— 342 — 



College and city gates, were busily employed long 

 before 1871. 



There are few here present, I will venture to say, 

 who, in their daily walk up or down Fabrique Street, 

 do not miss this hoary and familiar land mark, the 

 Jesuits' College. When its removal was recently 

 decreed, for a long time it resisted the united assaults 

 of hammer and pick-axe, and yielded, finally, to the 

 terrific power of dynamite alone. 



The Jesuits' College, older than Harvard College, at 

 Boston, takes one back to the dawn of Canadian his- 

 tory. Though a considerable sum had been granted to 

 foster Jesuit establishment at Quebec, by a young 

 French nobleman, Bene' de Eohault, son of the Marquis 

 de Gamache, as early as 1626, it was on the 18th 

 March, 1637, only, that the ground to build on, " twelve 

 arpents of land, in the vicinity of Fort St. Louis : " were 

 granted to the Jesuit Fathers. In the early times, we 

 find this famous seat of learning playing a prominent 

 part in all public pageants : its annual examinations 

 and distributions of prizes called together the &ite of 

 Quebec society. The leading pupils had, in poetry and 

 in verse, congratulated Governor D'Argenson on his 

 arrival in 1658. On the 2nd July, 1666, a public 

 examination on logic brought out with great advantage 

 two most promising youths, the famous Louis Jolliet, 

 who later on joined Father Marquette in his discovery 

 of the Mississippi, and a Three-Rivers youth, Pierre 

 de Francheville, who intended to enter Holy Orders. 

 The learned Intendant Talon was an examiner ; he was 

 remarked for the erudition his latin questions displayed. 

 Memory likes to revert to the times when the illustrious 

 Bossuet was undergoing his latin examinations at 

 Navarre, with the Great Conde as his examiner : 

 France's first sacred orator confronted by her most 

 illustrious general. 



How many thrilling memories were recalled by this 

 o-rim old structure ? Under its venerable roof, oft' had 



