The Friars
changed the name to that of St. Charles, in honor of "Monsieur Charles de
Boues, Grand Vicaire de Pontoise," one of the most distinguished
benefactors of their Order.
St. Vallier street, leading to ancient and Indian Lorette, over the Little
River Road, at present so well built up and echoing to the shrill whistle
of the Q. M. O. & O. Railway, until a few years back was a lone
thoroughfare, beyond the toll-bar, lined with bare, open meadows. Here,
also, has been felt the march of progress.
In the genial summer months passers-by are admonished by a pungent, not
unhealthy, odor of tannin, an effluvia of tamarac bark, that tanners and
curriers have selected their head-quarters in St. Vallier street. History
also lends its attractions to the venerable thoroughfare.
Our forefathers would tell of many cosy little dinners, closed, of course,
with whist or loo - of many recherche pic-nics in days of yore, kept
up until the "sma' hours" at two renowned hostelries, only recently
removed - the BLUE HOUSE and the RED HOUSE, - chiefly at that festive and
crowning season of the year, when
"The snow, the beautiful snow,"
called forth the City Driving Club and its silvery, tinkling sleigh bells.
A steward - once famous as a caterer - on closing his term of service at the
Chateau, with a departing Governor, more than a century back, was
the Boniface at the Blue House: Alexandre Menut. A veritable Soyer was
Monsieur Menut. During the American invasion, in the autumn of 1775,
Monsieur Menut, owing to a vis major, was forced to entertain a rather
boisterous and wilful class of customers: Richard Montgomery and his
warlike Continentals. More than once a well-aimed ball or shell from
General Carleton's batteries in the city must have disturbed the good
cheer of the New York and New England riflemen lounging about Menut's, a
great rebel rendezvous in 1775-6, we are told, visible from afar, [131]
"with its white flag flying on the house.
Arnold's head-quarters being close to the St. Charles, where Scott's
Bridge was since built, the intervening space between the city and the
General Hospital was daily swept by Carleton's artillery. The Page Diaries
abound with details of the casualties or narrow escapes of the invading
host. A few quotations will suffice:
"8th December, 1775. Mr. (Brigadier-General) Montgomery visited
Menut's to-day; a few minutes after he got out of the cariole, a
cannon ball from the city walls killed his horse.
"18th December. Some shells were thrown in to-day, and we threw some
into St. Roch's: very few of the enemy seen anywhere to-day. A man was
shot through the head from St. Roch; would it were destroyed; it
serves as a secure cover to the rebels.
"26th January, 1776. Eighty loaded sleighs passing towards Menut's.
Two field-pieces placed at the door; people passing and repassing
between that house and the General Hospital; some of our shots went
through Menut's house; we fired a long time at that object; at last we
perceived a man coming towards the town in a cariole, carrying the old
signal; he passed their guard-house and waved with his handkerchief;
we took no notice of him, but fired away at Menut's, he turned about
and went back. ... Perhaps, they find Menut's too hot for them. -
(from Journal of an officer of the Quebec Garrison, 1775-6,
quoted in Smith's History of Canada, Vol. II.)
"21st February, 1776. Fired at their guard-house and at Menut's.
"23rd February. About four this morning we heard the enemy's drum at
Menut's, St. Foix. Sentries saw rockets in the night."
Prince Edward street, St. Roch, and "Donnacona" street, near the
Ursulines, the latter thus named about 1840 by the late Rev. Messire
Maguire, then Almoner of the Ursuline Convent, bring up the memory of two
important personages of the past, Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, an
English Prince, and Donnacona, a swarthy chief of primitive Canada, who
welcomed Jacques Cartier.
The vanquisher of Montcalm, General Wolfe, is honoured not only by a
statue, at the corner of Palace and St. John's streets, but again by the
street which bears his name, Wolfe street. In like manner, his illustrious
rival Montcalm claims an entire section of the city, "Montcalm Ward." Can
it be that the susceptible young Captain of the Albemarle, Horatio
Nelson, carried on his flirtation with the captivating Miss Mary Simpson,
in 1782, in the street which now rejoices in his name?
NELSON IN QUEBEC - 1782.
"C'est l'amour qui fait le tour de la ronde." - OLD SONG.
"Though the "Ancient Capital," ever since 1764, rejoiced in an organ
of public opinion - a chronicle of daily events, fashions, city gossip,
the Quebec Gazette, - one would look in vain, in the barren columns
of that journal, for any intelligence of an incident, in 1782, which,
from the celebrity in after-life of the chief actor, and the local
repute of the reigning belle of the day, must have caused a flutter
among the F. F. Q. of the period. We mean the tender attachment of
Horatio (Lord) Nelson, commanding H. M. frigate Albemarle, 28 guns
then in port, - his romantic admiration for Miss Mary Simpson, the
youthful and accomplished daughter of Saunders Simpson (not "James,"
as Dr. Miles asserts), the cousin of James Thompson, Sr., one of
Wolfe's veterans. Traditions, venerable by their antiquity, told of
the charms divine, of the conquests of a marvellously handsome Quebec
beauty in the latter part of the last century: the Catullus of 1783
thus begins his inspired lay in the Quebec Gazette of that year:
'Sure you will rather listen to my call,
Since beauty and Quebec's fair nymphs I sing.
Henceforth Diana in Miss S - ps - n see,
As noble and majestic is her air;
Nor can fair Venus, W - lc - s, vie with thee,
Nor all thy heavenly charms with thee compare.'
"It was our fate first to attempt to unravel the tangles of this
attractive web.
