Old Québec, Canada | The French connection

Excusez-moi, où est le Notre Dame?” I asked an old man in a beret in my best French, waving a map in front of him so that it was absolutely clear that it was directions I was after and not loose change.

My husband Maulik and I had just polished off huge bowls of lait au chocolat at a red-roofed café on Rue du Petit Champlain, and were now walking down the crowded cobblestone street in search of the Notre Dame.

Earlier, when we had arrived at the Aéroport Jean Lesage, we had been greeted by les arrivées and les departs signs. The old cab driver, who helped us with our luggage, doffed his cap and wished us bonjour—he spoke no English. It could well have been a perfect Parisian day, except that we were more than 3,500 miles from France.

Maulik and I had just flown into Québec City, Canada. This was far from our expectations of the city, even though we knew Canada was a francophone country.

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Old Québec is the historic neighbourhood of Québec. It lies sprawled across two levels. The Upper Town, encircled by 17th century walls, overlooks the glittering St Lawrence River from its perch atop a 200ft-high cliff called Cap Diamant, while the Lower Town lies at its foot.

As we strolled down the leafy Rue Ste-Anne, we saw restored 17th and 18th century stone buildings towering over tiny B&Bs, al fresco restaurants and souvenir stores. A few minutes away, vivid landscapes of Québec and watercolours depicting battles hung in stalls on either side of Rue du Trésor, the street of artists. A horse-drawn carriage clip-clopped down Rue St Louis, carrying a laughing young family. At Place D’Armes, the majestic Chateau Frontenac, one of the world’s most photographed hotels, gleamed in the sun, its famous green copper roof visible from miles away.

At Terrasse Dufferin, the boardwalk in front of the Chateau Frontenac, we took the cable car to the Lower Town, and arrived at the intersection of Rue Sous-le-Fort and Rue Petit Champlain—a jumble of artists’ galleries, handicraft stores and coffee shops.

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A few decades later, fur came into fashion, becoming a status symbol among the European gentry. The demand for felt hats, especially those made of beaver pelts, was high, but there were no beavers in Europe. Canada, however, had fur in abundance. When the French crown realized that there was great profit to be made from this fur trade, it eyed its distant colony with new-found interest.

To take control of the fur trade, a group of French pioneers led by cartographer Samuel de Champlain landed in Canada in 1608 and chose Québec City as their capital. Québec remained in the hands of the French for over a century, even though the French had numerous and frequent battles with the British. Eventually, in 1759, the English triumphed on the Plains of Abraham at Québec City and in 1763, Canada landed in the hands of the British.

The British tried hard to anglicize the French, framing discriminatory policies like not allowing Roman Catholics (who were almost entirely French) to vote and hold office. But the Québecois were a proud people and clung fiercely to their French heritage and Gallic traditions. Soon, the British, who were struggling to quell uprisings by the aboriginal tribes, realized that it was more valuable to win the allegiance of the French than to antagonize them. They passed the Québec Act of 1774, which allowed them the right to their religion and language, among other things.

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The Église Notre-Dame des Victoires turned out to be a modest stone church with a pointed roof, tall spire and incongruously, a brown boat suspended from its white and gold ceiling. This was apparently an offering brought in by early settlers praying for a safe journey.

There was to be a wedding in the church that afternoon and I thought it might be fun to see the wedding party in all its finery.

I stood outside the church, reading a plaque. What a fascinating tale it had to tell! Built in 1688, the church was originally dedicated to l’Enfant-Jésus. However, in 1690, after the French won the Battle of Québec against the English, its name was changed to Notre Dame de la Victoire—Our Lady of Victory—to commemorate the French triumph. In 1711, it was renamed yet again after bad weather sunk a British war fleet—this time it was called Notre Dame Des Victoires, the plural emphasizing the second triumph for the French.

Then, in 1759, the British were allowed their revenge. A large section of the church was destroyed by bombardment in the final war with the French. Restored again in 1816, the church stands serenely, today, receiving believers from around the world, witness to more baptisms than bombardments, and more weddings than wars, looking towards the future, yet fiercely proud of its past.

After we’d watched the bride enter the church on the arm of her father, we strolled over to a nearby farmer’s market. As we walked past the stalls, admiring the delicate bottles of maple syrup, home-made fruit preserves, locally produced wines and strings of fresh garlic hanging beside fresh-baked bread, we found ourselves amazed, but no longer surprised that we thought these looked like they had just arrived from a village in the French countryside.

Meeti Shroff Shah is a copywriter based in Mumbai.