armies on the princes’ side, but she literally and in her own person took Orleans by escalade. However, she had to retreat to Paris, where she practically commanded the Bastille and the adjoining part of the walls. On the 2nd of July 1652, the day of the battle of the Faubourg Saint Antoine, between the Frondeurs under Condé and the royal troops under Turenne, Mademoiselle saved Condé and his beaten troops by giving orders for the gates under her control to be opened and for the cannon of the Bastille to fire on the royalists. In the heat of the émeute which followed she installed herself in the Hôtel de Ville, and played the part of mediatrix between the opposed parties. Her political importance lasted exactly six months, and did her little good, for it created a lifelong prejudice against her in the mind of her cousin, Louis XIV. She was for some years in disgrace, and resided on her estates. It was not till 1657 that she reappeared at court, but, though projects for marrying her were once more set on foot, she was now past her first youth. She was nearly forty, and had already corresponded seriously with Mme de Motteville on the project of establishing a ladies’ society “sans mariage et sans amour,” when a young Gascon gentleman named Puyguilhem, afterwards celebrated as M. de Lauzun (q.v.), attracted her attention. It was some years before the affair came to a crisis, but at last, in 1670, Mademoiselle solemnly demanded the king’s permission to marry Lauzun. Louis, who liked Lauzun, and who had been educated by Mazarin in the idea that Mademoiselle ought not to be allowed to carry her vast estates and royal blood to anyone who was himself of the blood-royal, or even to any foreign prince, gave his consent, but it was not immediately acted on, as the other members of the royal family prevailed with Louis to rescind his permission. Not long afterwards Lauzun, for another cause, was imprisoned in Pignerol, and it was years before Mademoiselle was, able to buy his release from the king by settling no small portion of her estates on Louis’s bastards. The elderly lovers (for in 1681, when Lauzun was released, he was nearly fifty, and Mademoiselle was fifty-four) were then secretly married, if indeed they had not gone through the ceremony ten years previously. But Lauzun tyrannized over his wife, and it is said that on one occasion he addressed her thus, “Louise d’Orléans, tire-moi mes bottes,” and that she at once and finally separated from him. She lived for some years afterwards, gave herself to religious duties, and finished her Mémoires, which extend to within seven years of her death (April 9, 1693), and which she had begun when she was in disgrace thirty years earlier. These Mémoires (Amsterdam, 1729) are of very considerable merit and interest, though, or perhaps because, they are extremely egotistical and often extremely desultory. They are to be found in the great collection of Michaud and Poujoulat, and have been frequently edited apart. Her Eight Beatitudes has been edited by E. Rodocanachi as Un Ouvrage de piété inconnu (1908).
See the series of studies on La Grande Mademoiselle, by “Arvède Barine” (1902, 1905). (G. Sa.)
MONTREAL, a city of the Dominion of Canada, its leading
seat of commerce and principal port of entry, as well as the centre
of many of its important industries. It is situated on the south-east
of the island of Montreal, at the confluence of the Ottawa
and St Lawrence rivers, in the county of Hochelaga and province
of Quebec. The observatory in the grounds of McGill University,
in the city, has been determined to be in 45° 30′ 17″ N. lat.,
and 73°34′ 40·05″ W. long. The city holds a fine position at
the head of ocean navigation, nearly a thousand miles inland,
and at the foot of the great system of rivers, lakes and canals
upon which the commerce of the interior is carried to the Atlantic
seaboard. The ship channel below Montreal permits the passage
of ocean vessels drawing 30 ft. at low water. The deepening
of the channel, largely due to the initiative of Montreal
merchants, was begun in 1844 by the government of Canada.
The work was transferred to the Harbour Commissioners of
Montreal in 1850. The depth of the channel was then 11 ft.
Fifteen years later it had gradually been increased to 20 ft.;
and in 1888, when the work was taken over by the Dominion
government, the depth was 27 ft. 6 in. The Lachine canal,
with the chain of artificial waterways that succeeded it, opened
the way for the shipping of the Great Lakes. The first sod in
the digging of the Lachine canal was turned in July 1821 by
John Richardson of Montreal. The same public-spirited merchant
presided in April of the following year at the preliminary
meeting which led to the formation of the committee of trade,
itself the forerunner of Montreal’s indispensable board of trade.
Even before the close of the French régime in Canada efforts
had been made to cut a canal across the island of Montreal,
and M. de Catalogne succeeded in building a waterway practicable
for the canoes of the fur-traders. The more ambitious canal
commenced in 1821 was completed four years later, at a cost
of $440,000. Before its completion, however, the increasing
draught of inland shipping made it practically useless, and in
1843 work was begun on an enlargement. Since then the canal
has been repeatedly deepened, to keep pace with the requirements
of lake shipping, until to-day a 14-ft. channel is available.
In the meantime the rival method of rail transportation was
taking shape, and in 1836 the first Canadian railway was opened,
between Laprairie, opposite Montreal and St Johns, in the eastern
townships. In 1848 a second railway, from Longueuil to St Hyacinthe,
was opened; both these projects owing their existence
to the enterprise of Montreal citizens. The broad St
Lawrence, however, still lay between the city and the outside
world. In 1854 work was commenced upon the famous Victoria
tubular bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson and A. M. Ross.
The bridge was opened by King Edward VII., then prince of
Wales, in 1860. In 1898 it was replaced by the Victoria Jubilee
bridge, built on the piers of the old bridge. At the foot of Lake
St Louis, some distance above the Victoria Jubilee bridge, the
Canadian Pacific railway crosses the river on a graceful cantilever
bridge with two central spans each 408 ft. long. Montreal is on
the Canadian Pacific, Grand Trunk, Intercolonial, Canadian
Northern, New York Central, Rutland, Central Vermont and
Delaware & Hudson railways. During the season of navigation
several lines of well-appointed steamers maintain communication
with Liverpool, London, Glasgow, Bristol and other British and
European ports, as well as the principal ports on the river and
gulf of St Lawrence and the Great Lakes. A system of electric
railways covers every section of the city and affords easy
communication with the suburbs and neighbouring towns.
Built originally along the water-front, Montreal has in the course of years swept back over a series of terraces—former levels of the river or of a more ancient sea—to the foot of Mount Royal. Held there, it has been forced around the mountain on either side. Mount Royal, from which the city derives its name and so much of its natural beauty, is a mass of trap-rock thrown up through the surrounding limestone strata to a height of 753 ft. above the level of the sea. Under the direction of Frederick Law Olmsted, it was converted into a magnificent park. Between mountain and river the Lachine canal winds through the plain. In the middle of the river lies the beautifully wooded St Helen’s island, rising to a height of 150 ft., above the water, and itself commanding an excellent view of the city. The island, named after Helen Boullé, wife of Champlain, belonged at one time to the barons of Longueuil. The British government purchased it for military purposes, and it still contains a battery of guns and barracks, the latter tenantless, since the island has been loaned to the city for use as a public park.
The city is substantially built, grey limestone, quarried from the mountain, predominating in the public and many of the private edifices. On the south of the Place d’Armes, a small enclosure covering the site of an ancient burying-ground, stands the parish church of Notre Dame, whose Gothic outlines form one of the striking features of the city. Designed by James O’Donnell, the church was built in 1824 to take the place of an earlier structure dating back to 1672. The existing church is 255 ft. long and 134 ft. wide, and accommodates 10,000 worshippers. Its twin towers (227 ft.) contain ten bells, one of which, known as “Le Gros Bourdon,” weighs 24,780 ℔, the largest in America. Two others weigh respectively 6041 and 3633 ℔. Beside the church stands the historic seminary of St Sulpice, one of the
