we suppose, or some other near relative of the Lady Sarah Lennox here before us. However, conversationists whispered about (in confidence) something supposed to be unknown to the general public, that the match between Sir Peregrine and Lady Sarah had been effected in spite of the Duke. The report was that there had been an elopement, and it was naturally supposed that the party of the sterner sex bad been the most active agent in the affair. To say the truth, however, in this instance it was the lady who precipitated matters. The affair occurred at Paris, soon after the Waterloo campaign. The Duke's final determination against Sir Peregrine's proposals having been announced, the daughter suddenly withdrew from the father's roof, and fled to the lodgings of Sir Peregrine, who instantly retired to other quarters. The upshot of the whole thing, at once romantic and unromantic, included a marriage and a reconciliation, and eventually a Lieutenant- Governorship for the son-in-law, under the Governorship-in-Chief of the father, both despatched together to undertake the discharge of vice-regal functions in a distant colony. At the time of his marriage with Lady Sarah Lennox, Sir Peregrine had been for some ten years a widower. [39] After the death of the Duke of Richmond, Sir Peregrine became administrator, for a time of the general government of British North America.

One of the Duke of Richmond's sons was lost in the ill-fated steamer _President_ in 1840. In December, 1824, Sir Peregrine revisited Quebec with Sir Francis Burton, Lieutenant-Governor, in the _Swiftsure_, steamer escorting some very distinguished tourists. A periodical notices the arrivals at the old Château as follows:--

"Sir Peregrine is accompanied by Lord Arthur Lennox, Mr. Maitland, Colonels Foster, Lightfoot, Coffin and Talbot, with the Hon. E. G. Stanley (from 1851 to 1869 Earl of Derby), grandson of Earl Derby, M. P. for Stockbridge; John E. Denison, Esq., (subsequently Speaker of the House of Commons), M. P. for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and James S. Wortley, Esq. (afterwards Lord Wharncliffe), M. P. for Bossiney in Cornwall. The three latter gentlemen are upon a tour in this country from England, and we are happy to learn, that they have expressed themselves as being highly gratified with all they have hitherto seen in Canada."--(_Canadian Review_, 1824.)

Quebecers will be pleased to learn that the name of Sir Peregrine Maitland is pleasantly preserved by means of Maitland Scholarships in a grammar school for natives at Madras, and by a Maitland Prize in the University of Cambridge. Sir Peregrine, as patron of education, opened an era of progress which his successors Lords Elgin, Dufferin and Lorne have continued in a most munificent manner.

A curious glimpse of high life at Quebec, in the good old days of Lord Dalhousie, is furnished in a letter addressed to _Delta_, of Blackwood's Magazine, by John Galt, the novelist, the respected father of our gifted statesman, Sir Alexander Tilloch Galt. [40]

The talented author of the "_Annals of the Parish_," after expatiating on the dangers he had that day incurred in crossing over from Levis to Quebec in a canoe, among the ice-floes, thus alludes to the winter amusements:--

QUEBEC, 22nd February, 1827.

MY DEAR SIR,--I am under very great obligations to you. A copy of the "Laird" having come to the castle from the New York publishers, Lady Dalhousie lent it to me. * * * I am much pleased with Quebec. It is at present filled with Highland regiments, in which I have many acquaintances and the hospitality of the other inhabitants is also unbounded, for the winter suspends all business, and pleasure is conducted as if it were business. The amateurs have a theatre, and I wrote a piece for them, in which a Londoner, a Glasgow merchant, an Irish girl, a Yankee family and a Highlander were introduced. It was adapted entirely to the place, and in quiz of a very agreeable custom --of everybody calling on strangers. Dr. Dunlop performed the Highlander beyond anything I ever saw on the regular stage. The whole went off with more laughter than anything I have ever seen, for the jokes being local and personal (supplied by upwards of thirty contributors), every one told with the utmost effect."

"This farce, says Delta, composed at Quebec by J. Galt, and performed there before the Earl of Dalhousie (then Governor-General), was named "The Visitors, or a Trip to Quebec," and was meant as a good humoured satire on some of the particular usages of the place. An American family figured as the visitors, and the piece opened with a scene in an hôtel, when a waiter brings in a tea-tray loaded with cards of callers, and the explanation of the initials having had reference to people, many of whom were present at the performance, tended much to make the thing pass off with great éclat. It seems that a custom prevails there to a punctilious extent, of all the inhabitants of a certain grade calling upon strangers and leaving their cards.

"This flash of harmless lightning, however, assumed somewhat of a malignant glare when seen from the United States. The drift of the performance was, it seems, hideously misrepresented by some of the newspapers, and it was said that Mr. Galt had ungratefully ridiculed the Americans, notwithstanding the distinction and hospitality with which they had received him. It thus came to pass that he promised, when next in New York, to write another farce, in which liberty as great should be taken with his own countrymen. "An Aunt in Virginia" was the product of this promise, and with the alterations mentioned and a change of scene from New York to London, it was published under the name of "Scotch and Yankees.""

