OF QUEBEC.




PREFACE.


How can we care for shadows and types, when we may go back through
history and live again with people who actually lived?

Sitting on the height which is now topped by a Martello tower, at St.
John in the maritime province of New Brunswick, I saw--not the opposite
city, not the lovely bay; but this tragedy of Marie de la Tour, the
tragedy "which recalls" (says the Abbé Casgrain in his "Pèlerinage au
pays d'Evangéline") "the romances of Walter Scott, and forces one to own
that reality is stranger than fiction."

In "Papers relating to the rival chiefs, D'Aulnay and La Tour," of the
Massachusetts Historical Collection, vol. vii., may be found these
prefatory remarks:--

"There is a romance of History as well as a History of Romance. To the
former class belong many incidents in the early periods of New England
and its adjacent colonies. The following papers ... refer to two
persons, D'Aulnay and La Tour, ... individuals of respectable intellect
and education, of noble families and large fortune. While the first was
a zealous and efficient supporter of the Roman Church, the second was
less so, from his frequent connection with others of a different faith.
The scene of their ... prominent actions, their exhibition of various