O'Rell Max
A Frenchman in America: Recollections of Men and Things

CHAPTER XIX

A Lovely Ride to Canada – Quebec, a Corner of Old France Strayed up and Lost in the Snow – The French Canadians – The Parties in Canada – Will the Canadians Become Yankees?

Montreal, February 1.

The ride from the State of Maine to Montreal is very picturesque, even in the winter. It offers you four or five hours of Alpine scenery through the American Switzerland. The White Mountains, commanded by Mount Washington, are, for a distance of about forty miles, as wild and imposing as anything the real Switzerland can supply the tourist. Gorges, precipices, torrents, nothing is wanting.

Nearly the whole time we journeyed across pine forests, coming, now and then, across saw mills, and little towns looking like bee-hives of activity. Now there was an opening, and frozen rivers, covered with snow, formed, with the fields, a huge uniform mass of dazzling whiteness. The effect, under a pure blue sky and in a perfectly clear atmosphere, was very beautiful. Now the country became hilly again. On the slopes, right down to the bottom of the valley, we saw Berlin Falls, bathing its feet in the river. The yellow houses with their red roofs and gables, rest the eyes from that long stretch of blue and white. How beautiful this town and its surroundings must be in the fall, when Dame Nature in America puts on her cloak of gold and scarlet! All the country on the line we traveled is engaged in the lumber trade.

For once I had an amiable conductor in the parlor car; even more than amiable – quite friendly and familiar. He put his arms on my shoulders and got quite patronizing. I did not mind that a bit. I hate anonymous landscapes, and he explained and named everything to me. My innocence of American things in general touched him. He was a great treat after those “ill-licked bears” that you so often come across in the American cars. He went further than that: he kindly recommended me to the Canadian custom-house officers, when we arrived at the frontier, and the examination of my trunk and valise did not last half a minute.

Altogether, the long journey passed rapidly and agreeably. We were only two people in the parlor car, and my traveling companion proved a very pleasant man. First, I did not care for the look of him. He had a new silk hat on, a multicolored satin cravat with a huge diamond pin fixed in it; a waistcoat covered with silk embroidery work, green, blue, and pink; a coat with silk facings, patent-leather boots. Altogether, he was rather dressed for a garden party (in more than doubtful taste) than for a fifteen hours’ railway journey. But in America the cars are so luxurious and kept so warm that traveling dresses are not known in the country. Ulsters, cloaks, rugs, garments made of tweed and rough materials, all these things are unnecessary and therefore unknown. I soon found out, however, that this quaintly got-up man was interesting to speak to. He knew every bit of the country we passed, and, being easily drawn out, he poured into my ears information that was as rapid as it was valuable. He was well read and had been to Europe several times. He spoke of France with great enthusiasm, which enrolled my sympathy, and he had enjoyed my lecture, which, you may imagine, secured for his intelligence and his good taste my boundless admiration. When we arrived at Montreal, we were a pair of friends.

…

I begin my Canadian tour here on Monday and then shall go West. I was in Quebec two years ago; but the dear old place is not on my list this time. No words could express my regret. I shall never forget my feelings on landing under the great cliff on which stands the citadel, and on driving, bumped along in a sleigh over the half-thawed snow, in the street that lies under the fortress, and on through the other quaint winding steep streets, and again under the majestic archways to the upper town, where I was set down at the door of the Florence, a quiet, delightful little hotel that the visitor to Quebec should not fail to stop at, if he like home comforts and care to enjoy magnificent scenery from his window. It seemed as though I was in France, in my dear old Brittany. It looked like St. Malo strayed up here and lost in the snow. The illusion became complete when I saw the gray houses, heard the people talk with the Breton intonation, and saw over the shops Langlois, Maillard, Clouet, and all the names familiar to my childhood. But why say “illusion”? It was a fact: I was in France. These folks have given their faith to England, but, as the Canadian poet says, they have kept their hearts for France. Not only their hearts, but their manners and their language. Oh, there was such pleasure in it all! The lovely weather, the beautiful scenery, the kind welcome given to me, the delight of seeing these children of Old France, more than three thousand miles from home, happy and thriving – a feast for the eyes, a feast for the heart. And the drive to Montmorency Falls in the sleigh, gliding smoothly along on the hard snow! And the sleighs laden with wood for the Quebec folks, the carmen stimulating their horses with a hue là or hue donc! And the return to the Florence, where a good dinner served in a private room awaited us! And that polite, quiet, attentive French girl who waited on us, the antipodes of the young Yankee lady who makes you sorry that breakfasting and dining are necessary, in some American hotels, and whose waiting is like taking sand and vinegar with your food!

