CHAPTER II. THE WALLS OF QUEBEC.
Count de la Galissoniere, accompanied by his distinguished attendants,proceeded again on their round of inspection. They were everywheresaluted with heads uncovered, and welcomed by hearty greetings. Thepeople of New France had lost none of the natural politeness and ease oftheir ancestors, and, as every gentleman of the Governor's suite was atonce recognized, a conversation, friendly even to familiarity, ensuedbetween them and the citizens and habitans, who worked as if they werebuilding their very souls into the walls of the old city.
"Good morning, Sieur de St. Denis!" gaily exclaimed the Governor to atall, courtly gentleman, who was super-intending the labor of a body ofhis censitaires from Beauport. "'Many hands make light work,' says theproverb. That splendid battery you are just finishing deserves to becalled Beauport. What say you, my Lord Bishop?" turning to the smilingecclesiastic. "Is it not worthy of baptism?"
"Yes, and blessing both; I give it my episcopal benediction," repliedthe Bishop, "and truly I think most of the earth of it is taken from theconsecrated ground of the Hotel Dieu--it will stand fire!"
"Many thanks, my Lord!"--the Sieur de St. Denis bowed very low--"wherethe Church bars the door Satan will never enter, nor the English either!Do you hear, men?" continued he, turning to his censitaires, "my LordBishop christens our battery Beauport, and says it will stand fire!"
"Vive le Roi!" was the response, an exclamation that came spontaneouslyto the lips of all Frenchmen on every emergency of danger or emotion ofjoy.
A sturdy habitan came forward, and doffing his red tuque or cap,addressed the Governor: "This is a good battery, my Lord Governor, butthere ought to be one as good in our village. Permit us to build one andman it, and we promise your Excellency that no Englishman shall ever getinto the back door of Quebec while we have lives to defend it." The oldhabitan had the eye of a soldier--he had been one. The Governor knew thevalue of the suggestion, and at once assented to it, adding, "No betterdefenders of the city could be found anywhere than the brave habitans ofBeauport."
The compliment was never forgotten; and years afterwards, when Wolfebesieged the city, the batteries of Beauport repelled the assault of hisbravest troops, and well-nigh broke the heart of the young hero over thethreatened defeat of his great undertaking, as his brave Highlanders andgrenadiers lay slain by hundreds upon the beach of Beauport.
The countenances of the hardy workers were suddenly covered with smilesof welcome recognition at the sight of the well-known Superior of theRecollets.
"Good morning!" cried out a score of voices; "good morning, Father deBerey! The good wives of Beauport send you a thousand compliments.They are dying to see the good Recollets down our way again. The GrayBrothers have forsaken our parish."
"Ah!" replied the Superior, in a tone of mock severity, while his eyesoverran with mirthfulness, "you are a crowd of miserable sinners whowill die without benefit of clergy--only you don't know it! Who was itboiled the Easter eggs hard as agates, which you gave to my poor brotherRecollets for the use of our convent? Tell me that, pray! All the saltsand senna in Quebec have not sufficed to restore the digestion of mypoor monks since you played that trick upon them down in your misnamedvillage of Beauport!"
"Pardon, Reverend Father de Berey!" replied a smiling habitan, "it wasnot we, but the sacrilegious canaille of St. Anne who boiled the Eastereggs! If you don't believe us, send some of the good Gray Friars downto try our love. See if they do not find everything soft for them atBeauport, from our hearts to our feather beds, to say nothing of oureggs and bacon. Our good wives are fairly melting with longing for asight of the gray gowns of St. Francis once more in our village."
"Oh! I dare be bound the canaille of St. Anne are lost dogs likeyourselves--catuli catulorum."
The habitans thought this sounded like a doxology, and some crossedthemselves, amid the dubious laughter of others, who suspected Father deBerey of a clerical jest.
"Oh!" continued he, "if fat Father Ambrose, the cook of the convent,only had you, one at a time, to turn the spit for him, in place of thepoor dogs of Quebec, which he has to catch as best he can, and set towork in his kitchen! but, vagabonds that you are, you are rarely set towork now on the King's corvee--all work, little play, and no pay!"
The men took his raillery in excellent part, and one, their spokesman,bowing low to the Superior, said,--"Forgive us all the same, goodFather. The hard eggs of Beauport will be soft as lard compared with theiron shells we are preparing for the English breakfast when they shallappear some fine morning before Quebec."
