— 112 — 



1690, a portion of the city defences against Admiral 

 Phips. 



On this site, a deal of stirring and some social inci- 

 dents of Canadian history were enacted. Here was the 

 mansion, where on 4th February. 1667, Judge L. 

 Theantre Chartier de Lotbiniere, Lieutenant General of 

 the French King, gave the first grand ball in New 

 France, possibly, in North America. Watch the magni- 

 ficent Marquis of Tracy, introducing to the distinguished 

 host, his gorgeously, habited young guardsmen, sprigs 

 of the French nobility ; he is followed by Governor de 

 Courcelles, Intendant Talon and other dignitaries. 

 Such a novelty as a grand ball — among la crime de la 

 crime of society, at Quebec, did not pass unheeded ; a 

 pious ecclesiastic wrote an account of it to France, 

 expressing, hesitatingly, the hope "that no evil results 

 might follow " ! 



Nearly a century later, stood here the head-quarters 

 of Ihigader-General James Murray — the Commandant 

 at Quebec. Old memoirs tell how rudely our first 

 Governor's sleep was interrupted on the night of the 

 26th April, 1760, by the officer of the watch, admitting 

 to his presence, the half-frozen French cannonier, whom 

 Capt. McCartney, of the sloop-of-war " Eace Horse," 

 had had rescued that night from the ice-floes carried 

 by the tide past Quebec. British troopers conveyed 

 him up Mountain Hill, to General Murray's official 

 head-quarters on a " sailor's hammock" . The ill- 

 fated sergeant before expiring had just, on swallow- 

 ing cordials, recovered enough strength to tell, defiantly 

 one may suppose, the alarming tidings of the ar- 

 rival of Levi's 12,000 men at St Augustin, on their 

 march to Quebec. Sleep did not revisit the astounded 

 warrior that night. Orders were promptly issued for a 

 large body of troops to go, at break of day, and gather in 

 Murray's detachments at the outposts, at Sillery, Ste. 

 Foye, Ancient Lorette, &c. 