The mere spanking along through the cold, brisk air, when you are well muffled in furs is exhilarating, especially when the sun is shining in a cloudless blue sky. The beautiful scenery at Quebec was, besides, a feast for eyes tired with the monotonous flatness of America. The old city is on a perfect mountain, and as we came bumping down its side in our sleigh over the roads which were there in a perfect state of sherbet, there was a lovely picture spread out in front of us. In the distance the bluest mountains I ever saw (to paint them one must use pure cobalt); away to the right the frozen St. Lawrence and the Isle of Orléans, all snow-covered, of course, but yet distinguishable from the farm lands of Jacques Bonhomme, whose cosy, clean cottages we soon began to pass. The long, ribbon-like strips of farm were indicated by the tops of the fences peeping through the snow, and told us of French thrift and prosperity.

Yes, it was all delightful. When I left Quebec I felt as much regret as I do every time that I leave my little native town.

…

I have been told that the works of Voltaire are prohibited in Quebec, not so much because they are irreligious as because they were written by a man who, after the loss of Quebec to the French Crown, exclaimed: “Let us not be concerned about the loss of a few acres of snow.” The memory of Voltaire is execrated, and for having made a flattering reference to him on the platform in Montreal two years ago, I was near being “boycotted” by the French population.

The French Canadians take very little interest in politics – I mean in outside politics. They are steady, industrious, saving, peaceful, and so long as the English leave them alone, in the safe enjoyment of their belongings, they will not give them cause for any anxiety. Among the French Canadians there is no desire for annexation to the United States. Indeed, during the War of Independence, Canada was saved to the English Crown by the French Canadians, not because the latter loved the English, but because they hated the Yankees. When Lafayette took it for granted that the French Canadians would rally round his flag, he made a great mistake; they would have, if compelled to fight, used their bullets against the Americans. If they had their own way, the French in Canada would set up a little country of their own under the rule of the Catholic Church, a little corner of France two hundred years old.

The education of the lower classes is at a very low stage; thirty per cent. of the children of school age in Quebec do not attend school. The English dare not introduce gratuitous and compulsory education. They have an understanding with the Catholic Church, which insists upon exercising entire control over public education. The Quebec schools are little more than branches of the confessional box. The English shut their eyes, for part of the understanding with the Church is that the latter will keep loyalty to the English Crown alive among her submissive flock.

The tyranny exercised by the Catholic Church may easily be imagined from the following newspaper extract:

A well-to-do butcher of Montreal attended the Catholic Church at Ile Perrault last Sunday. He was suffering at the time with acute cramps, and when that part of the service arrived during which the congregation kneel, he found himself unable to do more than assume a reclining devotional position, with one knee on the floor. His action was noticed, and the church-warden, in concert with others, had him brought before the court charged with an act of irreverence, and he was fined $8 and costs.

Such a judgment does not only expose the tyranny of the Catholic Church, but the complicity of the English, who uphold Romanism in the Province of Quebec as they uphold Buddhism in India, so as not to endanger the security of their possessions.

The French Canadians are multiplying so rapidly that in a very few years the Province of Quebec will be as French as the town of Quebec itself. Every day they push their advance from east to west. They generally marry very young. When a lad is seen in the company of a girl, he is asked by the priest if he is courting that girl. In which case he is bidden to go straightway to the altar, and these young couples rear families of twelve and fifteen children, none of whom leave the country. The English have to make room for them.

The average attendance in Catholic churches on Sundays in Montreal is 111,483; in the sixty churches that belong to the different Protestant denominations, the average attendance is 34,428. The former number has been steadily increasing, the latter steadily decreasing.

…

What is the future reserved to French Canada, and indeed to the whole Dominion?

There are only two political parties, Liberals and Conservatives, but I find the population divided into four camps: Those in favor of Canada, an independent nation; those in favor of the political union of Canada and the United States; those in favor of Canada going into Imperial Federation, and those in favor of Canada remaining an English colony, or in other words, in favor of the actual state of things.

Of course the French Canadians are dead against going into Imperial Federation, which would simply crush them, and Canadian “society” is in favor of remaining English. The other Canadians seem pretty equally divided.

