THE MARKET-PLACE ON ST. MARTIN'S DAY.
The market-place then as now occupied the open square lying between the great Cathedral of Ste. Marie and the College of the Jesuits.
The latter, a vast edifice, occupied one side of the square.
Through its wide portal a glimpse was had of the gardens and broad avenues of ancient trees, sacred to the meditation and quiet exercises of the reverend fathers, who walked about in pairs, according to the rule of their order, which rarely permitted them to go singly.
The market-place itself was lively this morning with the number of carts and stalls ranged on either side of the bright little rivulet which ran under the old elms that intersected the square, the trees affording shade and the rivulet drink for man and beast.
A bustling, loquacious crowd of habitans and citizens, wives and maid-servants, were buying, selling, exchanging compliments, or complaining of hard times. The marketplace was full, and all were glad at the termination of the terrible war, and hopeful of the happy effect of peace in bringing plenty back again to the old market.
The people bustled up and down, testing their weak purses against their strong desires to fill their baskets with the ripe autumnal fruits and the products of field and garden, river and basse cour, which lay temptingly exposed in the little carts of the marketmen and women who on every side extolled the quality and cheapness of their wares.
There were apples from the Cote de Beaupre, small in size but impregnated with the flavor of honey; pears grown in the old orchards about Ange Gardien, and grapes worthy of Bacchus, from the Isle of Orleans, with baskets of the delicious bilberries that cover the wild hills of the north shore from the first wane of summer until late in the autumn.
The drain of the war had starved out the butchers' stalls, but Indians and hunters took their places for the nonce with an abundance of game of all kinds, which had multiplied exceedingly during the years that men had taken to killing Bostonnais and English instead of deer and wild turkeys.
Fish was in especial abundance; the blessing of the old Jesuits still rested on the waters of New France, and the fish swarmed metaphorically with money in their mouths.
There were piles of speckled trout fit to be eaten by popes and kings, taken in the little pure lakes and streams tributary to the Montmorency; lordly salmon that swarmed in the tidal weirs along the shores of the St. Lawrence, and huge eels, thick as the arm of the fisher who drew them up from their rich river-beds.
There were sacks of meal ground in the banal mills of the seigniories for the people's bread, but the old tinettes of yellow butter, the pride of the good wives of Beauport and Lauzon, were rarely to be seen, and commanded unheard-of prices. The hungry children who used to eat tartines of bread buttered on both sides were now accustomed to the cry of their frugal mother as she spread it thin as if it were gold-leaf: "Mes enfants, take care of the butter!"
The Commissaries of the Army, in other words the agents of the Grand Company, had swept the settlements far and near of their herds, and the habitans soon discovered that the exposure for sale in the market of the products of the dairy was speedily followed by a visit from the purveyors of the army, and the seizure of their remaining cattle.
Roots and other esculents of field and garden were more plentiful in the market, among which might have been seen the newly introduced potato,--a vegetable long despised in New France, then endured, and now beginning to be liked and widely cultivated as a prime article of sustenance.
At the upper angle of the square stood a lofty cross or Holy Rood, overtopping the low roofs of the shops and booths in its neighborhood. About the foot of the cross was a platform of timber raised a few feet from the ground, giving a commanding view of the whole market-place.
A crowd of habitans were gathered round this platform listening, some with exclamations of approval, not unmingled on the part of others with sounds of dissent, to the fervent address of one of the Jesuit Fathers from the College, who with crucifix in hand was preaching to the people upon the vices and backslidings of the times.
Father Glapion, the Superior of the order in New France, a grave, saturnine man, and several other fathers in close black cassocks and square caps, stood behind the preacher, watching with keen eyes the faces of the auditory as if to discover who were for and who were against the sentiments and opinions promulgated by the preacher.
The storm of the great Jansenist controversy, which rent the Church of France from top to bottom, had not spared the Colony, where it had early caused trouble; for that controversy grew out of the Gallican liberties of the national Church and the right of national participation in its administrations and appointments. The Jesuits ever fiercely contested these liberties; they boldly set the tiara above the crown, and strove to subordinate all opinions of faith, morals, education, and ecclesiastical government to the infallible judgment of the Pope alone.
The Bishop and clergy of New France had labored hard to prevent the introduction of that mischievous controversy into the Colony, and had for the most part succeeded in reserving their flocks, if not themselves, from its malign influence. The growing agitation in France, however, made it more difficult to keep down troublesome spirits in the Colony, and the idea got abroad, not without some foundation, that the Society of Jesus had secret commercial relations with the Friponne. This report fanned the smouldering fires of Jansenism into a flame visible enough and threatening enough to the peace of the Church.