— 304 — 

 distant range of the Laurentian mountains and the 



o 



warlike rock of Cape Diamond, with its diadem of 

 walls and towers— all combine to make up one of the 

 grandest scenes imaginable. Into the masonry above 

 the " porte cochere " has been carefully let in by the 

 builders, the curious old stone, marked with a gilt 

 cross, over which our antiquaries have so long puzzled 

 their brains, and which the late Sergeant Thompson, in 

 his " Diary, 1759 to 1830, " speaks of as having been 

 found on September 17th, 1784, when the miners at the 

 Chateau were levelling the yard, and as having been 

 placed, by his order, " in the cheek of the gate of the 

 new building (Chateau Haldimand), in order to convey 

 to posterity the antiquity of the Chateau St. Louis." 

 Over the origin of this stone, with its Maltese cross 

 enclosed within a shield, and its half-effaced date of 

 1047, there has been much controversy— some even 

 pretending to trace it to the supposed existence in 

 Quebec of a priory of the Knights of St. John or Malta 

 during the French regime ; but, whatever may be the 

 truth about it, it is not the less a conspicuous and 

 interesting feature of the new C. P. K. hotel." 



THE POWDER MAGAZINE OF FORT ST. LOUIS. 



Under this caption, Mr. Ernest Gagnon, secretary of 

 the Board of Works, contributed a scholarly article to 

 the Courrier du Canada, furnishing curious details 

 anent the origin, various uses and transformations of 

 this ancient structure, which the pick and shovel of the 

 workmen engaged in razing the Chateau Haldimand, 

 all at once brought in the light of day, and which 

 was the subject of controversy in the Quebec press. 

 These solid casemates erected two centuries previous, 



