Chapter 34

AT QUEBEC

Germain was now committed to the most desperate courses to maintain his assumed character. He left France, and by way of London, took ship for his colony. The Canada of 1788 was a quaint community shut away out of the great world. It consisted of a few widely separated hamlets, keeping in touch with each other by means of a long road on each shore of the St. Lawrence, and having as chief cities the two tiny walled towns of Quebec and Montreal. It possessed a population of perhaps a hundred and fifty thousand souls, all French except a couple of British regiments, and a handful of officials and tradesmen. Some bodies of refugee Loyalists of the American Revolution had recently also come in. The driblet of population thus strung scantily along the banks of the vast river seemed as nothing in the mighty forest by which it was surrounded. The country therefore had in great part the virgin look of the primeval solitude.

After an eight weeks' stormy voyage in the London barque _Chatham_, Germain cast his eyes with relief on the tawny, lion-like rock of Quebec, with the fortress above and the little town about its feet, and straggling up its sides. The vessel at length drew up to moorings, the anchor dropped, and a boat came out for the passengers. He disembarked with his boxes, and inquired for a good lodging in the Upper Town. A _calèche_-driver undertook to find him one, and leaving the heavier luggage with a merchant near by, lashed his brisk little horse with the ends of the reins, and inspired it into a cat-like climb by which Lecour was whisked up the precipitous windy street called Mountain Hill, from the busy Lower to the aristocratic and military Upper Town.

After some searching they found a certain Madame Langlois, a widow who lived in a comfortable house on St. Louis Street, and could give the gentleman a front room on her first floor. There he could see the principal doings of the town, for it was not far from the Place d'Armes and the Castle. It suited him and he installed himself. As it was late in the afternoon, he occupied the time by unpacking his effects until called to supper by Madame Langlois. At the meal, he noted that his landlady--a thin, civil woman of thirty-eight or so, was simply dying of discreet curiosity. He vouchsafed her only his name, and that he was just arrived from France. He, however, asked a number of questions about the Castle, the Governor, his staff, and the prominent people of the town, and inflamed her interest as much by his questions as by his dress and manners. Then retiring till dusk fell, he went out and wandered about the neighbourhood.

The rock of Quebec is like a lion couchant beside the St. Lawrence. On the head is the fortress, on the back the Upper Town, around the feet nestles the Lower Town, while the River St. Charles flows around the hinder parts.

The city was no vast place: its population was but some seven thousand souls, with about two thousand of a garrison, and the occupied area in the Upper Town covered a few streets only, the remainder consisting of grassy fields stretching to the fortification walls. The citadel, picturesquely crowning the summit of the rock, stood several hundred yards higher, at one side. The Castle of St. Louis, the main ornament of the place next to the cathedral, overlooked the cliff, resting on a series of tall buttresses ribbing the side of the precipice.

At every point along the "lion's back," or upper edge of the cliff, where Germain was, a magnificent view greeted him. He stopped to enjoy it. The harbour lay glimmering far below in the moonbeams, across it the heights of Levis stretched along the weird landscape. The lighted windows of the Lower Town, of which he could see little more than the shimmering dark roofs, shone up obliquely. All was domed over by a dark-blue sky in which the harvest moon rode.

He walked back from the cliff along the Rue St. Louis to the city wall, and returned by the Rue Buade. In doing so he scanned the fortifications with military interest, and returning, remarked the dark, low pile of the convent of the Jesuits, and also the cathedral and the seminary adjoining. He remembered once hearing his father say this cathedral of Quebec had been designed by one of the de Lérys. From the place in front of it he could make out dimly, down the slope of Ste. Famille Street close by, the de Léry mansion itself.

"The father and mother will be there," he cogitated. "They will have had letters about me from France by this time."

He turned again along Buade Street, and continued his stroll with an object, for at the point where the sharp descent towards the Lower Town began he brought up before a stately house of stone, of an antique architecture, on the face of which, over the door, something indistinctly glittered. It was the house of the Golden Dog; and as he surveyed it and tried vainly to read the letters of the inscription, his shadowy visitor at Troyes once more arose vividly before his imagination, and the terrible scene of Philibert's murder seemed to be enacted again upon the flight of steps before the door. Absorbed in the gruesome story with which he was so strangely connected, he returned to his chamber, and retired.

