ed a hundred thousand crowns in buildings, furniture, and in foundations. The only fault of this hospital is its being built in a marsh; they hope to be able to remedy it by draining; but the River St. Charles makes a winding in this place, into which the waters do not easily flow, so that this inconvenience can never be effectually removed.

"The prelate, who is the founder, has his apartments in the house, which he makes his ordinary residence; having let his palace, which is also his own building, for the benefit of the poor. He even is not above serving as Chaplain to the Hospital, as well as to the Nuns, the functions of which office he fills with a zeal and application which would be admired in a simple priest who got his bread by it. The artisans, or others, who on account of their great age, are without the means of getting their subsistence, are received into this hospital until all the beds in it are full, and thirty Nuns are employed in serving them. These are a scion or colony from the hospital of Quebec; but in order to distinguish them, the Bishop has given them certain peculiar regulations, and obliges them to wear a silver cross on their breast. Most part of them are young women of condition, and as they are not those of the easiest circumstances in the country, the Bishop has portioned several of them."

The GENERAL HOSPITAL is at present a Nunnery, governed by a Superior, having forty-five professed Nuns, a few Novices and Postulantes. The whole appearance, both external and internal, of this Hospital is regular and pleasing; while the general arrangement and economy are highly creditable to the institution. Its front is two hundred and twenty-eight feet long -its form nearly square. The main building is

thirty-three feet deep; but on the south-west side, a range of one hundred and thirty feet long has fifty feet in breadth.

The Chapel is very neat, and has a gallery communicating with the Hospital, for the use of the indigent sick. A separate house is appropriated to the reception of the insane: the Province, however, requires an establishment on a larger scale for these unfortunates. At Three-Rivers there is an establishment for the insane under the charge of the Ursulines of the Convent.

The means of the GENERAL HOSPITAL, from its unrestricted character, have been found inadequate to defray the expenses of the establishment, and the deficiency is occasionally supplied by grants from the Provincial Parliament. The Nuns are distinguished for the manufacture of Church ornaments, and for their skill in gilding. The produce of the sale of these works becomes part of the general fund of the Institution.

CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH.

RELIGIOUS

ESTABLISHMENTS

CONCLUDED-FRENCH

AND ENGLISH CATHEDRALS-OTHER PLACES OF WORSHIP.

THE rise and prosperity of the Colony, and the improvement of QUEBEC, may be dated from the period when it became the seat of the Royal Government in New France. The Colony began immediately to reap the fruits of the change of system, which followed the resignation of the Company's charter into the hands of the KING. Measures were adopted to infuse a more liberal spirit into the Colony, to raise the quality and character of the settlers, and to give a higher tone to the society. The KING took a most judicious method to accomplish this. He resolved to confer upon the Government a degree of comparative splendor, worthy of the great nation of which it was a dependency. In 1664, he sent out to QUEBEC the most brilliant emigration that had ever sailed from France for the new world. It consisted of a Viceroy, a Governor-General, an Intendant, and other necessary officers of the Civil Government-the Regiment of Carignan, commanded by Colonel de Salières, and officered by sixty or seventy French gentlemen, most of whom were connected with the Noblesse. Many of these gentle

men settled in the Province, and having obtained concessions of the waste lands, became the Noblesse of the Colony, and were the ancestors of the best French families of the present day. The beneficial manner in which this infusion of superior blood, education and accomplishments must have operated, as regards the social and domestic manners of the Colonists, previously devoted to the humblest occupations of trade, may be easily imagined. Liberal tastes were encouraged-sentiments of honor and generosity pervaded the highest rank in society, the influence of which was speedily felt through every class of the inhabitants. The Marquis de TRACY, who had the Commission of Viceroy, staid little more than a year in the Province. He made a successful expedition against the Iroquois, and returning to France, carried with him the affections of all the inhabitants. He maintained a state which had never before been seen in Canada, rightly judging, that in a Colony at so great a distance from the Mother Country, the royal authority should be maintained before the public eye in all its external dignity and observances. Besides the Regiment of Carignan, he was allowed to maintain a body guard, wearing the same uniform as the Garde Royale of France. He always appeared on state occasions with these guards, twentyfour in number, who preceded him. Four pages immediately accompanied him, followed by six valets,— the whole surrounded by the officers of the Carignan Regiment, and of the civil departments. M. DE COURCELLES, the Governor General, and M. DE TALON, the Intendant, had each a splendid equipage. It is mentioned in an interesting French manuscript, from which we have taken much valuable information never before published, that as both these gen

tlemen were men of birth, education, handsome figure and accomplished manners, they gave a most favorable impression of the royal authority, then first personally represented in New France.

Although QUEBEC at this period contained little more than seventy private houses, after the establishment of the Seminary it was found necessary, viewing the march of improvement which had just commenced, to construct the CATHEDRAL Church on a scale sufficiently large for the encreased population; and with a splendor corresponding with the new prospects of the Colony under the Royal Government. After about three years labor, the French Cathedral was finished on its present site, between Buade Street, the Bishop's Palace, and the Seminary, with its front towards the Jesuits' College. It was consecrated under the title of the Immaculate Conception, on the 18th July, 1666, with all the imposing ceremonies usually observed on similar occasions. Before this time, the Jesuits' Church had been used as the Paroisse of Quebec.

The FRENCH CATHEDRAL was built under the auspices of Monseigneur FRANÇOIS DE LAVAL, first Bishop of Quebec, to whom the Colony was also indebted for the creation of the Seminary.

In 1659, the great success of the Missionaries in converting the Indians to the true faith induced the JESUITS to recommend the appointment of an Ecclesiastic of superior rank, in order to confirm the nascent piety of the colony, and to repress any disorders in its spiritual government which might arise, without the care and supervision of an authorised head of the Church. At their instance, FRANÇOIS DE LAVAL, Abbé de Montigny, of the noble house of Montmorency, and at that time Archdeacon of Evreux, was