Those favored with invitations, a privilege highly
prized, were Franquet, with seven or eight military officers and a
corresponding number of ladies, including the wife of Major Pean, of
whom Bigot was enamoured. A chief steward, cooks, servants, and other
attendants, followed the party. The guests had been requested to send
their portmanteaus to the Intendant's Palace six days before, that they
might be sent forward on sledges along with bedding, table, service,
cooking utensils, and numberless articles of comfort and luxury. Orders
were given to the inhabitants along the way, on pain of imprisonment, to
level the snowdrifts and beat the road smooth with ox-teams, as also to
provide relays of horses. It is true that they were well paid for this
last service; so well that the hire of a horse to Montreal and back
again would cost the King the entire value of the animal. On the eighth
of February the party met at the palace; and after a grand dinner set
out upon their journey in twenty or more sleighs, some with two guests
and a driver, and the rest with servants and attendants. The procession
passed at full trot along St. Vallier street amid the shouts of an
admiring crowd, stopped towards night at Pointe-aux-Trembles, where each
looked for lodging; and then they all met and supped with the Intendant.
The militia captain of the place was ordered to have fresh horses ready
at seven in the morning, when Bigot regaled his friends with tea,
coffee, and chocolate, after which they set out again, drove to
Cap-Sante, and stopped two hours at the house of the militia captain to
breakfast and warm themselves.
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