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. Legare, for the owners, two octogenarian inmates - his friends,
Messrs. Michel and Charles Jourdain, architects and builders. They were
charged some seventy years ago with the construction of the District Court
House (burnt in 1872) and City Jail (now the Morrin College.) Messrs.
Jourdain had emigrated to Canada after the French Revolution of 1789. They
had a holy horror of the guillotine, though, like others of the
literati of Quebec in former days, they were well acquainted with
the doctrines and works of Voltaire, Diderot, and d'Alembert. One of the
Jourdains, judging from his portrait, must have been a shrewd, observant
man. Later on, the old tenement had sheltered the librarian of the
Legislative Council, Monsieur Jourdain - a son - quite a savant in
his way, and whose remains were escorted to their last resting place by
the elite of the Canadian population. It is a mistake to think that
culture and education were unknown in those early times; in some instances
the love of books prevailed to that degree that, in several French-
Canadian families, manuscript copies then made at Quebec exist to this
day, of the Latin and French classics from the difficulty of procuring
books; there being little intercourse then with Paris book-stores, in
fact, no importations of books. Among many quaint relics of the distant
days of the Messrs. Jourdain and of their successor, Monsieur Audiverti
dit Romain, we saw a most curiously inlaid Marqueterie table, dating,
we might be tempted to assert, from the prehistoric era!
Innumerable are the quaint, pious or historical souvenirs, mantling like
green and graceful ivy, the lofty, fortified area, which comprises the
Upper Town of this "walled city of the North". An incident of our early
times - the outraged Crucifix of the Hotel Dieu Convent, [77] and the
Military Warrant, appropriating to urgent military wants, the revered seat
of learning, the Jesuits' College, naturally claim a place in these pages.
The Morning Chronicle will furnish us condensed accounts, which we
will try and complete: -
LE CRUCIFIX OUTRAGE.
"An interesting episode in the history of Canada during the last
century attaches to a relic in the possession of the Reverend Ladies
of the Hotel Dieu, or, more properly, "the Hospital of the Most
Precious Blood of Jesus Christ," of which the following is a synopsis
taken from l'Abbe H. G. Casgrain's history of the institution: -
"On the 5th October, 1742, it was made known that a soldier in the
garrison in Montreal, named Havard de Beaufort, professed to be a
sorcerer, and, in furtherance of his wicked pretensions, had profaned
sacred objects. He had taken a crucifix, and having besmeared it with
some inflammable substance - traces of which are still to be seen upon
it - had exposed it to the flames, whilst he at the same time recited
certain passages of the Holy Scripture. The sacrilege had taken place
in the house of one Charles Robidoux, at Montreal. Public indignation
at this profanation of the sacred symbol and of the Scripture was
intense; the culprit was arrested, tried and convicted, and sentenced
to make a public reparation, after which he was to serve three years
in the galleys. To this end he was led by the public executioner, with
a cord around his neck, bareheaded and barefooted, wearing only a long
shirt, and having a placard on his breast and back on which was
inscribed the legend "Desecrator of holy things" (Profanateur des
choses saintes), in front of the parish church in Montreal, and
being placed on his knees, he made the amende honorable to God,
to the King and to Justice, and declared in a loud and intelligible
voice that he had rashly and wickedly desecrated the sacred image of
Jesus Christ, and had profaned the words of Holy Scripture.
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