Vieux manoirs, vieilles maisons/104
APPENDICE
OLD MANORS AND OLD HOUSES
of the Province of Quebec
T HE old cottages and houses of the Province of Quebec may, for
the purposes of this study, be classified into five types according
to the roof shape of each. These are : the gabled roof ; the steep
hipped roof ; the gabled roof with gallery ; the hipped roof with gallery ;
and finally the town house type, with its high parapetted gable walls,
which is similar to the characteristic stone house of the country.
It is in and around Quebec and the Island of Orleans where the earliest settlers built their homes, and though these have long disappeared, it is there where we may look for the oldest types. These are plain rectangular buildings with gabled roofs and a large stone chimney in the centre, an arrangement which is typical of wood constructed houses in which the chimney is built first and then the house planned around it. Sometimes, with a stone chimney in the centre, we find ornamental wooden ones on the gable ends serving no practical purpose. In some, the gables are carried up in stone, but more often the wall stops at eaves-level and the triangular portion of the gable is built of wood. The ancient home of the Jesuits at Sillery, erected in 1637, and now in the custody of the Provincial Government, is of this type, only here the wood framing butts into the chimneys in the gable walls. This treatment with symmetrically disposed windows and sweeping « bell-cast » eaves carried by cantilevered beams forming a roof to the gallery, is a beautiful one. A good example is at Ste. Rose, where a bay-window (an unusual feature) is roofed by the projection of the eaves. Sometimes the cantilevered portion is returned around the ends of the cottage under the gables, forming continuous eaves. The treatment of the verges to the roof in such cases is of typical wooden construction. The boarding upon which the roof covering is nailed, projects over the wall and forms a soffit when the projection is great, sometimes as much as a foot, or when it is slight, the verge is finished with a wood strip set tight against the clap-boarding or shingles. A charming variation to the usual treatment of the gable end is sometimes found in a bonnet-like form of projection at its apex. The ridge of the roof is carried forward over the wall to sometimes as much as three feet, the lower sides are shaped like a double-wave and is a form of protection to the ventilation openings. Examples of these are found mostly on old barns, although, occasionally, one may see, as at Lorette, a cottage with such a feature. Corbelled wooden construction, of a character usually associated with mediaeval methods of building, is found also among the old barns in the more remote districts. At Beaupré and Murray Bay, for instance, there are examples of log construction with the upper storey projecting two to three feet, and at Lorette there is a cottage of the same character. Such a treatment is very picturesque and one must regret that there are not more examples of it now remaining. Features like this tempt one to conjecture on the kind of buildings erected by the first colonists. They must have been constructed in wood like Champlain’s famous « Abitation de Quebec, » which, as he tells us, was erected by ship-carpenters. Brittany and the parts of Normandy from where so many of the early colonists came, are stone districts, and this accounts for the stone traditions of building which are so obvious in the old architecture of French Canada, but there is no doubt that a large proportion of the buildings erected in the 17th century were of wood. Charlevoix, writing in 1720, mentions that the houses were of stone, and this emphasis suggests that it was something new ; and certainly, if the early churches were of wood, as there is every reason to believe, there can be little doubt that the houses were also. This being so, it is natural to suppose that many of the mediaeval customs of buildings in timber would have been brought here as in New England, where there still survive wooden buildings, with the overhanging storey and other mediaeval features. The House of the Seven Gables at Salem, Massachusetts, is a well-known example. Unfortunately fire, and the natural desire to construct more durably in an easily procured stone, have destroyed all the wooden houses of the 17th century, and this makes it impossible for us to trace clearly the development of the later types from the earlier ones in France. In the 17th century, the style of the Renaissance was the fashion among the upper classes, but the peasantry still clung to their old methods of building, and as was the case in the « Abitation, » the early buildings, no doubt, had many mediaeval features. The Chapel and Farm of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, Montreal, erected in 1668, is a case in point. The living-room shows pre-Renaissance traditions, with its heavy beamed ceiling carrying the plank floor, the joints of which are covered with moulded fillets ; or the old Towers of the Grand Seminary, for instance, erected in 1699, whose conical roofs are distinctly mediaeval in character.
Houses of the steep hipped roof type follow an old form, the characteristic « pavillion » roof of old France, which is often found on the larger houses. The Manor House at Baie St. Paul is a beautiful example with moderately projecting eaves and bell-cast. The angle of the roof is nearly 60 degrees, and this, owing to the wide plan, makes the height of the roof more than twice that of the wall, giving a very picturesque effect which reminds one of the 16th century Castle of Fontaine-Henri near Caen. The Manoir Mauvide-Genest, 1734, on the Island of Orleans, is of the same character, but of two storeys in the wall height.