It must be said that the annexation idea has been making rapid progress of late years, among prominent men as well as among the people. The Americans will never fire one shot to have the idea realized. If ever the union becomes an accomplished fact, it will become so with the assent of all parties. The task will be made easy through Canada and the United States having the same legislature. The local and provincial governments are the same in the Canadian towns and provinces as they are in the American towns and States – a House of Representatives, a Senate, and a Governor, with this difference, this great difference, to the present advantage of Canada: whereas every four years the Americans elect a new master, who appoints a ministry responsible to himself alone, the Canadians have a ministry responsible to their parliament, that is, to themselves. The representation of the American people at Washington is democratic, but the government is autocratic. In Canada, both legislature and executive are democratic, as in England, that greatest and truest of all democracies.

The change in Canada would have to be made on the American plan.

With the exception of Quebec and parts of Montreal, Canada is built like America; the country has the same aspect, the currency is the same. Suppress the Governor-General in Ottawa, who is there to remind Canada that she is a dependency of the English Crown, strew the country with more cuspidores, and you have part of Jonathan’s big farm.

CHAPTER XX

Montreal – The City – Mount Royal – Canadian Sports – Ottawa – The Government – Rideau Hall

Montreal, February 2.

Montreal is a large and well-built city, containing many buildings of importance, mostly churches, of which about thirty are Roman Catholic, and over sixty are devoted to Protestant worship, in all its branches and variations, from the Anglican church to the Salvation Army.

I arrived at a station situated on a level with the St. Lawrence River. From it, we mounted in an omnibus up, up, up, through narrow streets full of shops with Breton or Norman names over them, as in Quebec; on through broader ones, where the shops grew larger and the names became more frequently English; on, on, till I thought Montreal had no end, and, at last alighted on a great square, and found myself at the door of the Windsor Hotel, an enormous and fine construction, which has proved the most comfortable, and, in every respect the best hotel I have yet stopped at on the great American continent. It is about a quarter of a mile from my bedroom to the dining-hall, which could, I believe, accommodate nearly a thousand guests.

My first visit was to an afternoon “At Home,” given by the St. George’s Club, who have a club-house high up on Mount Royal. It was a ladies’ day, and there was music, dancing, etc. We went in a sleigh up the very steep hill, much to my astonishment. I should have thought the thing practically impossible. On our way we passed a toboggan slide down the side of Mount Royal. It took my breath away to think of coming down it at the rate of over a mile a minute. The view from the club-house was splendid, taking in a great sweep of snow-covered country, the city and the frozen St. Lawrence. There are daily races on the river, and last year they ran tram-cars on it.

It was odd to hear the phrase, “after the flood.” When I came to inquire into it, I learned that when the St. Lawrence ice breaks up, the lower city is flooded, and this is yearly spoken of as “the flood.”

I drove back from the club with my manager and two English gentlemen, who are here on a visit. As we passed the toboggan slide, my manager told me of an old gentleman over sixty, who delights in those breathless passages down the side of Mount Royal. One may see him out there “at it,” as early as ten in the morning. Plenty of people, however, try one ride and never ask for another. One gentleman my manager told me of, after having tried it, expressed pretty well the feelings of many others. He said, “I wouldn’t do it again for two thousand dollars, but I wouldn’t have missed it for three.” I asked one of the two Englishmen who accompanied us, whether he had had a try. He was a quiet, solemn, middle-aged Englishman. “Well,” he said, “yes, I have. It had to be done, and I did it.”

Last night I was most interested in watching the members of the Snowshoe Club start from the Windsor, on a kind of a picnic over the country. Their costumes were very picturesque; a short tunic of woolen material fastened round the waist by a belt, a sort of woolen nightcap, with tassel falling on the shoulder, thick woolen stockings, and knickerbockers.

In Russia and the northern parts of the United States, the people say: “It’s too cold to go out.” In Canada, they say: “It’s very cold, let’s all go out.” Only rain keeps them indoors. In the coldest weather, with a temperature of many degrees below zero, you have great difficulty in finding a closed carriage. All, or nearly all, are open sleighs. The driver wraps you up in furs, and as you go, gliding on the snow, your face is whipped by the cold air, you feel glowing all over with warmth, and altogether the sensation is delightful.