Twice he heard the tramp of a change of guards passing along the street. Once a convent bell rang, perhaps for some midnight burial.

The next day at breakfast he learned from his hostess that the presence of the strange gentleman lodging with her had been remarked by several young women, and that it was already the gossip of the Upper Town. In the course of her stream of news she mentioned Monsieur de Léry. The hand with which he was about to lift his cup to his lips stopped, and he casually asked--

"Who is _he_?"

"The Honourable Monsieur de Léry," she exclaimed. "I thought he was known to all the world. He is the senior in the Governor's council, and his lady is the best customer of my brother-in-law's shop. The old Chevalier de Léry never did a wrong to any one, and if he is a little stiff, he still walks the straightest man in the town of Quebec."

Lecour withdrew to his chamber, and opened a miniature portmanteau covered with purple leather and stamped in gold with the de Lincy arms. He drew out a parchment, which he placed on the table. Then, taking from his clothes-box the uniform of his lieutenancy in the Bodyguard--which he had been so expressly forbidden to wear--he dressed himself before the glass with the greatest care, and having finished, put on his sword, placed the parchment in his bosom, took up his hat, and went forth with his ordinary air of ease and command. Passing along the street and across the Place d'Armes--at the insignificance of which, comparing it with that of Versailles, he laughed almost aloud--he entered the gate of the Castle.

The tow-headed Briton who was performing sentry duty at the gate, though he challenged him like an automaton, was astonished at the sight of a uniform, the like of which, in style, brilliancy, and ornaments, he had never before seen.

"Be blowed to me, Bill," he soon afterwards remarked to a comrade of the guard-room, "if I didn't take 'im fer ole General Montcalm come back from blazes; 'e looked so grand an' Frenchy-like, an' come on me so sudden."

The Governor's _aide-de-camp_, de la Naudière, a dashing Canadian officer, was almost as surprised at the sight of Lecour's uniform as the sentry, and receiving him with profound deference, read the passport which the new arrival handed him. He was not aware how closely the eyes of Germain watched his face. At the name "LeCour de Lincy, Esquire," in the paper he gave a slight start, but by the time he came to the end his manner recovered itself, and he greeted him cordially.

"The French army, Monsieur, never lacks honour in the Province of Quebec. You bear a uniform and a rank which commend you to our best hospitalities. Will you permit me to share my good fortune in meeting you with our Governor, Lord Dorchester?"

"I have heard of Lord Dorchester," replied Germain, "how gallant a man he is, and how true a friend to our nation."

"Nothing is truer, sir; every Canadian will tell you he is the soul of kindness and sympathy with us, and that he has quite withdrawn the sting of our being a conquered people. Here I am, a Catholic and a Canadian, yet as well pleased as if I were in the service of France. His friendship with our gentry is like the relation of a veritable father to his family."

"Were not his services very great in the American Revolution? I have heard General Lafayette speak highly of his name."

"Yes, Monsieur; his services preserved this Province from the enemy, and we have named him 'the Saviour of Canada.' Pardon me a moment to announce you."

While waiting to be summoned to the Governor, Lecour glanced around. The part of the buildings in which he stood was the Old Château, a picturesque structure of the French times, dating from 1694, crowning its conspicuous position as a landmark by a mediæval roof of steep pitch; while a gallery two hundred feet in length ran along the outside, supported by tall buttresses, which, clinging to the cliff-side, gave it beneath the same elongated lines as the steep roof above. The result was exceedingly quaint and castellated. He remembered that he had often seen it thus from the river. His present point of view gave him, through the windows and over the gallery, another form of his view of the harbour and Point Levis, one of the most striking landscapes in the world. Looking closer about the room, the low-raftered ceilings of an older time brought another thought to his mind.

"Is not this," he exclaimed to himself, "the very chamber where Count Frontenac, a hundred years ago, must have received the envoy of Admiral Phipps with request to surrender, and returned the reply, 'I will answer your master by the mouth of my cannon.'" He imagined he heard the gallant veteran say the words.

Turning to the windows towards the courtyard, he saw opposite the handsome new range of buildings lately erected, and nicknamed "Castle Haldimand," in which were the apartments of the Governor and his family, and which, on their further side, fronted on the Place d'Armes.

