Canadian Houses
of Romance

by

XIV

AT THE CHÂTEAU PAPINEAU

1

Where at Thurso first I heard
Natalie, our contralto bird.

The glint of steel, the gleam of brocade,
“Monseigneur” up in his tarnish’d frame,
A long, low terrace, half sun, half shade;

Tapestry, dusty, dim, and frayed,
Fauteuil and sofa, a flickering flame,
A glint of steel, a gleam of brocade;

“Mme.” on the wall as a roguish maid,
Later, some years, as a portly dame,
The long low terrace, half sun, half shade,

Where “Mme’s.” ghost and “Monsieur’s” parade,
And play at ombre, their favourite game,
The glint of steel, the gleam of brocade.

     “How the feeling of the place persists!” we said.
     “But the Papineaus have never left it,” she answered.
     We went into the picture gallery and conservatory, and through the great dining-room to a back hall where quaint, almost clumsy, stairs wind up to the second floor. Here is another wide, straight hall running the whole length of the house with bedrooms opening on each side. Dreams of rooms filled with exquisite French furniture. One iron [page 98] bed, in charming harp design, was early French-Canadian. There is a reading room on this floor, where a small Louis Joseph now learns his lessons. And from the reading room, a passage leads to the library tower, a stone fireproof building where five thousand volumes used to dwell. Many of the shelves are empty now, but precious old maps and charts remain. One is a very ancient map showing the Seigneurie of la Petite Nation of the Algonquins, upon which the Château stands. And here at the base of the tower, from which ascends narrow corkscrew stairs, is the desk, still holding its inkwell and quill pens, at which Papineau used to sit, facing the wooden grill to which his tenants came. Coming up these stairs my eye was caught by a medieval angel in carved wood. I was told that it had arrived at the Château by way of the old Church of Bonsecours at Montreal.
     The private chapel of the Papineaus, among the trees of the avenue, holds the story of the family inscribed upon its vaults. On one of the tablets it is recorded that Samuel Papineau was the founder of the family in this country. He came in 16—“dans l’Armée Française. Puis colon Rivière des Prairies (Ile de Montreal) Mort le 23 Avril 1737.”
     Four generations are buried here, but a fifth vault lies empty, for Talbot Papineau never returned from Passchendaele. If Louis, the grandfather, was [page 99] rebellious to the “little England” of 1737, his great grandson was true to the vast, disturbed empire of 1914.
     Louis Joseph, was trained in the Seminary at Quebec, and entered law. He was a brilliant youth, and early, too early perhaps, took his seat in the Assembly as member for Chamblay. He was one of those who are destined to become a political saviour. And his day was full of burning questions and crashing discords. He found himself the leader of an enthusiastic minority of Nationalists, but when the war of 1812 broke out, he took command of a volunteer company and served in that capacity until peace was restored. In 1817 he was elected Speaker of the House, and from then his wit and his oratory were with the Nationalists. He was a thorn in the side of the Oligarchy—in other words, he was a radical. Under him the Assembly, helpless in the face of the Legislative Council, awoke to a sense of power, and when the final struggle came, over a question of supplies, Canada was aroused from Gaspé to Lake Huron. Lord John Russell’s order that arrears be paid without the vote of the Assembly was rescinded in part, but it was too late to check the Sons of Liberty. When arms had been taken up against His Majesty’s Government, Papineau, who had incited and inflamed his countrymen to see their position clearly, though he never advocated arms, was a rebel in the eyes of the law. [page 100] A warrant for high treason was out, and a thousand pounds placed on his head. He took refuge in France, and for several years lived in Paris. Later, the charges against him were withdrawn and he returned to Canada and sat as a Member of the House of Commons, which had been remodelled under the Act of Union.

     “On good days we have tea in the garden—in the maisonette,” said Madame Papineau.
     In the pretty, open-air room, therefore, we sat for some time and talked of many things, and looked down on the still river, and a schooner or two making its slow way, and watched the comings and goings of a flimsy little ferry that was shortly to convey us across the Ottawa.
     In the meantime there was a drift of rose perfume from the gardens, and the hum of bees, the passing to and fro of the maid with tea, and a soft exchange of French between our hostess and her charming little granddaughter…We might have been in Normandy, visiting some old château.
     “But no,” said Madame Papineau, “no, this is truly Canada…Only, a Canada that so few people know—the Canada of French traditions—Canada of the first comers. It is historic ground. The Algonquins of la Petite Nation were almost [page 101] exterminated here by the Iroquois. These gardens were a part of the Seigneurie of la Petite Nation, granted to Bishop Laval by the British West Indian Company in 1674. It was purchased from him in 1804 by Joseph Papineau. The first manor house was built a year later, and replaced, in 1813, by another on Isle Arosin opposite Papineauville. And this house was destroyed by fire some thirty years after that. The present manor was finished in 1850. In 1871, it passed into the hands of his son, Louis Joseph, and upon his death, in 1903, to his grandchildren. Life goes on now much more quietly than it could have done in the troublous days of the ‘30’s,” went to Madame Papineau, “but as to the usual way of our village, not so differently, I expect.”
     “Not so differently,” we thought, as we drove again into Montebello’s little street, cooler now at sundown. Shopkeepers were standing at their open doors. A little wagonette, painted in bright orange, upholding a stout lady in purple, with a long fresh loaf of bread under her arm, was standing in front of one of the shops while the small, tired horse drank from a bucket. A bell was ringing for vespers and a group of Sisters, in their swaying, black robes, walked slowly down the road. It might have been a hundred years ago.
     It was sunset by the time the ferryman had responded to our horn, and the river was pink and [page 102] gold as we drifted out upon it—pink as the rose that I had carried away from the garden. The manor house, gilded by the afterglow, looked impossibly romantic from the river. The entire afternoon, indeed, had been the sort of episode that one might have dreamed, sitting there at luncheon, only six hours ago, in a modern hotel. It had been as lovely as a fairy-tale, and as incredible. The ferryman continued the story of “the good family”, and a greyhound from the Château, who refused to part with us, accompanied the little voyage with remarks in his own language.

So was it once with friend and foe,
Far off they saw the patriot’s ark
Burn in the western evening glow…

Think of him now! one thought bestow,
As blazing against the pine trees dark
The red-tiled towers of the old château
Burn in the western evening glow.

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