If Manitou prospered them, they would come to the Quebec of the French, which beforetime had been the Stadacona of old Indian tribes.

That name, Quebec, was full of significance to him.

Standing upon its mighty rock, it was another Gibraltar.

It told him of the French power in North America, and he associated it vaguely with young officers in brilliant uniforms, powdered ladies, and all the splendor of an Old World court reproduced in the New World.

St.Luc had come from there, and with his handsome face and figure and his gay and graceful manner he had typified the Quebec of the chevaliers, which the grave and solid burghers of Albany regarded with dread and aversion and yet with a strange sort of attraction.
He did not deny to himself that he too felt the attraction.