They caught them, tied them with threads into shining festoons and
hung them before the altar, where the Host remained exposed. Then they
pitched their tents, lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their guards
and lay down to rest. Such was the birth-night of Montreal." [Footnote:
Francois Dollier de Casson, "Histoire du Montreal," quoted in Parkman's
"Jesuits in North America," p. 209, a free rendering of the original. "On
avait point de lampes ardentes devant le St. Sacrement, mais on avait
certaines mouches brillantes qui y luisaient fort agreablement jour et
nuit etant suspendues par des filets d'une facon admirable et belle, et
toute propre a honorer selon la rusticite de ce pays barbare, le plus
adorable de nos mysteres."]
On the both of September in 1910 two hundred thousand people knelt in that
same place before an out-of-door altar, and the incandescent lights were
the fireflies of a less romantic and a more practical age. Maisonneuve and
Mademoiselle Mance would have been enraptured by such a scene, but it
would have given even greater satisfaction to the pilot of St.
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