"Ah, well, in that case I must pardon the trick you played upon BrothersMark and Alexis; and I give you my blessing, too, on condition you sendsome salt to our convent to cure our fish, and save your reputations,which are very stale just now among my good Recollets."
A general laugh followed this sally, and the Reverend Superior went offmerrily, as he hastened to catch up with the Governor, who had moved onto another point in the line of fortifications.
Near the gate of St. John they found a couple of ladies, encouragingby their presence and kind words a numerous party of habitans,--one anelderly lady of noble bearing and still beautiful, the rich and powerfulfeudal Lady of the Lordship, or Seigniory, of Tilly; the other herorphan niece, in the bloom of youth, and of surpassing loveliness, thefair Amelie de Repentigny, who had loyally accompanied her aunt to thecapital with all the men of the Seigniory of Tilly, to assist in thecompletion of its defences.
To features which looked as if chiselled out of the purest Parianmarble, just flushed with the glow of morn, and cut in those perfectlines of proportion which nature only bestows on a few chosen favoritesat intervals to show the possibilities of feminine beauty, Amelie deRepentigny added a figure which, in its perfect symmetry, looked smallerthan it really was, for she was a tall girl: it filled the eye and heldfast the fancy with the charms of a thousand graces as she movedor stood, suggestive of the beauty of a tame fawn, that in all itsmovements preserves somewhat of the coyness and easy grace of its freelife.
Her hair was very dark and thick, matching her deep liquid eyes, thatlay for the most part so quietly and restfully beneath their longshading lashes,--eyes gentle, frank, and modest, looking tenderly onall things innocent, fearlessly on all things harmful; eyes thatnevertheless noted every change of your countenance, and read unerringlyyour meaning more from your looks than from your words. Nothing seemedto hide itself from that pure, searching glance when she chose to lookat you.
In their depths you might read the tokens of a rare and noblecharacter--a capability of loving which, once enkindled by a worthyobject, might make all things that are possible to devoted womanhoodpossible to this woman, who would not count her life anything either forthe man she loved or the cause she espoused. Amelie de Repentigny willnot yield her heart without her judgment; but when she does, it will bea royal gift--never to be recalled, never to be repented of, to the endof her life. Happy the man upon whom she shall bestow her affection! Itwill be his forever. Unhappy all others who may love her! She may pity,but she will listen to no voice but the one which rules her heart, toher life's end!
Both ladies were in mourning, yet dressed with elegant simplicity,befitting their rank and position in society. The Chevalier Le Gardeurde Tilly had fallen two years ago, fighting gallantly for his King andcountry, leaving a childless widow to manage his vast domain and succeedhim as sole guardian of their orphan niece, Amelie de Repentigny, andher brother Le Gardeur, left in infancy to the care of their noblerelatives, who in every respect treated them as their own, and whoindeed were the legal inheritors of the Lordship of Tilly.
Only a year ago, Amelie had left the ancient Convent of the Ursulines,perfected in all the graces and accomplishments taught in the famouscloister founded by Mere Marie de l'Incarnation for the education ofthe daughters of New France, generation after generation of whom weretrained, according to her precepts, in graces of manner as well as inthe learning of the age--the latter might be forgotten;
the former,never. As they became the wives and mothers of succeeding times, theyhave left upon their descendants an impress of politeness and urbanitythat distinguishes the people of Canada to this day.
Of all the crowd of fair, eager aspirants contending for honors on theday of examination in the great school, crowns had only been awarded toAmelie and to Angelique des Meloises--two girls equal in beauty,grace, and accomplishments, but unlike in character and in destiny.The currents of their lives ran smoothly together at the beginning. Howwidely different was to be the ending of them!
The brother of Amelie, Le Gardeur de Repentigny, was her elder by ayear--an officer in the King's service, handsome, brave, generous,devoted to his sister and aunt, but not free from some of the vicesof the times prevalent among the young men of rank and fortune in thecolony, who in dress, luxury, and immorality, strove to imitate thebrilliant, dissolute Court of Louis XV.
Amelie passionately loved her brother, and endeavored--not withoutsuccess, as is the way with women--to blind herself to his faults. Shesaw him seldom, however, and in her solitary musings in the far-offManor House of Tilly, she invested him with all the perfections he didand did not possess; and turned a deaf, almost an angry ear, to taleswhispered in his disparagement.