finding themselves cramped in their old abode, began in 1684 the
construction of a new seigniorial and chapter house, of one hundred and
seventy-eight feet frontage by eighty-four feet deep. These vast
buildings, whose main façade faces on Notre-Dame Street, in front of the
Place d'Armes, still exist. They deserve the attention of the tourist,
if only by reason of their antiquity, and on account of the old clock
which surmounts them, for though it is the most ancient of all in North
America, this clock still marks the hours with average exactness. Behind
these old walls extends a magnificent garden.

The spectacle presented by Ville-Marie at this time was most edifying.
This great village was the school of martyrdom, and all aspired thereto,
from the most humble artisan and the meanest soldier to the brigadier,
the commandant, the governor, the priests and the nuns, and they found
in this aspiration, this faith and this hope, a strength and happiness
known only to the chosen. From the bosom of this city had sprung the
seventeen heroes who gave to the world, at the foot of the Long Sault, a
magnificent example of what the spirit of Christian sacrifice can do; to
a population which gave of its own free will its time and its labour to
the building of a temple for the Lord, God had assigned a leader, who
took upon his shoulders a heavy wooden cross, and bore it for the
distance of a league up the steep flanks of Mount Royal, to plant it
solemnly upon the summit; within the walls of the seminary lived men
like M. Souart, physician of hearts and bodies, or like MM. Lemaître and
Vignal, who were destined to martyrdom; in the halls of the hospital
Mlle. Mance vied with Sisters de Brésoles, Maillet and de Macé, in
attending to the most repugnant infirmities or healing the most tedious
maladies; last but not least, Sister Bourgeoys and her pious comrades,
Sisters Aimée Chatel, Catherine Crolo, and Marie Raisin, who formed the
nucleus of the Congregation, devoted themselves with unremitting zeal to