Canadian Houses
of Romance

by

II

THE HOUSE THAT WAS NOT THERE


1

IT was nearly two years after we had found the old Jesuit house at Sillery that we came again to the valley of the St. Lawrence. The roads were more fascinating than ever, and the song of the river more beautiful and deep. Driving along its shores day after day the river seemed often to awaken strange echoes that were like memories, cadences of life older than ours, known intimately to the river. Its song in one’s ears makes the record of early Canadian life along its banks a very recent tale. It is easy to relate the story of villages, set like beads at regular intervals upon the road, but something more ancient than frontier life lies behind them.
     One summer day we drove from Montreal to Verchères. It takes some time to get out of Montreal, over the long bridge and through an epidemic of villas, with the river on the right hand making beautiful broad curves before it begins its long straight path to the sea. It midsummer there are effects of vibrant, clear-washed colour: the blue of the river, the yellow-green of fields, and thrown upon the fields, like mauve-pink rugs, great patches of [page 12] a swamp flower called by the French Canadians rupé or rat’s tail.
     Suddenly you are on the village street of Longueuil. The straight spire of the Parish Church of St. Antoine rears up. It stands on the site of the old turreted castle of the Le Moynes, Barons of Longueuil in its feudal days. We tried to picture its ancient grandeur as we drove through the streets of the sunny modern town. Visible echoes of those times appeared in wayside cottages of the simplest rubble construction, in a few stone mills, set in the shining summer fields, and a bake-oven here and there, with its rather sinister coffin-like construction.
     Out on the country roads, as though to give an illusion of the past, there came jogging many little carts, and old-fashioned one-horse phaetons and even venerable calèches. We had left Longueuil behind us, and were quite near Varennes when it became apparent that a festival of some sort was in progress. Not otherwise these unthrifty boiled shirts and gay muslins on a week-day of excellent haying weather! Suddenly, we remembered that it was the 25th of July, the feast day of Sainte Anne, who is the patroness of Quebec. And as we neared Varennes the blue flags of the Sainte appeared in delicate waving lines across the sleepy street. The little town was crowded with visitors, many shops were closed and the Place in front of the Cathedral was [page 13] full of cars, and such quaint vehicles as those we had been passing. Within the Cathedral a mass was progressing. The doors stood wide open, as though to take in a great congregation for whom there was no room. We struggled through the crowd and managed at last to get within the church. As we stood, tightly wedged in between worshipping French-Canadian families, we were enveloped in the majestic music of an eighteenth century mass. Mozart might have written it. A magnificent baritone voice rose and fell in the long and varied text of the gloria. The altar, seen through the far mist of its gleaming candles, made a vague but glorious blur. It seemed to us, as it rose serenely at the end of the long crowded aisle, like the mystical flower of an old faith still blooming in this provincial village. By the merest chance we had come upon a moment of ceremonial that had been each year renewed for over two hundred years…The solemn service, the devout throngs, the simple earnest faces, even the long, softly-waving petals of the blue flags of the Sainte made religion in this place a living poem of colour, music and delight.
     In the rue Principale de Verchères we found one or two open shops, in spite of the holiday, and at a down-at-the-heel, and fly-specked one we bought a beautiful compote of amber glass for next to nothing. [page 14]
     This rue Principale is typically French-Canadian; small shops, and stone houses of the old type, with blue or green shutters, are interspersed with modern houses to which “galleries” have been added.
     A stranger might easily pass through the quaint streets and find no hint of its dramatic story, but not a passenger on a St. Lawrence steamer, for the river takes a sharp curve just here and the harbour is plainly to be seen, also the lighthouse, an old windmill, and the life-sized figure of a young girl, animated in pose and gesture—Madeleine de Verchères.
     In spite of school histories it would be interesting to know just how many people are quite sure of her story. With peaceful fields stretching on all sides we remembered a time when they were often deserted because the call to arms was forever issued from Quebec or Montreal. In the villages people would gather and work together, and while they worked, sentinels were on guard to give warning of the first sign of danger. Everywhere there was terror of the Iroquois. The habitant on his homestead, the courier in the depths of the forest, the trader paddling down stream with his furs,—none were secure.
     We went to the water’s edge to look more closely at the fine statue of Madeleine. A deaf but inquisitive old lady who had been following us about, came forward. [page 15]
     In a whining voice she asked us, “Est-ce que vous avez arriver pour la fête?”
     “Non madame, pour visiter la maison de Verchères.”
     Her face expressed surprise but also satisfaction, and she pointed with elaborate gesture to “la Statue.”
     “The old fort, does it still exist?” we asked in our careful, school-book French.
     She did not or would not comprehend.
     How toy-like the stone windmill! How calm the small arena! It was a pretty stage-setting for this very appropriate peasant.

