistered and do not open their doors to visitors, but on this day they welcomed the Prince with an eagerness that was altogether delightful. They showed him through their serene yet bare reception rooms, and with pride placed before him the skull of Montcalm, which they keep in their recreation room, together with a host of historic doc.u.ments dealing with the struggles of those distant days.

The party was taken through the nuns' chapel, and sent on with smiles to the public chapel to look on Montcalm's tomb, originally a hole in the chapel fabric torn by British sh.e.l.ls. The nuns could not go into that chapel. "We are cloistered," they told us.

These child-like nuns, with their serene and smiling faces, were overjoyed to receive His Royal Highness and anxious to convey to him their good will.

"We cannot go to England--we cannot leave our house--but our hearts are always with you, and there are none more loyal than us, and none more earnest in teaching loyalty to all the girls who come to us to study.

Yes, we teach it in French, but what does that matter? We can express the Canadian spirit just as well in that language." So said a very vivid and practical little nun to me, and she was anxious that England should realize how dear they felt the bond.

The Prince's afternoon "off" was spent out of Quebec at the beautiful village of St. Anne's Beaupre, where, set in lovely surroundings, there is a miraculous shrine to St. Anne. The Prince visited the beautiful basilica, and saw the forest of sticks and crutches left behind as tokens of their cure by generations of sufferers.

News of his visit had got abroad, and when he left the shrine in company of the clergy, he was surrounded by a big crowd who restricted all movement by their cheerful importunity. A local photographer, rising to the occasion, refused to let His Royal Highness escape until he had taken an historic snap. Not merely a snap of the Prince and the priests with him, but of as many of the citizens of Beaupre as he could get into a wide angle lense. This was a tremendous occasion, and he yelled at the top of his voice to the people to:

"Come and be photographed with the Prince. Come and be taken with your future King."

Taken with their future King, the people of Beaupre were entirely disinclined to let him go. They crowded round him so that it was only force that enabled his entourage to clear a tactful way to his car.

Even in the car the driver found himself faced with all the opportunities of the chauffeur of the Juggernaut with none of his convictions. The car was hemmed in by the crowd, and the crowd would not give way.

It is possible that at this jolly crisis somebody mentioned the Prince's need for tea, and at the mention of this solemn and inexplicable British rite the crowd gave way, and the car got free.

CHAPTER VII

THE MOBILE HOTEL DE LUXE: THE ROYAL TRAIN

I

On Sunday, August 24th, His Royal Highness came under the sway of that benevolent despot in the Kingdom of Efficiency, the Canadian Pacific Railway.

He motored out along a road that Quebec is proud of, because it has a reputable surface for automobiles in a world of natural earth tracks, through delightful country to a small station which [had?] a Gallic air, Three Rivers. Here he boarded the Royal Train.

It was a remarkable train. Not merely did its construction, length, tonnage and ultimate mileage set up new records, but in it the idealist's dream of perfection in travelling came true.

It might be truer to say the Royal Party did not take the train, it took them. As each member of the party mounted into his compartment, or Pullman car, he at once ceased to concern himself with his own well-being. To think of oneself was unnecessary. The C.P.R. had not only arranged to do the thinking, but had also arranged to do it better.

The external facts concerning the train were but a part of its wonder.

And the minor part. It was the largest train of its kind to accomplish so great a single run--it weighed over a thousand tons, and travelled nearly ten thousand miles. It was a fifth of a mile in length. Its ten splendid cars were all steel. Some of them were ordinary sleepers, some were compartment and drawing-room cars. Those for the Prince and his Staff were sumptuous private cars with state-rooms, dining-rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, and cosy observation rooms and platforms, beautifully fitted and appointed.

The train was a modern hotel strayed accidentally on to wheels. It had its telephone system; its own electricity; its own individually controlled central heat. It had a laundry service for its pa.s.sengers, and its valets always on the spot to renew the crease of youth in all trousers. It had its own newspaper, or, rather, bulletin, by which all on board learnt the news of the external world twice a day, no matter in what wild spot the train happened to be. It had its dark-room for photographers, its dispensary for the doctor and its untiring telegraph expert to handle all wired messages, including the correspondents'

cables. It had its dining-rooms and kitchens and its staff of first-cla.s.s chefs, who worked miracles of cuisine in the small s.p.a.ce of their kitchen, giving over a hundred people three meals a day that no hotel in London could exceed in style, and no hotel in England could hope to equal in abundance. It carried baggage, and transferred it to Government Houses or hotels, and transferred it back to its cars and baggage vans in a manner so perfect that one came to look upon the matter almost as a process of nature, and not as a breathless phenomenon.

It was the train _de luxe_, but it was really more than that. It was a train handled by experts from Mr. A. B. Calder, who represented the President of the Company, down to the cleaning boy, who swept up the cars, and they were experts of a curious quality of their own.

Whatever the Canadian Pacific Railway is (and it has its critics), there can be no doubt that, as an organization, it captures the loyalty, as it calls forth all the keenness and ability of its servants. It is something that quickens their imagination and stimulates their enthusiasm. There was something warm and invigorating about the way each man set up within himself a counsel of perfection--which he intended to exceed. Waiters, negro car porters, brakemen, secretaries--every man on that staff of sixty odd determined that _his_ department was going to be a living example, not of what he could do, but of what the C.P.R. could do.

The _esprit de corps_ was remarkable. Mr. Calder told us at the end of the trip that as far as the staff working of the train was concerned he need not have been in control. He had not issued a single order, nor a single reprimand in the three months. The men knew their work perfectly; they did it perfectly.