Combat Journal for Place d'Armes. Scott Symons

       Basilique Notre-Dame in Montreal’s Place d’Armes.

THE DAY BEFORE ONE

      “La Place d’Armes is the heart of Montreal, metropolis of Canada. No visitor to the city can afford to miss this remarkable square where the modern and the historic meet in splendour and harmony. Walk out to the centre of La Place — and stand under the great statue to Maisonneuve, founder of the city, in 1642. On the north side of La Place stands the Head Office of the Bank of Montreal … popularly known as ‘My Bank’ to over two million Canadians. On the west side is the Head Office of the Banque Canadienne nationale. The largest financial institutions of English and French Canada respectively: side by side, tower by tower. Yet facing these two ultramodern skyscrapers, on the south side of the square, sits the Presbytery and Church of Notre Dame. This Church is traditionally known simply as “The Parish,” the pride of the Sulpician Order who once held all Montreal in fief. The rough stone Presbytery dates from the days of Louis XIV, while the Church, which was completed by 1830, is the earliest example of the Gothic Revival Style in Canada. It is considered one of the finest in America. The lavish interior of the Church, copied from La Sainte Chapelle in Paris, is one of the sights of the city. It is appropriate that the Church is faced not only by the modern Bank of Montreal tower, but also by the old Bank building with its classic pediment and dome, dating from 1847. To the east the square is fitly completed by two handsome stone skyscrapers; the Providence Life Building which will remind you of New York in the Roaring Twenties, and beside it an excellent example of the famed brownstone architecture of the High Victorian Period.

      In effect La Place d’Armes is a summary of the entire city. Because to the north and west of it rises the mountain with its new city of commerce and cultures. The Queen Elizabeth Hotel, the most up-to-date in Canada; La Place Ville Marie, the largest shopping and office complex in the nation; and La Place des Arts, symbol of the vibrant artistic life born of the meeting of French and English civilizations in the New World — these are only a few blocks away. While to the south and east of the square lie the great international harbour of Montreal, and the historic Old Quarter, with its unique ensemble of Georgian stone buildings. If you want to wander these curving streets, in a matter of minutes you will be in la rue St. Paul with its modern boutiques and art stores, its antique shops, with the magnificent Georgian Bonsecours Market, once the Parliament of Canada, and Notre Dame de Bonsecours Church dating from the eighteenth century. Fine restaurants will cater to the appetite your stroll whets. Afterwards you can visit the French Baroque City Hall, or the Chateau de Ramezay Museum, once home of the Governors of Montreal; see the first monument in the world to Nelson, or wander along St. James Street, and enjoy the great Victorian palaces of commerce. Don’t forget to stroll down to the harbour (only one block south from St. Paul Street) to the great grain elevators and freightyards. To the west stands the Harbour Commission Building, a handsome Victorian fantasy, to the east the Jacques Cartier bridge, while just out of sight is the Ile Ste-Hélène, site of Canada’s International Exhibition — Expo 67.

      La Place d’Armes — heart of Montreal, old and new. La Place d’Armes — heart of Canada!”

      Thus Hugh Anderson tried to imagine how a tourist blurb of La Place d’Armes might read. He sketched it out in full — and then gave up; it revulsed him. Partly because he couldn’t really bring himself to do it well, and partly because he could imagine it only too well. He decided to concentrate instead upon his own memory of La Place d’Armes … trying to recall it as he had known it during the four years he had worked within a block of it, on St. James Street. He remembered the domed Bank of Montreal Building well. Then he had to admit he had never been in it. No, he reflected, not once … only in the new section. It was virtually the same for the Church of Notre Dame. It had always stood there, as some magnificent Gothic scenario — a fine backdrop for prestige office buildings. Like having the façade from Westminster Abbey, or Notre Dame de Paris, dropped into La Place as guarantee of quality: Episcopal Approval — an Imprimatur for La Place. But he had never been in it … oh he had visited in it — once, maybe twice — and he always told friends who were visiting Montreal that it was a “must.” But he himself had never been to a service there. He had meant to go that Christmas, to the Midnight Mass …, but he had gone skiing instead. Odious recollection … (besides — the snow went soft). And he couldn’t remember anything precise about the Church inside, save that sensation of Olde Golde everywhere … the Sainte Chapelle bloated beyond belief. As to the rest — well, the new buildings of the New Montreal hadn’t been built: La Banque provinciale, La Place Ville Marie, La Place des Arts. He had only heard about them. And he had to admit that he never, not once!, strolled the Old Quarter. Oh, he had visited the Chateau de Ramezay once by accident; it was a hailstorm. As for the rest … he really only knew about them through history textbooks, by implication.

      With that he stopped, acutely self-conscious, embarrassed … turned around to see if anyone was looking at him, at his smug self-assertive ignorance.

      No one was looking. He laughed small consolation: how the hell could anyone see what he was thinking anyway? His guilt was a private matter. But he had to face the truth: all he really knew about La Place d’Armes and its entourage was what he could have put into a bad tourist blurb. He was victim of the very thing he mocked! To save further discomfit he turned his mind to the job at hand, unwilling to resolve the contradictions already becoming apparent.

      The assignment he decided in fact was simple: a short novel on La Place d’Armes in Montreal. He knew exactly what it was that he wanted to do with it. Namely present La Place as a centre of life and vitality in the Montreal metropolis. It was La Place that would, of course, be the Hero. Of that he was certain … the novel would grow out of that fact. All he had to do was live La Place and he would end with what he needed — a novel that glowed with love, with his own love of his community, his nation, his people. A novel that glowed with love in a world whose final and last faith seemed grounded in hate. He wanted to share that love, and to show that only by that love do people live, really live. With any luck the essential experience would be achieved in a fortnight, perhaps less. In either case he would be home by Christmas. He planned to arrive in Montreal on December the first.

      He thought again of La Place … yes, it was ideal: a historic square, perhaps the most historic in North America, or in the New World for that matter. Three-and-a-half centuries of history ending in 1967 as the heart of a giant empire — Canada — and the site of the first International Exhibition that had ever received world sanction in the New World. No — decidedly there was no other square to equal it … and he counted off the competitors — Boston, Boston Common, the Liberty Route, the birth of the American Dream and all that. Well, Boston had gone dead. And so had the Amurrican Dream for that matter — (his facile inherited contempt of the Americans — the mere Americans — was all contained in that slurred pronunciation “Amurrican”) Or New York — Times Square, for example. Centre of the World. What about that? Somehow it didn’t do. It didn’t have a heart, or a soul, or something … something was wrongside-up about it. If nothing else his novel would prove that, by contrast. That left Philadelphia — which had been displaced by New York — and Washington. Same argument all over again for these then. And for Chicago, the Second City. Or San Francisco — excellent also-ran. What