304 HISTORICAL FOOTPRINTS IN AMERICA, 



Corresponding memorials of an earlier date doubtless lie undis- 

 turbed beneath the older foundations of churches and hospices of Lower 

 Canada. The little church of Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Sague- 

 nay, still occupies the site consecrated to the service of God, on what 

 was one of the earliest settlements in the New World. A trading post 

 was established there by French fur-traders, under the special favor of 

 Henry IV. ; and contracts were entered into by two merchant traders 

 • of Rouen and St. Malo for its colonisation as early as 1599. "Within 

 very recent years the remains were still visible of a stone mansion built 

 by Captain Chauvin who died there in 1603, after having made two 

 voyages with settlers to Tadoussac. A slighter, yet more enduring 

 memorial of the old colonists attracted my attention when visiting the 

 spot, in the scattered tufts of Sweet William, Mignionette, and other 

 garden flowers, repeating the tale of Goldsmith's Deserted Village : 



" Where once the garden smiled, 

 And still where many a gard«u flower grows wild." 



Jamestown, Virginia, which claims to be the earliest settlement on 

 the American continent, was founded by the English Captain, New- 

 port, in 1607, and on the 3rd of July, in the following year, Cham- 

 plain laid the foundation of Quebec. The site of the first fort is now 

 occupied by the venerable church of Notre Dame des Victoires, one 

 of the oldest edifices in the City of Quebec, which received its pres- 

 ent name on the defeat of the English forces under Sir William Phipps, 

 in 1690. But the most curious inscription now visible on the old- 

 fashioned buildings of the picturesque capital of Lower Canada, is one 

 accompanying a quaint piece of sculpture known as the Chien iV Or, 

 a work of the following century. But modern though it is, tradition 

 has already confused its associations and forgotten its significance. 

 Over one of the windows of an old house near the Prescott Gate, now 

 used as the Post Office, is an ornamental pediment, the centre of 

 which is occupied by a slab of dark limestone, on which a dog is sculp- 

 tured in high relief and gilded, represented gnawing at a bone ; and 

 beneath it this inscription : — 



" Je 3uis un Chien qui ronge mon os, 

 En le rongeant, je prends mon repos, 

 Un jour viendra qui n'est pas venu, 

 Ou je mordrai, qui m'avra mordu," 



The house is said to have been the mansion of a wealthy Bordeaux 



