As my flight to Montreal lifted off the deck at Dulles airport,I said my customary Act of Contrition and a prayer for safe returnto my lovely wife. But temptation was just over the border. For me,the Province of Québec is a near occasion of sin.
Spanning the sacred through the profane, my sinfulinclinations encompass an over-indulgence in the beauty ofLa Nouvelle-France's churches,basilicas, countryside, waterfalls, the St. Lawrence River, itsfood and wine, architecture and the population's general air ofinsouciance amidst the English-speaking masses of NorthAmerica.
There are a lot of pretty women there in trendy clothesinspired by Parisian fashion, although the colder climate, even inSeptember, lends to the style and cut of their clothes a certainsolidity which only a Canadian winter can infuse into a designer'simagination.
Québec, je t'aime!
While QuébecCity is the jewel of North America and thefoundation of French Canada thanks to the tenacity of the greatman, Champlain, I do love Montreal,my destination on this business trip. I sometimes refer to it, injest, as Chicago in French. It is the largest city in the provinceand the second largest in Canada. It is approaching 4 millionpeople in its broader metropolitan area. The downtown is a forestof skyscrapers.
But what enthralls visitors, this one included, isLe VieuxMontréal,nestled alongside the St. Lawrence, with cobblestone streets andgreystone structures all about. While one must dodge the usualassortment of tourist traps, the shops, restaurants and the crowdsare great fun. The neighborhood, typical of old cities, wasdesigned for the walker rather than an automobile.
Having arrived in town mid-day on a Sunday before mymeeting, I was able to attend Mass at the gloriously gothicBasilique deNotre Dame with its twin towers, Temperanceand Perseverance, towering over the Place d'Armes. Itsaltaris enveloped by a wonderfully sculpted polychrome wood withgold leaf.
The basilica's acoustics are magnificent, and it has oneof the largest and most imposing organs one can find anywhere inNorth America. At the conclusion of services, during and after thepriest's procession out of the sanctuary, the organist let it ripwith an impressive baroque piece, utilizing the full range andvolume of his instrument. He was rewarded by hearty applause fromthe congregation, something I normally do not approve of in church-- but there are exceptions to every rule, oui?
To the left of the altar, there is also a small, charmingstatue of St. Joan of Arc, one of my heroines of choice, as she wasfor Mark Twain. One of the best books I ever read was thehistorical novel, An Army of Angels by Pamela Marcantel,based on the latest scholarship on one of the most remarkablepersons in the history of Western Europe. It is a gripping, movingstory of a young girl, a religious mystic and a leader of men, whoturned the tide against the English, was betrayed, burned at thestake and, ultimately, canonized hundreds of years later. Theauthor kindly provides a helpful note in which she reveals the fewinstances where she might have taken artistic license with thehistorical record or even the Saint's description ofevents.
Actually attending religious services in a Catholic Churchin Montreal was encouraging. My sense on past visits to the regionwas that the churches are more museums than thriving houses ofworship. Québec is very much like Europein this regard. A historic, even extreme clericalism has generatedvarious stages of anti-clericalism and secularism. One mustappreciate the salutary nature of James Madison's First Amendmentin avoiding the perverse dialectic of established churches yieldingresentment and hostility to religion per se in the UnitedStates.
My wife and I once attended a sparsely populated Mass atan English-speaking parish in QuébecCity. The priest and the nuns in attendance fawned all over us asif they were waiters in a five-star restaurant. By that I mean,they were extremely hospitable and welcoming as if they appreciatedthe solidarity we displayed simply showing up. In fairness, beingEnglish-speaking may have been as much of a problem for that churchas was the secularism of the age.
Seeing a living, praying congregation attending to thesacrament was an unexpected pleasure on this trip to Le Mont duRoi.
When I wasn't praying or meeting, I was eating. This is,after all, French Canada. I will not bore the reader witha plethora of details as to my consumption habits. But it is hardto find a bad meal in Québec provinceunless you dine at an American chain restaurant.
There are reasons for my Francophilia. I grew up in St.Louis near the confluence of the nation's great rivers, theMissouri and the Mississippi. Captain Joseph La Barge (1815-1899),my ancestor, on my mother's side, piloted steamboats between St.Louis and Fort Benton, Montana. The historian of the MissouriRiver, Hiram Martin Chittenden claimed that "He was on the firstboat that went to the far upper river, and he made the last throughvoyage from St. Louis to Fort Benton." The great Audubon, anotherperson of French heritage, was among his many passengers. Histithe, so to speak, was in the form of free transport for theJesuit missionaries heading for the territories.
The upper reaches of the great river are no longernavigable due to the many dams erected pursuant to the FloodControl Act of 1944. However, at Fort Benton, Montana you will finda promontory overlooking the river named after Captain LaBarge.
Letter to the Editor
G. Tracy Mehan, III served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the administrations of both Presidents Bush. He is a consultant in Arlington, Virginia, and an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law.
Sacre Bleu !
You remember zee burglar of Banf-f-f, no?
I lived most of my life within an hour from Montreal. While itdoesn't rival Paris in terms of its old-world grandeur, it remains- and will always be - my favorite city. It's a tremendous mix ofhistory and modernity. One can roam its many cultural enclaves forweeks, each one offering the sights and sounds of its roots.
Space limits enumeration of even a fraction of the paletteoffered in this magnificent city.
And don't get me started on the hockey!
I guess being half Quebecois makes my opinion ratherprejudiced.... :-)
Get there. Revel in it. Canada is not America's Hat. It's abeautiful country with a rich heritage.
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"Canada is not America's Hat."
Tell that to more of the guys at AS.
I like the French alot even w/their socialistic tendencies.Having been to France a couple of times, I can attest that theFrench are a group of people who like what they like & who knowwho they are which includes being very kind people. There's nomiddle ground w/them or wishy-washiness. You know where theystand.
This piece almost closes the gap in the circle, or bridges thedistance between Olde Louisiana and New France. Were it not for theFrench and Indian/7 Years Wars neither place would be as they arenow. The one over riding truth about both is the decay of theirCatholicity brought on by the political fallout from bothcontinents. Throne and Altar along with noblesse oblige aresupplanted by cohorts, pressure groups, and sue thy neighbor. As aresult it's really thin on the ground down by the Gravois under theAnheuser Busch. And the River des Peres Yacht Club is no more. Theone French attribute prevalent here is the lack of vision andambition they call malaise.
Yes, once you master their use of the double entendre you may beon safe ground understanding where a french person stands....;)
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