Chalets and Chateaux
Chalets and châteaux, chapels, churches, and cathedrals line the road north from Québec City. Our path today on the trail of Rose Michaud takes us along the Beaupré Coast of the St. Lawrence River through towns and villages such as Chateau Richer and Ange-Gardien, where my great-great-(seven greats😊)-grandmother Marie lived with her father and stepmother until she married Pierre Michel-Micheau-Michaud in 1667.
All of these towns tell a story. But we are headed to Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, home of one of the best-known Catholic basilicas in Canada, a major shrine, and the oldest pilgrimage site in North America. It welcomes almost a million visitors annually. I’m one of them today.
“People travel to wonder…and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.” –St. Augustine
I’ve come here before but didn’t fully appreciate the place’s charm in the chill of winter. Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré reigns over a rolling agricultural country, dotted with chalets and cottages, farm plots and pastures. The foothills of the Laurentian Mountains unfold in the background. It’s lush and green now, though I guess you could call it majestic when hedged by snow-capped highlands.
The Cathedral
Also called Sainte-Anne-du-Petit-Cap in earlier centuries, the parish of Sainte-Anne was founded in 1657. The following year, its first church—a mere chapel—sprouted up alongside the cliffs and among the chalets and cabins, huts and hovels hugging the river. Breton sailors built this original edifice, seeking protection against shipwrecks on the river. (St. Anne is traditionally the patron saint of sailors as well as the mother of the Virgin Mary.)
Le Pépé Pierre labored for a while on this project when he first arrived in New France, though he was more a carpenter and farmer than a sailor. Shopkeepers like his father back in Fontenay le Conte might live and work, buy and sell, in the crammed streets of the city, but not Pierre. He was hooked on the country and open air. It must have been a beautiful setting—and not far from Marie’s home. 😊
So I stroll down the long path toward this basilica dedicated to St. Anne. It’s been rebuilt several times over the years, of course, but pilgrims have gathered at some rendition of the shrine for over 350 years. This one’s constructed of cut granite from a local quarry. It looks milk white, though I understand it’s actually a pale pink.
“Love beauty. It is the shadow of God on the universe.” –Gabriela Mistral
Since I’ve lived in South America for more than 40 years, yes, I’ve seen my share of grand cathedrals—imposing, enormous, and gorgeous. Usually the vastness alone leaves me open-mouthed. Add the dazzling gleam of gold and the color and light show of tile and glass. You’re reminded of how Solomon’s Temple must have impressed the ordinary people of that day.
The Faith
Inside the historic Basilica of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, extraordinary vistas draw the eye everywhere at once. The numerous artistic masterpieces include a copy of Michelangelo’s marble statue, the Pietà (the original is in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome). Other stone sculptures, as well as wood carvings, paintings, metalwork, mosaics, and plenty of stained glass, adorn the ceilings, walls, and floors!
For the early French communities of chalets and châteaux along the Beaupré Coast, this church played an important role. It’s known as a place of miracles, and an entire niche here is dedicated to abandoned crutches and canes.
“France is to me the heroine in the romance of all the nations of all time.” –William Arthur Simon
Though it is nothing remotely like the historic wooden-frame churches of Boston’s Freedom Trail, on the opposite side of my family heritage. Even “upper-class” Puritan houses of worship met the standard of unadorned simplicity. A velvet-clad pew box or two.
Aside from a couple of glorious pipe organs, there is little to take one’s breath away. And yet…
Some years ago (50, maybe), the Bible college choir I sang with was granted the opportunity to perform a hymn arrangement at Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré. I was not present, but I can imagine the acoustic drama and spectacle. It makes me think of the time I raised my voice with a tour group at another St. Anne’s—a Crusader-era church in the City of David, Jerusalem—to sing “It is Well with My Soul.”
Definitely one of the most powerful and thrilling moments of my life. Talk about the faith of our fathers.
The History
My great-grandfather hailed from a Huguenot (Protestant) stronghold area of France. In fact, he sailed out of La Rochelle, which was kind of the Huguenot capital of the time, and his bride was born in that port city.
But they were not Huguenots. At least, as far as anyone knows. Because—did you know that Huguenots were not allowed to immigrate to New France? In 1685 King Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, by which his grandfather Henry IV had granted religious toleration to the Huguenots. Now the French Protestants were deprived of all religious and civil liberties.
