Oh smallness of my race! I am not astonished any more that my brothers, on earth, do not glorify you any 
more, where memory languishes and dies; why then, glorify myself about  it, up there in heaven,
where desires expressed themselves without any constraint? You are in reality, only a loving romance 
who turns bad very quickly, unless you add to it, day after day, an act of love or a brilliant action. 

I thus started to address him politely, by using the word "thou" which is not any more 
in usage today and which preserved from familiarity; also Jeanne, who was a little distant, 
started laughing, as if she still had the capacity to make fun at me. 

I spoke as follows: 
"Thou are my ancestor, and I am full of boldness, in front of thou, to speak to thou; thou raise me so high,
 that I rise above myself. My soul is filled of joy and very merry of being able to support it without 
weakening. Thus say to me, oh my  beloved ancestor, who where thou ancestors, and since how many years are thou born; 
speak to me about the cradle of these ancestors, who are also mine, of their notoriety, and whom of these 
heroes were worthy to be, on the Champs de Mars, cast in solid bronze." 

As becomes animated, the fire of the hearth under the action of the wind , thus I saw this light,
 resplendent to my affectionate words, he became so beautiful to my eyes when, 
with a soft  and suave voice and in its ancient dialect, he says to me: 
"Since the day when the first Ave was pronounced, until the day when my mother,
 God save her soul, was delivered from me of whom she was pregnant, this star 
has returned four hundred and sixty six times to the constellation of the Virgin, to shine 
such as a flame under his feet. My ancestors and me were born at the place where the Roi-Soleil 
has lived and today, they pretend not to have memory any more. 
Of my ancestors I  will not tell you any more; who they were and from where they returned, 
defeated, it is more convenient not to speak about it.  All those who, in those time, with Cartier, 
had the audacity to face the earth that God gave to Caïen, were only the thousandths of those 
who live there today; borned from the blood of the Indian women and the seed of the "coureur des bois", 
the race, who claimed to be pure, was transformed up to the last settler. 
To those who believed they where invested by God with the capacity to control the world, 
the knight king  answered as follows: "the sun shine for me as for the others", and 
"I would like to see the clause of the will of Adam who excludes me from the division of the world."

 Oh! how it would be better that the people of whom I speak, were still so worthy, and that, rather than to
shrink them, your borders were always from Louisbourg to the Lake Superior, from the long Mississippi 
to the remote Hudson Bay to which you have refused your own name; I see there, rather those who,
 to hang you, have already their eye  well opened, to transform what remains 
of your walls and your souls, into stables of Augias! 

If this race who conspire more in the world had been worthy of Maisonneuve, then had been 
full of audacity, like can be a son in spite of his mother, such who, to-day, becomed a monrealist, 
practice the exchange and the trade, would have not returned back, sheltered by the citadels 
of his Capital, where his father does make nothing more then begging, and where one does speak 
about nothing more than about diseases, infirmities and misfortunes.
 
He could contemplate without decency, the panorama from the top of the mountain which is royal,
 from one river to another, from the thousand islands to the islands of the large river and even beyond, 
of which all the parishes would be subjected to him although their faith be elsewhere. 

It is always the excess in the words which was the origin of the evils of my city, like is for the spirit, 
an alcoolic beverage taken in excess; as a blind nation disapears more quickly than a blind bird, 
and only one lie is enough to convince more than many lies. If you consider how Sodome and Gomorrhe 
disappeared, and how Troy, Carthage and Baghdad were gone after them, it will not appeared strange nor difficult 
to you to hear how my city dies out, as much as the nations lose their soul. All the terrestrial things 
have an end; but that is hardly known by the man who has such a short life, 
as much as whom replaces  him, who has a too short sight. 


And as well as the sky of the Moon covers and discovers unceasingly the shores, thus Fortune
 is playing with Ville-Marie; also it should not appear astonishing, what I will say of the great Heroes, 
whose glory is erased today by that of the new heralds gossipers  and cowards, who slowly weave 
the fabric of their venal glory on the benches of the National Assembly.

 I still remind them inventing the "canadian dream", I saw them sharing the mirage of the 
"passage to the North-West towards Cathay and the Indes Orientales" 
but, I see them again forgetting their dreams, because as of to-day, time is missing to them to dream; 
I saw Richelieu, governing the vast country of Nouvelle-France from "Florida to the Artic Circle"; 
I seek in vain through his sons, the spirit of the founder of the company of the Cent Associés, 
because they are frozen in the ices of the far North or are hidden in the sands of the beaches of Florida; 
I saw the crusadors of Montreal fight against winter, against the English, against the iroquois 
armed by the Dutchmen of New Amsterdam; I saw Montmagny, the chevalier de Malte, reappropriate
 the trade of the furs,  allying with the Huron to drive out the iroquois canoes from the waters of the long 
Richelieu; I saw Pierre Boucher and his canadians obtain the support of the great king Louis XIV, 
to make of this country "a kingdom larger and more beautiful than that of France",
 since in these times, "the canadian houses were full of newborns kids".

 I saw them, quite as virtuous as loving, the "filles du Roi", pupils of the great Colbert, 
unloaded from the squadrons of the "company of the Indes Occidentales", to come and marry, 
without losing there own freedom, the cause of the discoverer and the settler; but what happens to
 their descendants, I who is seeking in vain for them among their survivors?

