--"It was the enthusiasm of honour, the enthusiasm of
adventure and the enthusiasm of faith. Daulac was the _Coeur-de-Lion_
among the forests and savages of the New World." The names and
occupations of the young men may still be read in the parish registers,
the faded writing illumined by the sanctity of martyrdom. The "Lays of
Rome" recount among her heroes none of greater valour than these by the
lonely rapids in the silence of the Canadian forest.

[Illustration]

ECHOES FROM THE PAST.

Near a modern window in the gallery leans an old spinning-wheel, which
was found in the vaults. By its hum in winter twilights, a hundred years
ago, soft lullabies were crooned, and fine linen spun for dainty brides,
over whose forgotten graves the blossoms of a century of summers have
fallen. In hoop and farthingale they tripped over the threshold of the
old church of _Notre Dame de Bonsecours_. They plighted their troth as
happily before the altar of the little chapel, as do their descendants
in the stately church of _Notre Dame_, with the grand organ pealing
through the dim arches and groined roof.

The old, old wheel is silent, and the fingers that once held distaff and
spindle have crumbled into dust, but the noble deeds and glorious names
of those days gone by are carven deep in the monument of a grateful
country's memory.

Over an archway in the picture gallery is an enormous oil painting,
dark with age, of the British Coat of Arms, which, it is whispered, was
brought over hurriedly from New York during the American Revolution.

The museum of the Chateau is daily receiving donations of interesting
relics, and has already a fine collection of coins, medals, old swords
and historical mementoes--some of the autograph letters of Arnold,
Champlain, Roberval, Vaudreuil, Amherst, Carleton, the de Ramezay family
and many others, being of great interest.

These early days have passed away forever. The whirr of the
spinning-wheel, or shout of the hunter, no longer sound along the banks
of the St. Lawrence. No canoe of the painted warrior now glides silently
by the shore; for Montreal with its three thousand inhabitants when
Vaudreuil beat his retreat, to its present population of 300,000, has
thrown its magnificent civilization around these spots hallowed by the
footprints of the great men whose feet have walked her ancient streets.

"She has grown in her strength like a Northern queen,
'Neath her crown of ligh