     In 1692, through a thick autumn-crimsoned forest, Indians were stealing to seize an unprotected post. The settlers of Verchères were harvesting, miles away from the fort; and its commander, Madeleine’s father, had gone to Montreal with his staff. An old man, some children, and two soldiers were left in charge with the girl of fourteen. Suddenly there came a cry, “The Indians are upon us!”
     With shots singing and whistling about her the child somehow got herself and her brothers back, and closed and barred the gate. Within were the trembling old man, and the soldiers with matches lighted ready to blow them all up rather than endure Indian tortures [page 16]
     It is at this point that Madeleine becomes so interesting. She turned upon the coward soldiers, tore off her white muslin bonnet and had on a steel cap of her father’s in a moment, and a gun in her hand. She was, indeed, no longer Madeleine, but the Joan who must always have been stirring in her veins. “To arms!” she cried, “everyone of us! Let us fight to the death for God and the King!”
     She invented a splendid fraud, so well sustained that the enemy actually believed the fort to be strongly garrisoned. There was a volley of shots at intervals from the loop-holes, a tread of sentinels at night, cries of “All’s well!” and hour by hour the steel cap marching around the tiny quarters; ordering, inciting, cheering.
     There was the incredible adventure of the cattle when, at early dawn, the sentry nearest the gates called suddenly: “Lady, there are advancing feet!”
     She peered anxiously out. Yes—there, in the eerie light, against the whiteness of new fallen snow, black moving figures could be seen coming closer and closer. There was a moment of panic. Then soft lowing and snuffing was heard…These were no Indians but cattle, the last of the fort herd, faithful cattle finding their way home through the snow.
     “Let them in,” begged the children, “we have had no milk for days.”
     “God forbid!” replied Madeleine, “the Indians are behind them, wrapped in skins, ready to rush in should we open the gate.” [page 17]
     Yet they risked it, for fear of starvation. The little boys stood on each side of the gate ready to fire. The gate was carefully opened. One by one the cattle marched slowly in and the gate was closed. On the seventh night she was asleep at last in the guard room. Suddenly she started, wide-awake, to hear the tramp of men about the house. Springing up she seized her gun, “Who goes there?” she called into the darkness.
     “The French,” came the reply. “It is La Monnerie come to help you!”…
     And wanting to write about it we decided that there must be some trace left of the Fort which was also the maison de Verchères, and so we went to the Presbytery, to find out if a kindly priest could or would discover or invent for us a little ruin. But it was hopeless for he was, of course, at the Mass. We asked a few ancients on the street, themselves interesting relics, if anything was known of the whereabouts of the Fort.
     “Mais non, madame, rien!”
     So we had evidently come to see a house that was not there. Nevertheless, returning once more to the water’s edge we vowed that there could be no more fascinating village in America than this.
     “C’est unique!” volunteered the chauffeur, with a hearty gesture. [page 18]

     Our old lady waved us farewell, after assisting in repacking the compote and plucking the inevitable bunch of wild flowers (pour souvenir} which as inevitably perished miserably within an hour.
     We drove back to Montreal through a heavenly twilight…     People with happy voices were talking and singing through the gloaming, and the inns and hotels were doing a lively business.
     Yet, at the beautiful Calvaire that stands on the road between Verchères and Varennes we saw an old man praying in the dusty grass before its closed doors, as though the festival of the beloved Sainte Anne had failed to bring him all that he desired. [page 20]

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