I saw Dollard des Ormeaux, at Long Sault, tortured, to preserve my city from torture;
I saw Jolliet and Marquette marching across Michigan,  explore the area of Chicago 
and face the Illinois, then  pushing far out to the mouth of the long Mississippi;
 I saw sieur Cavalier de LaSalle, in Cataracoui, offer the peace of the great Ononthio to the iroquois; 
I saw Louis Hébert, Lauzon, Tracy, Talon, Lévis and how many others 
of whom, so many Acadian who kney how to defeat space, time and deportation.

 I saw Radisson and Des Groseillers offer to the King who refused them, 
the virgin lands from the Mississippi to the Hudson Bay; 
 I saw them establishing there, trading posts for  the sole profit of the king of England.

 I saw, left from Montreal, the chevalier Pierre de Troyes, accompanied by Pierre LeMoyne d'Iberville 
and one hundred brave men, going up the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa river, to reach the Hudson Bay, 
and take by storm the forts of Monsipi, Rupert and Albany, and only leave fort Bourbon to the English, 
and bring back the English flag and offer it in ex-voto to the sanctuary of Saint-Anne-de-Beaupré. 

I saw Pierre Gaultier de Varennes sieur de La Vérendry, commanding the posts of lake Nipigon,
at the head of the Compagnie des Sioux, push towards the west and the Pacific, the dreams of 
governor Beauharnois beyond the inland seas, to discover there, the way that leads to China. 



I saw Champlain, d'Argenson, Montmagny; I saw Roberval , Nicolet, Brulé, Hertel, LaViolette, 
and, I saw Jeanne Mance, Marguerite Bourgeois and Marie de l'Incarnation,
 I saw them as forgotten to-day as they were, then, famous heroes.

 I saw disappearing from memories, all these "coureurs des bois", all these adventurers who traced the borders 
of an empire, by defying the clerical power, to change, by time, in "feluettes", in disciples of the new clergy
to whom we owe the "shrinkage" of a nation who was, in his time, rude but proud. 

I saw Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, as brave as pious, throwing the bases of my city, and which, for 
only reward for this "insane enterprise", was gratified of "the honor to serve God and the king"; 
to those, as those of today who procastrinate and hide and dissuade him, he would have answered: 
"I came to carry out, not to deliberate. The Company which send me having determined that I will go to
 Hochelaga to establish a colony, it is of my duty to go there, and you will find it good that I go there,
 when all the trees of this island should change into as many Iroquois."

I saw Madeleine, the Virgin at Verchères, helped by two soldiers and fearful servants, hold against the Indian
and preserve from rape, my city and her virginity; and I saw, as great as they were ancient, 
those of Carillon, those of Acadia, as well as those of Louisbourg than those of Port-Royal. 

Close to the ramparts of my city, charge, from now on, of a new felony so heavy that 
it will make soon sink its boat and its Prince, were the ministries and their planners, 
and all those who regain, later, the name of 
top civil servants of the State. 

Those of Quebec believed already,  knowing how one governs; as Champlain could, from his home, 
 handle  the tiara as well as the sword. 
 
 But those of Paris, who believed they know how to govern,
 forgot to save the stables believing they were preserving, that way,  the castle from fire.
 But who then was entitled to the "cane with the golden pommel" if not Phipps,
the admiral of the most opportunist  of the squadrons. 

The Nelson column was already quite high, as well as the epitaphs of Wolfe, Murray, Carleton, 
Lawrence, Galli, and all these who made grow, the fruit of the colony. The stock from where were born 
the winners, was already large, that already the Loyalists were entitled to the seats of the curia. 

Oh! how great I saw those who, were in their high acts, the flower of Ville Marie 
and who today, are burried in their servitude. 

Thus acts those who, every time your Parliament gossips, entangled 
and shrinked themselves by holding a referendum. 

Triumphant then, the insolent race, which avenged and persecuted those who do not want 
to believe, and softens as a lamb towards those who court them and fornicate with them, 
so that the conquest was transformed into providential benefit so that,
 it did not displease the Chanoine to compose this litany to the glory of the conquering nation: 
"I greet you, generous Nation...
 I greet you, industrious nation... 
I greet you, exemplary nation... 
I greet you, sympathizing nation... 
Forgive these first failures of a nation 
who did not have the happiness yet to know you... 
And if after the upheaval of the State, and the destruction of the true worship in France,
 it is still woven among us some rather blind spirits or rather 
badly intentioned, to maintain the same shadows, and to inspire to the people 
the criminal desire to turn over to its former Masters, 
do not attribute  to everybody, what is the vice of only a small number... " 

All those who carry the standards of the great conqueror whose name and the glory 
are celebrated at the Saint Patrick, accepted from him, ministries and privileges, 
although today are associated with the party of the strongest, the smallest among the small 
little guy from Shawinigan, and that he tries, without knowing to let himself understood, 
to speak for them, in their place and more loudly than them. 

The Loyalist   and the Ontarians plotted already with the Mohawks 
who had been more peaceful, if they had not been supported by these new allies. 
The party from which is born your misfortune, after the just rapatriation, 
which led you to the discord and which put an end to your harmonious life, 
was so much honoured, that you were guilty to flee his alliance on the councils of another! 

Many would be happy which are mourning, if the King had delivered you
 to the waters of the great river, the first time you came to my city. 
But it happens that, in its last days of peace, Ville Marie delivered its mutilated Flags, to these islands 
which where then called Sainte-Hélène, before one raises above the park of the Islands, 
the "Drapeau" to the worship of the soi-disant Great men. 

With its citizens and others that came, I saw my City of Marie in such a peace, that it did not have 
any more reason to lament itself; with those who governed it, I saw its people 
so glorious and so just, that never the "Fleur de lys" could ever, by the discord, 
become the Unifoliate, neither can be humiliated by the winning conspirators."(1)