Place d'Armes (Quebec City)

Introduction

Place d'Armes sits in the Upper Town of Old Quebec beside the Chateau Frontenac and is one of the city's oldest squares. It was laid out between 1640 and 1648 by Governor de Montmagny near Fort Saint-Louis and originally called Grande Place; it served as the drill and parade ground of the garrison until the citadel was completed in 1832, and was turned into a public park with a central basin in 1865. The Monument de la Foi in the middle, unveiled in 1916, marks 300 years since the Recollet friars reached Quebec in 1615; it is a 12-metre Gothic fountain in cast iron, bronze and Stanstead granite. On the south edge stand the 1898 statue of Samuel de Champlain and a UNESCO World Heritage marker installed in 1986. Rue du Tresor beside the square still hosts painters, and the surrounding streets hold some of Quebec's oldest houses. The square covers roughly 5,000 square metres in a trapezoid shape, bounded by Rue Sainte-Anne to the north, Rue du Fort to the east, Rue Saint-Louis to the south and Rue du Tresor to the west. It has been known in turn as Grande Place, Place du Fort, Place du Chateau and Grande Parade, and the British simply called it the Ring. Under French rule it was the seat of colonial government, whose residence, the Chateau Saint-Louis, lay beneath what is now the Dufferin Terrace and no longer survives; after 1759 the square was briefly the place for public punishment and execution. When it was remade as a park in the nineteenth century the site still carried riding and harness-racing tracks. Today hotels, restaurants and tour services ring the square, with street performers and coach tours by day and small bands from Rue Saint-Louis in the evening.

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