You know the expression “housewarming”? The one that means welcoming someone to celebrate their arrival in a new home? The Maison de Fondation is an opportunity to see a concrete manifestation of the origins of such an expression.
The building, which dates back to 1812, features an original rack and pinion – a metal rod with notches, placed in the fireplace, on which pots were hung to cook meals. Typically, this “hanging” piece was the last accessory installed in a new home before it was officially inaugurated.
Let’s face it, sometimes it’s a good thing to keep old expressions rather than modernize them. Clearly, “Pendre la crémaillère” is more evocative than “Brancher le poêle”…
Right next door to the Centre Marie-Rose is a house. A house more than two hundred years old which, until the late 50s, was… somewhere else. Opposite the co-cathedral of Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue, in fact.
Built in 1812 by a certain Dominique Rollin (who was only able to enjoy it for three years, dying at the age of 50), the house has had multiple vocations over the years and centuries: Fabrique school, first school-house of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, community hall, beadle’s lodgings, registry office, Electricity Museum. Then, in 1959, the Caisses populaires Desjardins chose this location to open a branch, giving rise to a project as monumental as it was delicate: the bequest and relocation of this heritage jewel further down the same street.
The house was dismantled stone by stone and then reassembled, stone by stone, on the SNJM heritage site. Like an incredibly complex Lego set. Called the Maison de Fondation by the sisters, but better known today as the Maison Marie-Rose Durocher, the little building has been considered a historic site since 1960. So there’s no risk of it being moved again…
In the 1800s, paper was sometimes in short supply. One solution was to write directly on objects, such as cabinet panels or the inside of a writing desk. As can be seen in a historic room at the Centre Marie-Rose, a writing desk used by the nuns at the time.
On the inside of the lid, the dates of spring break-ups on the river opposite were noted. Even today, you can still make out a few phrases dating from before 1880, including this pearl: “la glace a marchée” (“the ice has worked”). A poetic way of saying “at last, we’ll be able to cross the river in a boat again, to get to Montreal more easily”…
Interesting fact: the famous desk once belonged to none other than Louis-Joseph Papineau. Who, we presume, wrote his notes on paper…
Contrary to what some comics claim, not all Romans were mad. Some are martyrs whose memory spans the centuries… and the ocean.
Take Saint-Clement. This centurion, martyred in the early days of Christianity in Rome, now occupies a special place in the Basilica of Sainte-Anne. The reliquary bearing his name contains a wax recumbent representing him. It contains his remains, recovered during excavations in Roman catacombs and brought here by Mgr. Joseph Desautels, the church’s parish priest at the time, in 1871.
The saintly man would no doubt have been astonished to discover that not all roads lead to Rome.
If you attend mass at Sainte-Anne Basilica, you’ll see a large silver cross in the mortuary chapel. Cast in Italy, this highly symbolic object is a reproduction of a cross given to Marguerite d’Youville when the Grey Nuns community was founded in 1755.
Why symbolic? It was none other than the King of France himself, Louis XV, who authorized the creation of a new community. To express her gratitude to him, the Blessed Mother had a fleur-de-lys added to the ends of the cross, symbolizing royal power.
And, today, a symbol of a certain flag…
When Quebec priests traveled to Rome in the late 19th century, it wasn’t T-shirts they brought back, but rather valuable religious objects. Like the six superb paintings by artist Cesare Porta that adorn the walls of Saint Anne’s Basilica.
The one above St. Joseph’s altar, depicting St. Michael fighting dragons, was not placed there by chance. Having failed to have the church built on his seigneury of Cap Saint-Michel, in Varennes, a certain Michel Messier asked that the altar be dedicated to him in exchange for a generous donation. He also wanted the altar to be surmounted by a painting of the man to whom his seigneury owes its name: eh, yes, Saint-Michel.
A request that has been respected in the four churches that have succeeded one another on this site since 1692, as attested by the letters SM engraved on the altar. A gift that clearly earned Michel Messier far more than a tax receipt.
The stained glass windows inside the sanctuary aren’t just beautiful. They’re… romantic. Indeed, the green-toned panel to the left of the central window (depicting Marguerite d’Youville) evokes a romance between the future saint and a certain Sieur Hector Piot de Langloiserie (a name, it would seem, less common today).
A romance which, unfortunately, did not lead to a sacred union in marriage.
If you sometimes find there’s not much on your plate, imagine what it must have been like for the Grey Nuns who, from their beginnings in 1747 until 1938, ate their meals from pewter plates barely larger than the saucer of a cup (i.e. 22 centimeters).
As if it weren’t enough to make do with portions that would barely satiate a toddler today, the Grey Nuns, during periods of wartime famine, for example, went without food altogether to meet the needs of the indigents they cared for.
What’s particularly fascinating is that the Sanctuary’s permanent exhibition now features original remnants of these precious pieces of crockery, dating back to Marguerite d’Youville’s time at the Montreal General Hospital in the 18th century! It’s easy to guess that these symbols of the sacrifices and devotion of the Grey Nuns will never find their way into a dishwasher…
Long before the one that now adorns the summit of Mount Royal, a luminous cross appeared in the skies over Montreal – and it’s closely linked to the one that covers today’s Sainte-Marguerite-d’Youville sanctuary.
On the night of this first Canadian saint’s death, December 23, 1771, an illuminated cross is said to have appeared above the Montreal General Hospital, which Marguerite was then running. The next day, onlookers learned that she had left this world.
Today, the cross at the top of the sanctuary symbolizes this unusual phenomenon, albeit illuminated by the miracle of electricity.
