Close By, On Fabrique Street, Bishop De St. Vallier Had
Founded Le Bureau Des Pauvres, Where The Beggars Of Quebec (A Thriving
Class To This Day) Received Alms, In Order To Deter Them From Begging In
The Country Round The City.
The success which crowned this humble retreat
of the mendicant led the philanthropic Bishop to found the General
Hospital in the Seigneurie de Notre Dame des Anges, beyond St. Roch.
He
received there nuns of the Convents of the Ursulines and of the Hotel Dieu
and gave them the administration of the newly founded establishment,
where, moreover, he at a more recent date resided as almoner of the poor.
At the western corner of Palace and St. John streets, has stood since
1771, a well known landmark erected to replace the statue of Saint John
the Baptist, which had, under the French regime, adorned the corner
house. After the surrender of Quebec to the British forces, the owners of
the house, fearing the outer barbarians might be wanting in respect to the
saint's effigy, sent it to the General Hospital, where it stood over the
principal entrance until a few years back. They replaced it by a wooden
statue of General Wolfe, sculptured by the Brothers Cholette, at the
request of George Hipps, a loyal butcher. The peregrinations of this
historic relic, in 1838, from Quebec to Halifax - from Halifax to Bermuda,
thence to Portsmouth, and finally to its old niche at Wolfe's corner, St.
John Street, whilst they afforded much sport to the middies of H. M. Ship
Inconstant, who visited our port that summer and carried away the
General, were the subject of several newspaper paragraphs in prose and
verse.
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