On July 24, 1967, Charles De Gaulle, President of France, was in Canada on an official state visit, presumably to visit Expo 67. When he arrived in Montreal, after an enthusiastic reception in Québec City, he was driven up Chemin du Roy to the Hôtel de Ville. The large crowd was excited. As they chanted for him, De Gaulle stepped out onto the balcony of Montreal city hall and gave a short address. He concluded saying Vive le Québec (Long live Quebec!) and then added, Vive le Québec libre! (Long live free Quebec!). Vive le Québec libre! was a popular slogan for people wishing to show their support for Quebec sovereignty. Huge diplomatic incident...
"SUMMER IN THE CITY - A group of French settlers, men and women both, founded Montréal, initially baptized Ville-Marie, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in May 1642. More than three hundred years later, the Credit Lyonnais also landed there, on the left of the picture"
"MARIE REINE DU MONDE - Montreal's Roman Catholic cathedral, completed in 1894, was designed as a one third-size replica of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome"
"NOTRE-DAME - Montreal's Notre-Dame is a neogothic building, dating from 1829 that has nothing in common with Paris' Basilica except the name. The Basilica in Montreal is noted for its wonderful interior with stained glass windows, gold-tipped carvings, paintings, statues, and especially its fantastic altar"
"HOTEL GARDEN"
"WORLD FILM FESTIVAL - The Portuguese flag can be seen on the first row, the fourth from the left"
"OLYMPIC VILLAGE - This was the home in 1976 for Carlos Lopes, silver medallist on the 10000 meter athletic race. The gold medal was won by a Finn - Lasse Viren - who now is known to have been blood doping when he won his gold medals in 1972 and 1976. Lopes, without any of those transfusions, took the revenge cleanly and clearly winning the 1984 Los Angeles Marathon, the first gold medal in Olympic Games for Portugal. Four years later in Seoul, Rosa Mota won the ladies marathon..."
"DESJARDINS SHOPPING MALL"
"OLD MONTREAL is located along the St. Lawrence River, five minutes’ walk from downtown and just a short walk from the Convention Centre. Around 4,000 people live there, and many more come to work there everyday..."
"PLACE JACQUES CARTIER was built by the city in the first half of the 19th century. It has always been a dynamic centre"
"MOUNT ROYAL reflected in the glass building in front of the Hotel window!"
2 comments:
Well this took me home.
They have a wonderful Botanical Gardens there by the Olympic Village. The Expo grounds were great to visit And Mount Royal, where lovers go to see the view has a cross that is seen for miles You can see MCGill University from up there. The old Mount RoyalChurch houses the bones of an old saint and people sometimes climbed the stairs to the top where the church was on their knees, for some reason, back then.Old Montreal was always riot So much fun and there you could eat great frog legs,and Place Ville Marie had Janice Joplin singing Rabbit.
The whole place was full of pot in the air. Funny I never saw any one smoking though lol The Sun life building was a great place back then and no one liked De Gaulle coming and starting up all this trouble we had after he left.
This was a very unwelcome visitor.
He was way out of line.
Lady,
The Garden, The Village, The Expo, Mount Royal, McGill, we saw all that; but by that time, photos weren't so exciting; that's why there are only lousy memories... ;)
That's amazing, but when we went there, there were so many people still cheering De Gaulle for the Quebec Libre; they were surely different people we met... ;))
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