A volume would not suffice to detail the brilliant receptions, gay routs, _levees_, state balls given at the Castle during Lord Dorchester's administration--the lively discussions--the formal protests originating out of points of precedence, burning _questions de jupons_ between the touchy magnates of the old and those of the new _regime_. Whether la Baronne de St. Laurent would be admitted there or not? Whether a de Longueuil's or a de Lanaudière's place was on the right of Lady Maria, the charming consort of His Excellency Lord Dorchester--a daughter of the great English Earl of Effingham? Whether dancing ought to cease when their Lordships the Bishops entered, and made their bow to the representative of royalty? Unfortunately Quebec had then no Court Journal, so that following generations will have but faint ideas of all the witchery, the stunning head-dresses, the _décolletées_, high-waisted robes of their stately grandmothers, whirled round in the giddy waltz by whiskered, épauletted cavaliers, or else courtesying in the demure _menuet de la cour_.

In August, 1796, when Isaac Weld, Jr., visited Quebec, he describes the old part of the château as chiefly taken up with the public offices, all the apartments in it, says he, "are small and ill-contrived; but in the new part (Haldimand Castle) which stands in front of the other, facing the square (the ring), they are spacious and tolerably well furnished, but none of them can be called elegant. This part is inhabited by the Governor's family. * * * * Every evening during summer, when the weather is fine, one of the regiments of the garrison parades in the open place before the château, and the band plays for an hour or two, at which time the place becomes the resort of numbers of the most genteel people of the town, and has a very gay appearance." (_Weld's Travels through the States of North America in_ 1795-6-7, vol. 1, p. 351)

In 1807, when the deadly duel between England and Imperial France was at its height, Great Britain sent New France as her Viceroy, a military Governor, equally remarkable for the sternness of his rule and for his love of display, hence the name of "Little King Craig," awarded to Sir James Craig. To meet his requirements the House of Assembly voted in 1808, a sum of £7,000 to repair the Château St. Louis. Sir James took up his quarters in the interim, in Castle Haldimand. The Château St. Louis received an additional story and was much enlarged. In 1812 an additional sum of £7,980 19s 4d was voted to cover the deficit in the repairs. Little King Craig inhabited Château St. Louis during the winters of 1809-10-11, occupying Spencer Wood during the summer months. The _Château_ stables were subsequently converted into a riding school, afterwards into a theatre, where the exhibition of Harrison's Diorama caused the awful tragedy of 12th June, 1846. [41] The Earl of Durham, in 1838, struck with the commanding position of this site, had the charred ruins of the old Château removed and erected a lofty platform which soon was called after him "Durham Terrace."

In 1851-2-3-4, Haldimand Castle was repaired at a cost of $13,718.42. In 1854, Hon. Jean Chabot, member for Quebec and Commissioner of Public Works, had Durham Terrace much enlarged; the adjoining walls were repaired at an expense of $4,209.92. More expenditure was incurred in 1857. When the Laval Normal School was installed there, Bishop Langevin, then Principal, had the wing erected where the chapel stands. The vaulted room used as a kitchen for the Laval Normal School, was an old powder magazine; it is the most ancient portion of the building. The present Castle was, by Order in Council of 14th February, 1871, transferred by the Dominion authorities to the Government of the Province of Quebec, together with Durham Terrace, the Sewell Mansion, facing the Esplanade (Lieutenant- Governor's office), also, the site and buildings of the Parliament House, on Mountain Hill.

The extension of this lofty and beautiful Terrace, suggested to the City Council by the City Engineer in his report of 1872, necessarily formed a leading feature in the splendid scheme of city improvements, originated by the Earl of Dufferin, with the assistance of Mr. Lynn, an eminent Irish engineer, and of our City Engineer, le Chevalier Baillairge. An appeal was made by a true and powerful friend to Quebec (Lord Dufferin) to our gracious Sovereign, who contributed munificently from her private purse, for the erection of the new gate, called after her late father, the Duke of Kent--Kent Gate, in remembrance of his long sojourn (1791-4) in this city. Large sums were also granted by the Dominion, it is thought, chiefly through the powerful influence of Lord Dufferin, seconded by Sir H. L. Langevin; an appeal was also made for help to the City Council and not in vain; it responded by a vote of $7,500.

The front wall was built at the expense of the Dominion Government, and occupies part of the site of the old battery, erected on that portion of the château garden granted to Major Samuel Holland in 1766.

The length of Dufferin Terrace is 1420 feet, and it is 182 feet above the level of the St. Lawrence. It forms part of the city fortifications. The site can be resumed by the Commander of the Forces (the Governor-General) whenever he may deem it expedient for objects within the scope of his military authority.

Durham Terrace, increased to four times its size, now forms a link in the Dufferin plans of city embellishment, of which the corner stone was laid by the Earl of Dufferin on the 18th October, 1878, and was authentically recognized as "Dufferin Terrace" in April and May, 1879, in the official records of the City Council; several iron plates were inserted in the flooring with the inscription, "_Dufferin Terrace, H. Hatch, contractor, C. Baillairge, engineer._" But a famous name of the past, which many loved to connect with this spot--that of Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac, was not forgotten. The Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, on the 18th April, 1879, presented to the City Council a petition, asking among other things, that one of the handsome kiosks on the Terrace should bear the name of Frontenac; their prayer was granted, and by a resolution moved on 9th May, 1879, by Mr. P. Johnson, C.C., and seconded by Alderman Rhéaume, the five kiosks of Dufferin Terrace were named _Victoria, Louise, Lorne, Frontenac, Plessis_.

It is the site of the present Normal School, adjacent to this historic spot, which has been selected for the palatial hotel in contemplation.