The Works To Be Delivered Over To The Quebec Harbour
Commissioners, Finished Complete, On The 1st Day Of June, 1882.
[142]
THE GATES OF QUEBEC.
It seems superfluous to furnish a detailed description of the
fortifications and citadel of Quebec. After the lengthy account given in
"Quebec, Past and Present," pages 348-60, the following sketch, which we
borrow, written previous to the erection of the new St. Louis and Kent
Gates, [143] corrected to date, throws additional light on this part of
the subject.
"Of all the historic monuments connecting modern Quebec with its
eventful and heroic past, none have deservedly held a higher place in
the estimation of the antiquarian, the scholar and the curious
stranger than the former gates of the renowned fortress. These relics
of a by-gone age, with their massive proportions and grim, medieval
architecture, no longer exist, however, to carry the mind back to the
days which invest the oldest city in North America with its peculiar
interest and attraction. Nothing now remains to show where they once
raised their formidable barriers to the foe or opened their hospitable
portals to friends, but graceful substitutes of modern construction or
yawning apertures in the line of circumvallation, where until 1871
stood Prescott and Hope Gates which represented the later defences of
the place erected under British rule. Of the three gates - St. Louis,
St. John and Palace - which originally pierced the fortifications of
Quebec under French dominion, the last vestige disappeared many years
ago. The structures with which they were replaced, together with the
two additional and similarly guarded openings - Hope and Prescott
gates - provided for the public convenience or military requirements by
the British Government since the Conquest, have experienced the same
fate within the last decade to gratify what are known as modern ideas
of progress and improvement - vandalism would, perhaps, be the better
term. No desecrating hand, however, can rob those hallowed links, in
the chain of recollection, of the glorious memories which cluster
around them so thickly. Time and obliteration itself have wrought no
diminution of regard for their cherished associations.
To each one of them an undying history attaches, and even their vacant
sites appeal with mute, but surpassing eloquence to the sympathy, the
interest and the veneration of visitors, to whom Quebec will be ever
dear, not for what it is, but for what it has been. To the quick
comprehension of Lord Dufferin, it remained to note the inestimable
value of such heirlooms to the world at large. To his happy tact we
owe the revival of even a local concern for their preservation; and to
his fertile mind and aesthetic taste, we are indebted for the
conception of the noble scheme of restoration, embellishment and
addition in harmony with local requirements and modern notions of
progress, which is now being realized to keep their memories intact
for succeeding generations and retain for the cradle of New France its
unique reputation as the famous walled city of the New World.
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