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
