Famous Firesides of French Canada

The principal authorities consulted in the preparation of this work were Le Moyne, Kingsford, Rattray, Garneau, Parkman, Hawkins and Bouchette.

Acknowledgments are also due to the kind interest evinced and encouragement given by the Hon. Judge Baby, President of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal.

CONTENTS.

Château de Ramezay 19

Heroes of the Past 30

Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire 51

Le Séminaire 56

Cathedrals and Cloisters 58

Massacre of Lachine 82

Château de Vaudreuil 95

Battle of the Plains 103

Canada under English Rule 125

American Invasion 144

The Continental Army in Canada 155

Fur Kings 192

Interesting Sites 199

Famous Names 203

Echoes from the Past 212

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE.

Fireplace Frontispiece.

Château Kitchen 24

Château de Ramezay 26

Montgomery Salon 28

Chapel of Notre Dame de la Victoire 52

Le Séminaire 56

Home of La Salle 84

St. Amable St. 98

Fort Chambly 146

Château Fortier 156

Franklin Vaults 170

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."

[Illustration: Signature]

MARY WILSON ALLOWAY

MONTREAL, May 24, 1899.

INTRODUCTION.

About twelve years after the first Spanish caravel had touched the shores 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 fishing along the bleak shores 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 Norsemen of the Scandinavian Peninsula. They assert that their Vikings touched American shores 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 Norsemen, 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.