er again be enacted in the
history of the world--dreamers dreaming greatly, building a castle of
dreams, a fortress of holiness in the very center of wilderness
barbarity and cruelty unspeakable. The multitudinous voices of traffic
shriek where the crusaders' hymn rose that May night. A great city has
risen on the foundations which these dreamers laid. Let us not scoff
too loudly at their mystic visions and religious rhapsodies! Another
generation may scoff at our too-much-worldliness, with our dreamless
grind and visionless toil and harder creeds that reject everything
which cannot be computed in the terms of traffic's dollar! Well for us
if the fruit of our creeds remain to attest as much worth as the deeds
of these crusaders!

Early next morning the boats pulled in ashore where Cartier had landed
one hundred years before and Champlain had built his factory thirty
years ago. Maisonneuve was first to spring on land. He dropped to his
knees in prayer. The others as {78} they landed did likewise. Their
hymns floated out on the forest. Madame de la Peltrie, Jeanne Mance,
and the servant, Charlotte Barre, quickly decorated a wildwood altar
with evergreens. Then, with Montmagny the Governor, and Maisonneuve
the soldier, standing on either side, Madame de la Peltrie and Jeanne
Mance and Charlotte Barre, bowed in reverence, with soldiers and
sailors standing at rest unhooded, Father Vimont held the first
religious services at Mont Royal. "You are a grain of mustard seed,"
he said, "and you shall grow till your branches overshadow the earth."

Maisonneuve cut the first tree for the fort; and a hundred legends
might be told of the little colony's pioneer trials. Once a flood
threatened the existence of the fort. A cross was erected to stay the
waters and a vow made if Heaven would save the fort a cross should be
carried and placed on the summit of the mountain. The river abated,
and Maisonneuve climbed the steep mountain, staggering under the weight
of an enormous cross, and planted it at the highest point. Here, in
the presence of all, mass was held, and it became a regular pilgrimage
from the fort up the mountain to the cross.

In 1743 came Louis d'Ailleboust and his wife, both zealously bound by
the same vows as devotees, bringing word of more funds for Ville Marie,
as Montreal was called. Montmagny's warning of Iroquois proved all too
true. Within a year, in June, 1743, six workmen were beset in the
f