The oldest cottages do not seem to have had the deeply projecting eaves which with the curving « bell-cast » became such a characteristic treatment. The little wooden platforms in front of the cottages, with their steps and shaped wooden balustrades, sheltered by the boldly projecting eaves, make a charming picture of inviting shade. The gallery is as necessary as the living-room in the Province of Quebec and so the need for the extra width evolved the gallery with posts. Many beautiful types of these are found, some with uprights and balustrades formed in lattice work with shaped wooden arches, as at the Presbytery, Pointe Claire. The verandahs to houses with gabled roofs often give the impression of having been added on at a later date, but in the case of hipped roofs with galleries a more homogeneous effect is obtained. Stonecroft Farm, St. Marie Road, St. Anne de Bellevue, is a good example of the flatter angled hipped roof with cantilevered eaves ; while the same type of roof with supporting posts and gallery carried all round the house is well illustrated by a house on St. Charles Road, Island of Montreal. These have chimneys in the end walls. An interesting variation is at Bout de l’Isle, where the house being square on plan, the roof is pyramidal with the chimney in centre. The Berthelot House, St. Genevieve, with very deeply projecting eaves finished with a classic cornice, is an example of a later type in which the influence of the Greek Revival is seen. In the southern districts are found houses of the American Colonial style, as at Georgeville, Lake Memphremagog, and after the war of 1812 there must have been a considerable intercourse with the United States, which at the time was under the influence of the Greek Revivalists. The Archambault House at L’Assomption shows Colonial influence, particularly in its plan, as does also the Le Moyne Manor at Longueuil, now destroyed.
To trace the growth of the classic tradition, however, we must go back to the days when Monseigneur de Laval established schools of art at Cap Tourmente and Saint Joachim in the last quarter of the 17th century. These schools flourished and developed a stylistic tradition based largely on a study of such books as Blondel’s « Cours d’Architecture » published in Paris in 1774, which gave examples of the « Orders » and contemporary buildings and ornaments. A stone doorway in the House of the Seminary at Petit Cap is an exact reproduction of a drawing in Vignola’s « Traité Elémentaire Pratique d’Architecture, » which was a standard work in France at that time. Late in the century a school where architecture was taught was founded by Louis Quevillon (1749-1823) at St. Vincent de Paul, and another, which included three generations of architects, by François Baillairgé, born in Quebec in 1759 (the son of a carpenter from Poitou), who studied in Paris before starting in practice here. The Baillairgé School seems to have worked at first along the traditional Quebec lines, but later, judging from the design of the N.W. Tower of the old Basilica at Quebec, built in 1844 by Thomas Baillairgé (1791-1859), it would appear to have been influenced by the spirit of the classic revivalists. The Sabrevois de Bleury Manor at St. Vincent de Paul is a good example of the later Classic School, with its refined detail, Doric porticoes and angle pilasters of Greek character.
Except for the high parapetted gable and double chimneys, the typical French Canadian stone house of one storey is almost identical with an old form which is still popular in Normandy and Brittany. Such a home, of moderate size and stone construction, would, no doubt, have been remembered by the early settlers when they decided to build in a more permanent fashion. In the cities, the congestion necessitated another storey, as in the fine old house erected by Gédéon de Catalogne after 1720, on the corner of St. Vincent and St. Thérèse Streets, Montreal. The single storey elevation was, however, still built in the cities, as at the Château de Ramezay, 1703. An old house at St. Denis sur Richelieu (now used as the Post office) is a fine example of the type, with the characteristic moulded corbels to the parapets and bold outlines of gable and double chimneys. The rear elevation, owing to the fall in the ground, is two storeys high with windows symmetrically arranged under the row of the dormer windows which stand on the wall head. The walls are two or more feet thick, of rough stone almost smothered in mortar, and the roof is covered with the well-known « fer-blanc » which was introduced here as a precaution against fire as early as 1678. As is usual in this type, the door is in the centre of the elevation ; with the double casement windows of small panes, disposed symmetrically on either side. Generally, there are doubled slatted shutters which open back against the walls and are held by “S”-shaped wrought-iron catches, while on the gable ends are to be seen wrought-iron anchor bars holding fast the principal roof and floor beams. Sometimes the chimneys are finished with moulded copings of rather a Gothic character and the parapets are boarded and tinned or shingled on the top. This high parapet probably came into use in the town where the buildings adjoined, and acted as a fire protection. The main floor is raised three to four feet from the ground and is reached by steps and gallery. The entrance door opens direct into one of the two rooms which usually make up the ground plan, one serving as a living-room and kitchen, the other as a parlour, and from the corner of one of them the stairs rise irregularly to the big attic. The larger houses are often very broad, the Château de Ramezay is over 51 feet from front to back and is planned two rooms deep with a central wall ; from this would originate the typical double chimney on the gable ends.
Variations from the general types are few ; the plans, and consequently the roof treatments, are of the simplest outlines, influenced no doubt by practical considerations of ice and snow. Picturesque gables and broken roofs are unsuitable to Eastern Canada. A form which one wonders was not more often used is the mansard type of roof, of which there still remain a few good examples. Instead of the usual flat treatment of the eaves, a quadrant curve is sometimes used suggesting the coved cornice of Georgian design. At L’Assomption there is a Summer House with a curved roof, flanked by balustraded terraces, making a composition of rare beauty.
The building traditions which have given to French Canada so much of its old-world charm were practically dead by the middle of the last century, but happily there are many signs that the old architecture is now being studied and appreciated at its true value. These old houses were the answer to conditions of contemporary life, and it is the manner of this response which should inspire our architects rather than the study of forms which belong to the past. The spirit which animates this old work is simplicity and modesty, and a fuller appreciation of this will go a long way in saving us from the errors in taste which afflict the smaller domestic architecture of French Canada today. Fortunately, as the contents of this book show, there still remain many examples which are always ready to speak, as old stones alone can, of what it is that constitutes beauty and fitness in architecture.