- "The First Physician Who Entered Quebec Narrowly Escaped
Being Hung," Says Dr. LaRue.
"I said that he had narrowly escaped the
gallows; had he been hung I would not say it.
It occurred thus: - Champlain
had just landed in the Lower Town and had laid the foundation of his
abode, when some of his followers hatched a plot against his life. The
scheme leaked out, the ring leader was arraigned, found guilty and hung;
so far as I know, this was the first execution which took place in Canada.
Some how or other, Surgeon Bonnerme, one of Champlain's followers, was
mixed up in the matter, imprisoned, but his innocence having shortly after
been established, he was acquitted. Dr Bonnerme died the following year
(1609) at Quebec, of scurvy. If Bonnerme was the first physician who came
to Quebec, he was not, for all that, the first medical man who landed in
New France; another had preceded him: Louis Hebert, the first citizen of
Quebec and of all Canada. Before Hebert's day the French who came to
Quebec came there for no other object than barter, hunting and fishing;
none had thought of settling permanently there. Louis Hebert was the first
proprietor in Quebec, the first land owner in Canada; as such, historians
recognize him as the first Citizen of Quebec - the first Canadian: a
surgeon, let us bear in mind. Louis Hebert visited New France in 1606, two
years before the foundation of Quebec. He spent the winter of 1606-7 - a
merry one - at Port Royal, Acadia, in the company of Samuel de Champlain
and Lescarbot. Lescarbot was the first lawyer who found his way to New
France; Lescarbot was the first historian of the country; he was gifted
with wit - a proclivity to mild satire; each page of his history reveals
the lawyer familiar with the Bar and its lively forensic display. The
winter of 1606-7, at Port Royal, was remarkable for good cheer; appetising
repasts, the product of the chase or of the sea, were the order of the day
to that extent that Lescarbot declared that Port Royal fare was as
recherche as that of Rue aux Ours, in Paris - apparently the "Palais
Royal" of the French capital in those times. The third or fourth physician
of New France was Robert Giffard, Seignior of Beauport, who also was the
first settler in that parish; not only was Giffard the first resident of
Beauport, but, I have reason to believe, he was also the first settler -
habitant - of the rural districts in Canada. Thus, the first citizen of
all Canada would appear to have been a physician; thus, after Champlain
the two founders of the colony would have been physicians. Giffard's Lodge
was situated on some portion of Col. Gugy's farm; the leading families of
Canada look to Giffard as one of their progenitors; Archbishop Taschereau
is one of his descendants.
"The first Royal Notary - Notaire Royal - of Canada was M. Audouard, whose
first minute rests in the vaults of the Prothonotary of Quebec.
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