As a boy he had once looked into the courtyard, and contemplated its precincts with juvenile awe. Now, he was standing a guest of honour in the then inaccessible arcana. He was not given much time to continue his reflections. De la Naudière came back, brought him across, and conducted him into the reception chamber of Governor Dorchester. His Excellency, who was a large, finely-made man of a ruddy and generous countenance, received him with that trained, lofty courtesy which marked the meeting of distinguished men of that time, and Lecour, as he reciprocated the salutation, saw that he had nothing to fear from him.

"I recognise your uniform, Chevalier," said he, "which revives to me some pleasant memories of Versailles."

"Your Lordship is, then, acquainted with my Sovereign's Court? His Majesty knows how to appreciate a brave man."

"He has too many in his service to do otherwise; but I have no pretensions on that score."

"The world well knows, your Excellency, 'The Saviour of Canada,'" Lecour replied, "and my country honours you as one of the worthiest of former foes."

"Tut, tut, Monsieur le Chevalier--excuse the freedom of an old Englishman in turning the conversation. My lady will die of curiosity over the appearance of a Garde-du-Corps in this out-of-the-way quarter of the globe. How can I answer her as to the cause?"

"Private business with my family, my Lord, connected with an estate in our mother country."

"Ah, your people are Canadians?"

"My father is generally known as the Merchant Lecour of St Elphège. His full name is LeCour de Lincy."

"That is the name on your passport," interrupted de la Naudière. "I never knew he was a noble."

"He has never boasted of it," returned Lecour.

"An honest old fellow," Dorchester commented. Then, remembering himself, added, "You will, of course, do us the honour while in Quebec of being a guest at the Castle?"

"Your Lordship's invitation is a command, but I am here for a few hours only."

"Let us enjoy these hours then; eh, la Naudière? See that Mr. de Lincy's luggage is brought to the Castle."

"We review the garrison, in a few minutes," continued Dorchester, "then we luncheon. After that we are to drive to the Montmorenci Falls."

A beautiful and haughty-looking woman of over forty years entered the room. She stopped when she saw Lecour, but concealing her surprise at his uniform, stood graciously while her husband--for she was the Governor's wife--turned and said--

"Lady Dorchester, allow me to present the Chevalier de Lincy, whom we have just acquired as our guest, and whom you will recognise as a Garde-du-Corps of the King of France."

"The Milady Dorchester," as she was called among the people, was of the famous line of the Howards, daughter of that Earl of Effingham who refused in 1776 to draw his sword against the liberties of his fellow-subjects in America.

At her table many a scathing dissertation on the nobodiness of nobodies had been given the youthful gentry of the Province, a fact not unknown to Germain. De la Naudière himself had experienced her sharpness when he was first introduced at her table. On that occasion in carving a joint he had the misfortune to spill some gravy on the cloth. "Young man," cried Milady, "where were you brought up?" "At my father's table, where they change the cloth three times a day," he quickly retorted, and captured her favour.

A Garde-du-Corps, however, was sacred from reproach. To have with them for the day an inner member of the Court of France, fresh from delightful Paris, and from still more delightful Versailles, was really more than an exiled lady of fashion in her position could just then have dreamt. How he acquitted himself in her coach at the review and during the beautiful afternoon drive to the Falls, how he kept the table smiling at dinner, and of their walk in the Castle garden, with its low cannon-embrasured wall along the cuff, it would scarcely profit the reader to hear, except in one particular.

On the shady lawn at Montmorenci--a name which thrilled him with sweet associations--he stood in the midst of the picnic party and sang them one of the current songs of the Bodyguard:--

"Yes, I am a soldier--I, And for my country live-- For my Queen and for my King My life I'll freely give.

When the insolent demagogue Loud rants at this and that, Not less do I go singing round, 'Vive an aristocrat!' Yes, &c.

To the Devil, Equality! Your squalor I decline, With you I would no better be Nor sprung of older line. Yes, &c.

March on, my comrades gay, Strike up the merry drums, And drink the Bourbons long, long life Whatever fortune comes. Yes, &c."

Next morning her Excellency rose early to see him start upon his journey up the river.

One result followed, of which he did not know. La Naudière described his visit to the de Lérys in connection with the account received by them from Châlons. They again read over the paragraph and discussed it, and de la Naudière pronounced decidedly that the man could not be the same--the passport of the present individual did not bear the name of Répentigny, and he was too perfect a gentleman.