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Updated: June 16, 2025
A single pointed window, narrowly encased in the thick wall, illuminated with a pale ray of January sun two grotesque figures, the capricious demon of stone carved as a tail-piece in the keystone of the vaulted ceiling, and the judge seated at the end of the hall on the fleurs-de-lis.
At the farther extremity of the town, and at a bend in the road, which branched off more immediately towards the river, stood a small public house, whose creaking sign bore three ill executed fleurs-de-lis, apologetic emblems of the arms of France.
Then, clasping in his nerveless hand the baton, ornamented with its fleurs-de-lis, he cast on it his eyes, which had no longer the power of looking upwards towards Heaven, and fell back, murmuring strange words, which appeared to the soldiers cabalistic words which had formerly represented so many things on earth, and which none but the dying man any longer comprehended: "Athos Porthos, farewell till we meet again!
When the fleurs-de-lis of the Bourbons fluttered down from the ramparts of Quebec on September 18, 1759, a new era in the history of Canadian feudalism began. The new British government promptly allayed the fears of the conquered people by promising that all vested rights should be respected and that 'the lords of manors' should continue in possession of all their ancient privileges.
At the most critical hour of the whole war a British fleet, crippled and spiritless, was hurrying to a protecting port and the fleurs-de-lis waved unchallenged on the American coast. The action of Graves spelled the doom of Cornwallis. The most potent fleet ever gathered in those waters cut him off from rescue by sea.
Passing through the gates, above which floated the fleurs-de-lis of France, they found themselves in an enclosure, some two acres in extent, containing thirty houses and a small church. On the bastions stood in a conspicuous position two small brass cannon, captured from the English at Fort Albany on Hudson Bay, in 1686, by De Troyes and Iberville.
The lions in the red quatrefoils, and the fleurs-de-lis in the alternate blue spaces, correspond in every possible way in form, colour, and ground with those of the royal arms of England and of France. Dating, as they almost certainly do, from the fourteenth century, they remind us of the attempts of Edward III. and his brave son to unite both realms under his sway.
So beautiful is he that he has smitten with love all the most virtuous ladies, whose passion has many times blazed out in the public theatre. Seated in a body on the benches of the boxes have been seen those who are commonly seen only in gilded chamber and on the seat with the fleurs-de-lis.
Preceding the Queen were the Prince de Conti and the Comte d'Anquien; while immediately before her walked the Dauphin clad in a habit of cloth of silver, profusely ornamented with precious stones; and then came Marie herself, in the full glory of conscious dignity and triumph, wearing a coronet of jewels, a richly-gemmed stomacher, a surcoat of ermine, and a royal mantle seven French ells in length, composed of purple velvet embroidered with fleurs-de-lis in gold and diamonds, and bordered with ermine, which was borne on either side of her by the two Cardinals, and at its extremity by the Dowager Princess of Condé, the Princesse de Conti, the Dowager Duchess of Montpensier, and the Duchesse de Mercoeur; whose trains were in like manner supported by four nobles habited in cloth of gold and silver, and covered with jewels.
Turn your thoughts there, sire, and in a few years you would be able to stand upon your citadel at Quebec, and to say there is one great empire here from the snows of the North to the warm Southern Gulf, and from the waves of the ocean to the great plains beyond Marquette's river, and the name of this empire is France, and her king is Louis, and her flag is the fleurs-de-lis."
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