ts us I have tried to put together
from scattered fragments the story long forgotten of the past of
Malbaie. In it there is abundance of the tragedy never remote from
man's life: if the telling of the tale has been a pleasure it has proved
not less a sad pleasure. But the story adds only a deeper meaning to our
beautiful playground. After all it is man and his activities which give
to nature's scenes their deepest interest; Quebec's chief charm is due
to Wolfe and Montcalm, St. Helena's to Napoleon. The shaggy mountain
crests which we view from our valley, the glistening blue river, the
strong north-east wind which clouds the sky, turns the river to grey,
and sprinkles its surface with white caps,--all are full for us of
joyous beauty. But how much less of interest would there be did the
white spire of the village church not peep out above the green trees up
the bay to tell of man's weakness and his hopes! The story of the brave
old soldier who peopled this valley, the pathetic tragedy of his
successor's fate, add something here to the bloom of nature. It may be
that the chief service of the chequered and half-forgotten past when it
speaks is to show how vain and transient is all we think and
plan,--"what shadows we are and what shadows we pursue." But be it so.
One would not miss from life this last joy of knowing what it really
means.

AUTHORITIES

CHAPTER I.--For Jacques Cartier see his Voyages of 1535-36, in
French (Ed. D'Avezac) Paris, 1863, translated into English (Ed. Baxter),
New York, 1906. For Champlain see his Oeuvres (Ed. Laverdiere) Quebec,
1870. Bourdon's Act of Faith and Homage is in Canadian Archives, Series
M., Vol. I, p. 387. M. B. Sulte gives an account of the Carignan
Regiment in the Proc. and Trans. of the Royal Society of Canada for
1902. The account of the Sieur de Comporte in France is in Canadian
Archives Series B., F., 213, p. 46; that of the auction sale of his
property is in a MS. preserved at Murray Bay, while a record of the sale
of Malbaie to the government is in Canadian Archives, Series M., Vol.
LXV, p. 75. "The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents" (Ed. Thwaites)
(Cleveland, 1900), Vol. LXIX., pp. 80 _sqq._ contains the account of
Malbaie in 1750. The authority for the burning of Malbaie in 1759 is Sir
James M. Le Moine, "The Explorations of Jonathan Oldbuck," Quebec, 1889,
based upon documents printed by "T.C." in _L'Abeille_, Nov. and Dec.,
1859. Standard histories of the t