The French Heritage: From Utopia to Eden - Literature and Painting in Quebec: From Imagery to Identity - page 20

Champlain's description of the countryside surrounding the île d'Orléans,
just northeast of Quebec City, during his 1608 voyage:
Ce lieu est le commencement du beau et bon pays de la grande rivière, où
il y a depuis son entrée 120 lieues. Au bout de l'île, il y a un torrent d'eau
du côté du nord qui vient d'un lac qui est a quelques dix lieues dedans les
terres et qui descend de dessus une côte qui a près de 25 toises de haut, au-
dessus de laquelle la terre est unie et plaisante à voir, bien que dans le pays
on voie de hautes montagnes qui paraissent être éloignées de 15 à 20 lieues.
[129; This place marks the beginning of the beautiful and good land of the
great river, 120 leagues from our entry point. Opposite the end of the is-
land, there is a waterfall on the [river's] north shore, coming from a lake
about ten leagues inland and falling from a hill almost 25 toises high,
above which the land is uniform and pleasant to see, although in the area
one sees high mountains that appear to be 15 to 20 leagues away. ] 9
As with Cartier's evaluations, for Champlain beauty ('beau,' 'plaisante
à voir') is attributed to the uniform landscape ('unie') rather than to the
waterfall (la chute de Montmorency, the highest in North America) or
to the mountains (the Laurentians), whose presence, on the contrary,
threatens to disrupt the visual pleasure ('plaisante à voir, bien que dans
le pays on voie de hautes montagnes'). Again, the scene is governed by
a contrast between place ('ce lieu') and vast space ('éloignées'), but only
the former is considered beautiful, and Champlain adds a precise di-
mension of mathematical measurement to his description, much as
Cartier favours geometrical form.
The same aesthetic criteria typical of Cartier's vision hold just as true
for Champlain, who describes the beauty of the countryside surround-
ing Quebec City (which he founded as a European settlement in 1608)
in terms of its fertility and familiarity: 'Pour ce qui est du pays, il est
beau et plaisant, et apporte toutes sortes de grains et graines à maturité,
y ayant toutes les espèces d'arbres que nous avons en nos forêts par
deça.' (149; As for the land, it is beautiful and pleasant, and brings all
sorts of seeds to maturity, having nearby all the species of trees that we
have in our forests.) Similarly, the landscape of the rivière des Iroquois
(now the Richelieu River on the south bank of the Saint Lawrence River)
is also described as beautiful ('beau') because of its uniformity ('uni')
and despite its waterfalls and woodlands: 'Après que nous eûmes passé
le saut, ce qui ne fut pas sans peine, tous les sauvages qui étaient allés
par terre, par un chemin assez beau et pays uni, bien qu'il y ait quantité