But the clamp-down had been creeping on for the past 50 years. The truth is, the authorities prohibited Protestants from emigrating, period. But they did, to France’s great loss. They fled secretly to England, the English colonies, or elsewhere—but not to New France. Puritan Boston received Paul Revere’s family, for example.
So the persecution backfired somewhat. During the late 1600’s and early 1700’s, Britain welcomed waves of French artisans, skilled weavers, and mill workers. France’s greatest rival got a jumpstart on the Industrial Revolution and propelled toward international power and prominence. The English colonies in the New World flourished.
While France’s grew slowly, even stagnated. The small population congregated in a picturesque parade of chalets, châteaux, and chapels along the river. A close-knit—but closed—society.
“Don’t believe everything you think.” –Inspector Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec, A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny
Thus, I often ponder my great-grandparents’ patchwork faith background. The 17th century encouraged community and national religious choices rather than personal convictions. And what would happen to Rose Michaud in such a story setting? It leads to intriguing imagination, doesn’t it?
The Island
The town of Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré also contains a flamboyant art gallery and the Cyclorama of Jerusalem, a circular panoramic painting depicting the Holy City at the time of Jesus’ death. The basilica complex includes a gift shop and numerous other religious edifices such as a monastery, convent, cemetery, and several pioneer chapel constructions. Across a narrow street looms the Scala Santa, a replica of the Holy Stairs in Rome.
Time to hurry on. I wonder if Pierre gazed across to the Island of Orléans while he worked on the church. We can see the lovely modern suspension bridge and head there next. I would’ve enjoyed the cable car ride and scenic views at nearby Montmorency Falls, but we can’t do both before dark. And I don’t want to miss Ile d’Orléans.
Among the thousand islands of the St. Lawrence River, Ile d’Orléans was one of the first inhabited due to its proximity to Québec City. So it’s truly a cradle of French culture in the New World. Settlers originally dubbed it the Isle of Bacchus because of the wild grapes there.
“My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.” –Claude Monet
Where in France is the place this island was eventually named after? Orléans is (aptly) a riverside city and capital of the Loire Valley region of France. It’s château country, southwest of Paris and northeast of coastal La Rochelle. Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, famously saved this city from an English siege in 1429, making Jeanne d’Arc not an uncommon name in French Canada.
Whenever and however Wandering Pierre happened to fix his restless eyes on Ile d’Orléans, he bought his first piece of real estate on that fruitful island. The newlyweds built the first of their chalets and barns there. Er, more likely a cabin and cowshed, but still…it was theirs. And home.
The Chalets and Chateaux
Before long, however, Pierre and Marie moved on. First to other St. Lawrence islands, Ile aux Grues (Cranes) and Ile aux Oiseaux (Birds). Always upgrading their plots of land. Then finally, they settled on a farm in Kamouraska, on the south shore of the river.
My husband and I make the circuit drive that loops around Ile d’Orléans. It takes only about an hour as the sun is slowly sinking. Again, I observe how different it seems from our barren winter visit.
You can still see the river from almost every vantage point of the countryside, but it’s harder through leafy-green trees that embower the riverbanks. Along the road, we pass inns and graveyards, vineyards and apple orchards galore. And yes, chalets and maybe modern châteaux, most with exquisitely carved woodwork, Cape Cod-style gables, and traditional upcurved metal roofs in jewel colors of ruby, sapphire, and emerald. Strikingly country French.
“Every man has two countries: his own and France.” –John F. Kennedy
A golden-stone church with a red roof and rose windows reminiscent of Notre Dame sits across the road from another butter-yellow public building. This turns out to be some sort of genealogical research center. I wonder if I’d find Pierre and Marie Michaud if I had time to look.
But it’s dusk now.
We linger a little in a park by the bridge before we start back across. One more night in Québec and then we’re on the home stretch to Nova Scotia.
We’ve traced Rose Michaud all the way to the end of the trail…or the beginning in the New World. But as we’ve journeyed into the past, we’ve gotten a bit off course chronologically. So we have one more place to go: Ile-Royale.
In the meantime, we travel on in…
“…joyful confidence and triumphant thanksgiving at what God has done, is doing, and is going to do.” –Robert J. Morgan, The Red Sea Rules