This morning, Joseph Howarth, the talented American actor, breakfasted with me and a few friends. Last night, I went to see him play in Steele Mackaye’s “Paul Kauvar.” Canada has no actors worth mentioning, and the people here depend on American artists for all their entertainments. It is wonderful how the feeling of independence engenders and develops the activity of the mind in a country. Art and literature want a home of their own, and do not flourish in other people’s houses. Canada has produced nothing in literature: the only two poets she can boast are French, Louis Fréchette and Octave Crémazie. It is not because Canada has no time for brain productions. America is just as busy as she is, felling forests and reclaiming the land; but free America, only a hundred years old as a nation, possesses already a list of historians, novelists, poets, and essayists, that would do honor to any nation in the world.

…

February 4.

I had capital houses in the Queen’s Hall last night and to-night.

The Canadian audiences are more demonstrative than the American ones, and certainly quite as keen and appreciative. When you arrive on the platform they are glad to see you, and they let you know it; a fact which in America, in New England especially, you have to find out for yourself.

Montreal possesses a very wealthy and fashionable community, and what strikes me most, coming as I do from the United States, is the stylish simplicity of the women. I am told that Canadian women in their tastes and ways have always been far more English than American, and that the fashions have grown more and more simple since Princess Louise gave the example of always dressing quietly when occupying Rideau Hall in Ottawa.

…

Ottawa, February 5.

One of the finest sights I have yet seen in this country was from the bridge on my way from the station to the Russell this morning. On the right the waterfalls, on the left, on the top of a high and almost perpendicular rock, the Houses of Parliament, a grand pile of buildings in gray stone, standing out clear against a cloudless, intense blue sky. The Russell is one of those huge babylonian hotels so common on the American continent, where unfortunately the cookery is not on a level with the architectural pretensions; but most of the leading Canadian politicians are boarding here while Parliament is sitting, and I am interested to see them.

After visiting the beautiful library and other parts of the government buildings, I had the good luck to hear, in the House of Representatives, a debate between Mr. Chapleau, a minister and one of the leaders of the Conservatives now in office, and Mr. Laurier, one of the chiefs of the Opposition. Both gentlemen are French. It was a fight between a tribune and a scholar; between a short, thickset, long-maned lion, and a tall, slender, delicate fox.

After lunch, I went to Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor-General, Lord Stanley of Preston. The executive mansion stands in a pretty park well wooded with firs, a mile out of the town. His Excellency was out, but his aid-de-camp, to whom I had a letter of introduction, most kindly showed me over the place. Nothing can be more simple and unpretentious than the interior of Rideau Hall. It is furnished like any comfortable little provincial hotel patronized by the gentry of the neighborhood. The panels of the drawing-room were painted by Princess Louise, when she occupied the house with the Marquis of Lorne some eight or ten years ago. This is the only touch of luxury about the place. In the time of Lord Dufferin, a ball-room and a tennis court were added to the building, and these are among the many souvenirs of his popular rule. As a diplomatist, as a viceroy, and as an ambassador, history will one day record that this noble son of Erin never made a mistake.

In the evening, I lectured in the Opera House to a large audience.

…

Kingston, February 6.

This morning, at the Russell, I was called at the telephone. It was His Excellency, who was asking me to lunch at Rideau Hall. I felt sorry to be obliged to leave Ottawa, and thus forego so tempting an invitation.

Kingston is a pretty little town on the border of Lake Ontario, possessing a university, a penitentiary, and a lunatic asylum, in neither of which I made my appearance to-night. But as soon as I had started speaking on the platform of the Town Hall, I began to think the doors of the lunatic asylum had been carelessly left open that night, for close under the window behind the platform, there began a noise which was like Bedlam let loose. Bedlam with trumpets and other instruments of torture. It was impossible to go on with the lecture, so I stopped. On inquiry, the unearthly din was found to proceed from a detachment of the Salvation Army outside the building. After some parleying, they consented to move on and storm some other citadel.

But it was a stormy evening, and peace was not yet.

As soon as I had fairly restarted, a person in the audience began to show signs of disapproval, and twice or thrice he gave vent to his disapproval rather loudly.

I was not surprised to learn, at the close of the evening, that this individual had come in with a free pass. He had been admitted on the strength of his being announced to give a “show” of some sort himself a week later in the hall.

If a man is inattentive or creates a disturbance at any performance, you may take it for granted that his ticket was given to him. He never paid for it.

To-morrow I go to Toronto, where I am to give two lectures. I had not time to see that city properly on my last visit to Canada, and all my friends prophesy that I shall have a good time.

So does the advance booking, I understand.