It Is Now Occupied As A Dwelling
And A Notarial Office By An Ex-Mayor And Late Member For The
City, P. A.
Tourangeau, Esq., N.P. Vividly, indeed, can we recall the busy aspect of
its former counter, studded
With gilt madonnas, rosaries, some in brass
mountings, variegated Job beads for the million; others set in ebony and
silver for rich devotes, flanked with wax tapers, sparkling church
ornaments, bronze crucifixes - backed with shelves of books bearing, some,
the visa of Monseigneur de Tours - the latter for the faithful; others in
an inner room, without the visa - these for city litterateurs; whilst
in a shady corner-cupboard, imported to order - sometimes without order -
stood a row of short-necked but robust bottles, labelled "Grande
Chartreuse" and "Benedictine," for the especial delectation of a few
Quebec Brillat-Savarins - the gourmets!
Monsieur Hamel, a sly, courteous, devout old bachelor, had a honied word,
a holy, upturned glance, a jaunty welcome for all and every one of his
numerous "devotes" or fashionable pratiques. A small fortune was
the result of the attention to business, thrift and correct calculations
of this pink of French politeness. Monsieur Chas. Hamel, honoured by his
familiars with the sobriquet "Lily Hamel," possibly because his urbanity
was more than masculine, in fact, quite lady-like - the creme de la
creme of commercial suavity. This stand, frequented by the Quebec
gentry from 1840 to 1865, had gradually become a favourite stopping place,
a kind of half-way house, where many aged valetudinarians tarried a few
minutes to gossip with friends equally aged, homeward bound, on bright
winter afternoons, direct from their daily "constitutional" walk, as far
as the turnpike on St. John's road. Professor Hubert Larue [75] will
introduce us to some of the habitues of this little club, which he
styles Le Club des Anciens, a venerable brotherhood uniting choice
spirits among city litterateurs, antiquarians, superannuated Militia
officers, retired merchants: Messrs. Henry Forsyth, Long John Fraser,
Lieut.-Colonel Benjamin LeMoine, F. X. Garneau, G. B. Faribault, P. A. De
Gaspe, Commissary-General Jas. Thompson, Major Lafleur, Chs. Pinguet, the
valiant Captain of the City Watch in 1837. The junior members counted from
fifty to sixty summers; their seniors had braved some sixty or seventy
winters. After discussing the news of the day, local antiquities and
improvements, there were certain topics, which possessed the secret of
being to them eternally young, irresistibly attractive: the thrilling era
of Colonel De Salaberry and General Sir Isaac Brock; the Canadian
Voltigeurs, [76] the American War of 1812-14, where a few of these
veterans had clanked their sabres and sported their epaulettes, &c. With
the exception of an esteemed and aged Quebec merchant, Long John Fraser,
all now sleep the long sleep, under the green sward and leafy shades of
Mount Hermon or Belmont cemeteries, or in the moist vaults of some city
monastery.
On revisiting lately these once famous haunts of our forefathers, the new
proprietor, ex-Mayor Tourangeau, courteously exhibited to us the
antiques of this heavy walled tenement, dating back possibly to the
French regime, perhaps the second oldest house in St. John street.
In a freshly painted room, on the first story, in the east end, hung two
ancient oil paintings, executed years ago by a well-remembered artist,
Jos.
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