280 DEFENCE OF QUEBEC. [1690. 



selves believed that Quebec would have fallen, in 

 the one case for want of men, and in the other for 

 want of food. 



The Lower Town had been abandoned by its 

 inhabitants, who bestowed their families and their 

 furniture within the solid walls of the seminary. 

 The cellars of the Ursuline convent were filled with 

 women and children, and many more took refuge 

 at the Hotel-Dieu. The beans and cabbages in the 

 garden of the nuns were all stolen by the soldiers ; 

 and their wood-pile was turned into bivouac fires. 

 " We were more dead than alive when we heard 

 the cannon," writes Mother Juchereau ; but the Jes- 

 uit Fremin came to console them, and their prayers 

 and their labors never ceased. On the day when 

 the firing was heaviest, twenty-six balls fell into 

 their }~ard and garden, and were sent to the gun- 

 ners at the batteries, who returned them to their 

 English owners. At the convent of the Ursulines, 

 the corner of a nun's apron was carried off by a 

 cannon-shot as she passed through her chamber. 

 The sisterhood began a novena, or nine days' devo- 

 tion, to St. Joseph, St. Ann, the angels, and the 

 souls in purgatory ; and one of their number re- 

 mained clay and night in prayer before the images 

 of the Holy Family. The bishop came to encour- 

 age them ; and his prayers and his chants were so 

 fervent that they thought their last hour was 

 come. 1 



The superior of the Jesuits, with some of the 

 elder members of the Order, remained at their col- 



1 Eecil d'une Rdigieuse Ursuline, in Les Ursulines de Quebec, I. 470 



