The old, old wheel is silent, and the fingers that once held distaff and spindle have crumbled into dust, but the noble deeds and glorious names of those days gone by are carven deep in the monument of a grateful country's memory.

Over an archway in the picture gallery is an enormous oil painting, dark with age, of the British Coat of Arms, which, it is whispered, was brought over hurriedly from New York during the American Revolution.

The museum of the ChÂteau is daily receiving donations of interesting relics, and has already a fine collection of coins, medals, old swords and historical mementoes—some of the autograph letters of Arnold, Champlain, Roberval, Vaudreuil, Amherst, Carleton, the de Ramezay family and many others, being of great interest.

These early days have passed away forever. The whirr of the spinning-wheel, or shout of the hunter, no longer sound along the banks of the St. Lawrence. No canoe of the painted warrior now glides silently by the shore; for Montreal with its three thousand inhabitants when Vaudreuil beat his retreat, to its present population of 300,000, has thrown its magnificent civilization around these spots hallowed by the footprints of the great men whose feet have walked her ancient streets.

The two nationalities live harmoniously side by side in commercial and social life, both retaining their racial and distinctive characteristics. The old chansons of Brittany are still heard from the hay-carts and by the firesides, and up and down the rivers ring out the same songs as when the "fleet of swift canoes came up all vocal with the songs of voyageurs, whose cadence kept time among the dipping paddles."

The ChÂteau de Ramezay has suffered many changes and modifications in the various hands through which it has passed since its foundation stones were laid, but the citizens of Montreal, revering its age and associations, are restoring it as much as possible to its original state and appearance; and the thousands who yearly pass through it testify to the romance surrounding the walls of the old ChÂteau, Ville Marie's grandest relic of an illustrious past—a past which belongs equally to both French and British subjects, and which has developed a patriotism well expressed in the words of the eloquent churchman, Bruchesi, Archbishop of Montreal, who says:

"I know the countries so much boasted of where the myrtles bloom, where the birds are lighter on the wing, and where gentler breezes blow. I have passed quiet days on the beach at Sorrento, where the Mediterranean rolls its blue waves to the foot of the orange tree. I have seen Genoa, the superb and radiant Florence, and Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic. More than once I have gazed upon the beauty of Naples glittering with the fires of the setting sun. I have sailed upon the azure waves of the Lake of Geneva. I have tasted the charm of our sweet France. My steps have trodden the blessed soil of Rome, and I have trembled with unspeakable gladness. But all these noble sights, all these undying memories, all this sublime poetry, all these enchantments of nature did not take the place in my heart of Canada, my Fatherland, which I have never ceased to regard with enthusiasm and admiration.

What nation can boast of a purer or more glorious origin? May the future of Canada be worthy of its noble past. May charity, true charity, reign among all our citizens as among the children of the same mother. Let us have none of those intestine divisions which enfeeble us,—none of those unhappy jealousies capable of compromising the most sacred interests."