CHAMPLAIFS TOMB. 



" A NUT FOR ANTIQUARIES TO CRACK. 



Under this suggestive heading, there were published 

 in our historic city, in 1866, several lively, learned 

 disquisitions, with the object, a praiseworthy one, 

 assuredly, of determining the spot where, in a sdpulcre 

 particulier, were deposited the precious remains of the 

 founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, deceased as 

 well all know, in the Fort Saint-Louis, on Christmas 

 Day, 1635. 



The public discussion, for a time an acrimonious one, 

 was confined to the Abbes Laverdiere and Casgrain, 

 on one side ; on the other, to Mr. Stanislas Drapeau, 

 a painstaking Quebec journalist. (He died March, 1893). 



Some recent excavations of the city engineer, Mr. 

 O'Donnell, in connection with the city water-works, 

 especially those in Sous-le-Fort street, at the imme- 

 diate foot of Breakneck steps, had sprung the mine of 

 antiquarian curiosity. 



A subterranean vault, it was urged, had been exhu- 

 med by Mr. O'Donnell, containing a fragmentary, in- 

 complete but conclusive proof, in the way of an inscrip- 

 tion, indicating it as the " sepulcre particulier." alluded 

 to in the documents : such was the conclusion arrived 

 at by Messrs. Laverdiere and Casgrain : a brother of the 

 craft, however, complained that his share in this glorious 

 discovery had been, in a measure, ignored. 



He further urged that the conclusion arrived at 

 seemed to him premature and required further confir- 

 mation. Laverdiere and Casgrain, however, carried the 

 day. For nine years at least, the belief became pretty 



