By His Excellency's command.
(Counters'd,) J. GOLDFRAP, D. Sectry.
General Arnold's soldiers having during the winter of 1775 established
themselves in and near the French Intendant's Palace, facing the St.
Charles, Governor Carleton decided to sacrifice the stately pile of
buildings in order to dislodge the enemy. A lively fire was in
consequence opened from the guns on the ramparts, near Palace Gate,
and the magnificent structure was soon riddled with shot. It stood in
rear of Valliere's furniture factory and Boswell's brewery. Thus was
acquired the Jesuits' Barrack, and thus perished the Intendant's
Palace." - (Chronicle, 27th Dec., 1871.)
D'Auteuil street, bounded to the west by an open space - the Esplanade -
lined on one side by shade trees, on the other by the verdant slopes of
the glacis and city walls, deserves a passing notice. Bouchette describes
it thus: - "The Esplanade, between St. Louis and St. John's Gate, has a
length of 273 yards, by an average breadth of 80, except at the Ste.
Ursula bastion, where it is 120 yards. It is tolerably level, in some
places presenting a surface of bare rock. This is the usual place of
parade for the troops of the garrison, from whence every morning in summer
the different guards of the town are mounted; in winter the Jesuits'
Barracks drill ground is generally used for parades. The musters and
annual reviews of the militia belonging to the city are held there. [78]
The Esplanade is still used as a parade ground, if not by our city militia
by our provincial troops. Right well can we recall the manly form of the
Commander of the "B" Battery, Lieut.-Colonel T. B. Strange, bestriding a
noble charger, putting his splendid, though not numerous corps, through
their drill on the Esplanade. We have also sometimes caught sight there of
our gay Volunteers. Occasionally these grounds are used by the divers
lacrosse clubs for their athletic games - the doyen of our city
litterateurs, the Hon. P. J. O. Chauveau, in a graphic portraiture
of the "Quebec of the Past," has most feelingly retraced the vanished
glories, the military pageants, the practical jokers, the City Watch, the
social gatherings, which his youthful eyes witnessed of yore on the
Esplanade and on Durham Terrace. We have attempted to render in English a
striking chapter of this sparkling effusion: -
OLDEN TIMES IN THE ANCIENT CAPITAL.
"There is not only the quaint city of Champlain - of Montmagny - of
Frontenac - of Bishop Laval - of Governor de Vaudreuil and Montcalm - of
Lord Dorchester and Colonel Dambourges - that is rapidly fading away;
there is not merely the grim fortress of the French regime, the
city of early English rule, disappearing piecemeal in the dissolving
shadows of the past. A much more modern town - newer even than that so
graphically pictured by our old friend Monsieur de Gaspe - the Quebec
of our boyhood - of our youth - the Quebec embalmed in the haunted
chambers of memory prior to 1837 - it also each day seems retreating -
crumbling - evanescing.
