[joNEs] OLD CHURCH SILVER IN CANADA 143 



more particularly fire. For example in the great fire in Dec. 1650, 

 which destroyed the Ursuline convent in Quebec (founded in 1639), 

 several artistic and historical treasures in the precious metals perished, 

 as well as vestments, embroideries, paintings and other objects, pious 

 offerings from Old to New France. 



At this early period, the custom of New Year's gifts had been 

 inaugurated, and from one authority the fact is gleaned that on New 

 Year's day in 1646, a crucifix, two enamelled images of St. Ignatius 

 and St. Francis Xavier and other offerings were made to the Ursuline 

 Convent.^ 



Francois de Montmorency Laval, first Bishop of Quebec, is 

 believed to have brought many precious objects with him in 1659. 



Relics enclosed in costly shrines, wrought by the skilled hands 

 of the goldsmiths of France and other countries, have been bestowed 

 upon some of the Canadian churches. 



One of the most precious relics in the chapel of the Saints in the 

 Ursuline Convent of Quebec City is a cross containing a fragment 

 of the true Cross and of the Crown of Thorns, which was the gift of 

 Dom Claude Martin in 1677.^ For the centennial anniversary of the 

 founding of this celebrated convent, a part of the silver plate belonging 

 to the infirmary was sacrificed and melted, the metal being fashioned 

 into a sanctuary lamp for the convent church. 



The conquest of Canada by the British aroused at first much 

 apprehension in the minds of the French ecclesiastics and superiors of 

 religious houses, fearing as they did that the victory of the Protestant 

 power would rob them of the right to worship in their own faith. This 

 fear, natural as it was, was of short-lived duration, for in 1767 a letter 

 from Mother Marchand of St. Etienne to the Ursulines, expresses 

 anxiety, not as might be supposed, as to the condition of religion in 

 Quebec, where they enjoyed tranquillity under the victors, but 

 sorrow and grief at the persecution then being suffered by religious 

 communities in Paris. ^ 



Some losses of valuables are believed to have occurred by the 

 invasion of Quebec by the Americans in 1775. 



The most important collection of old silver examined by the 

 writer in Quebec was that of the Archbishop, permission having been 

 graciously granted and every facility accorded for its examination by 

 the help and enthusiasm, combined with historical knowledge of the 

 subject of Father Lionel St. G. Lindsay. 



^ Glimpses of the Monastery; Scenes from the History of the Ursulines of Quebec, 

 2nd Ed., 1897, p. 203. 



2 Ibid, p. 236. . 



3 Ibid. p. 296. 



