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more than once threatened the Fort itself, and massacred 

 some friendly Indians within sight of its walls. At a later 

 era, when, under the protection of the French kings, the 

 province had acquired the rudiments of military strength 

 and power, the Castle of St. Louis was remarkable as having 

 been the site whence the French governors exercised an s 

 immense sovereignty, extending from the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence, along the shores of that noble river, its magnificent 

 lakes, and down the course of the Mississipi to its outlet 

 below New Orleans. The banner which first streamed from- 

 the battlements of Quebec, was displayed from a chain of 

 forts, which protected the settlements through the vast 

 extent of country ; keeping the English colonies in constant 

 alarm, and securing the fidelity of the Indian nations. During 

 this period the council chamber of the Castle was the scene 

 of many a midnight vigil — many a long deliberation and 

 deep-laid project — to free the continent from the intrusion 

 of the ancient rival of France, and assert throughout the 

 supremacy of the Gallic lily. At another era, subsequent to* 

 the surrender of Quebec to the British arms, and until the 

 recognition of the independence of the United States, the 

 extent of empire of the government, of which the castle of 

 Quebec, was the principal seat, comprehended the whole 

 American continent north of Mexico. It is astonishing to 

 reflect for a moment, to how small, and, as to size, compara- 

 tively insignificant an island in the Atlantic ocean, this gigan- 

 tic territory was once subject." 



" The Swedish savant, Kalm, the disciple of Linnaeus, 

 who visited Quebec, and the Chateau St. Louis about 

 1748, also draws a charming picture of the residence of 

 the governors of Few France, and the regal state they 

 maintained, but it was left to that marvellous word- 

 painter, " Adirondack " Murray, to reanimate the scene 

 in a way that literally curdles the blood. Writing to 

 the "Boston Herald", from Quebec in 1887, after 

 spending the evening on Dufferin Terrace, he said : 



•' The silence of the place grows weird, the glamour of the 

 old past is on me, and I see uncanny sights. Is not that man, 

 the man in the angle there, Champlain ? Surely it is he, the 

 very same man who crossed the ocean twenty times, who shot 

 the Iroquois chief near Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain, who 

 founded this city 250 years ago, and whose dust is under the 

 altar there in the great basilica ? And who are these coming 

 this way ? Surely this is he, the brave old Lord de Frontenac, 

 the old bluff saviour of Canada ? My Lord, I greet you ! This 



