L'Ange-Gardien, Montmorency, Québec, Canada
1882-84 - L'Ange-Gardien

L'Ange Gardien lies just beyond the famous Falls of Montmorency. Set in trees on the slope of the hills, which here grow close on the river, and standing high over the north channel, the village commands an exquisite view, the placid beauty of which makes "The Guardian Angel" a most appropriate name. The spot has not always had such peaceful associations. Wolfe's troops, those "Eraser's Highlanders" who afterwards turned their swords into ploughshares so effectually that their descendants at Murray Bay and Kamouraska are French even to having forgotten their fathers' language, ravaged this parish and Chateau Richer from one end to the other, destroyed all the crops, and burned almost every house. There is little trace of the devastation now, except in the stories that old habitans have heard their elders tell. Two quaint little chapels stand one on each side, a few arpens from the parish church. They were originally intended for mortuary chapels during the winter, when the frost prevents graves being dug, and for use at the celebration of the "Fete Dieu" or "Corpus Christi" in June, the procession going to one or the other in alternate years. On these occasions, they would be gay with flowers, flags, and evergreens. Beside one of them is the little plot used for the burial of heretics, excommunicated persons, and unbaptized infants. There is always such a corner in every village cemetery, never a large one, for the people are too good Catholics not to have an intense dread of lying in unconsecrated ground, and too charitable to consign strangers to the fate they fear for themselves. The chapel farthest down the river is now a consecrated shrine of Notre Dame de Lourdes. Before the statue of our Lady burns a perpetual light, and she divides with La Bonne Ste. Anne de Beaupre the devotions of thousands of pilgrims annually.

Picturesque Canada: The Country as it was and is Lucius Richard O'Brien, Publisher - J. Clarke, 1882

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