Page:The New England Magazine 1891, 5.1.djvu/120
generous character! What people has loved truth, justice, and liberty more than thine—has struggled more for their triumph! What nation has a more brilliant mind, a warmer heart, or feels more deeply that constant desire for higher and better things!"
At the same public banquet in honor of the claimant to the throne of France, the distinguished guest himself, in due appreciation of the high compliment paid him, as well as of the spirit and attitude hitherto manifested towards his family by the nation under whose flag he finds welcome shelter, said:
". . . .Gentlemen, in your midst we forget that we are in exile. Is this not, in effect, a corner of France? At each step we take on your soil, we meet a familiar aspect, or a heroic souvenir. The proud and touching device of your province, is it not, je me souviens ('I remember'). Your old city resembles one of the towns of Normandy whose sons colonized the shores of the St. Lawrence. . . . I have seen your monument raised to the joint memory of Wolfe and Montcalm. England was generous when she inscribed on this column the names of the two great adversaries reunited in death and associated in glory."
His Royal Highness concluded an able, pathetic address with this toast, creditable to both heart and mind—"England, Canada, and France."
As already intimated, French visitors of respectability or distinction invariably meet with a hearty welcome in this province, no pains being spared to make the travellers from outre mer feel at home. Until recently, it was not an unusual thing to hear a peasant say, "But our good kin will come again."
Making all due allowance, however, for the claims of kinship and legitimate community of natural sentiment, it is only right to make, at this point, particular acknowledgment of the fact that the French Canadian to-day is as sensible of the privileges of British citizenship as any other section of Her Majesty's subjects; nor would many of them return to the French rule were that option presented them to-morrow. Hon. Wilfrid Laurier exclaimed in the Dominion Parliament only the other day: "If I had my choice, I would not return to French alliance," adding: "If a poll were taken in Canada, all my countrymen would declare to the same effect." This exhibits a state of feeling no less than a measure of intelligence well calculated to render them more useful and congenial citizens than if animated by "mere French ideas," whether it be their destiny to continue British subjects, or become citizens of the American Republic in the not distant future.
