Montréal · Canada

Overview

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Canada''''s most romantic metropolis, Montréal is an island city that seems to favor grace and elegance over order and even prosperity, a city full of music, art, and joie de vivre. In some ways it resembles Vienna -- past its peak of power and glory, perhaps, but still a vibrant and beautiful place full of memories, dreams, and festivals.

That''''s not to say Montréal is ready to fade away. It may not be so young anymore, but it remains Québec''''s largest city and an important port and financial center. Its office towers are full of young Québecois entrepreneurs ready and eager to take on the world. The city''''s four universities -- two English and two French -- and a host of junior colleges add to this zest.

Montréal is the only French-speaking metropolis in North America and the second-largest French-speaking city in the Western world, but it''''s a tolerant place that over the years has made room for millions of immigrants who speak dozens of languages. About 14% of the 3.3 million people who live in the metropolitan area claim English as their mother tongue, and another 19% claim a language that''''s neither English nor French.

The city''''s grace, however, has been sorely tested. Since 1976, Montréal has twice endured the election of a separatist provincial government, a law banning all languages but French on virtually all public signs and billboards, and four referenda on the future of Québec and Canada -- the last the cliff-hanger of 1995, in which just 50.58% of the population voted to remain part of Canada. Montréal, where most of the province''''s Anglophones and immigrants live, bucked the separatist trend and votednearly 70% against independence.

In 2003, passions seemed to cool after the balance of power shifted to the nationalist Liberals. However, a scandal over the way the federal government squandered millions on a public-relations campaign that was supposed to benefit Québec -- much of it going to advertising companies with governmental ties -- reignited separatist sympathies in 2005. But Montréal has survived these ups and downs with its buoyancy intact. And why not? Founded by the French, conquered by the British, and occupied by the Americans, it''''s a city that''''s used to turmoil. Montréal has a long history of reconciling contradictions.

It remains a city of contrasts. The glass office tower of La Maison des Coopérants, for example, soars above a Gothic-style Anglican cathedral that sits gracefully in its shadow. The neo-Gothic facade of the Basilique Notre-Dame-de-Montréal glares across Place d''''Armes at the pagan temple that serves as the head office of the Bank of Montréal. And while pilgrims still crawl up the steps of the Oratoire St-Joseph on one side of Mont-Royal, thousands of their fellow Catholics line up to get into the Casino de Montréal on the other side -- not necessarily what the earnest French settlers who founded Montréal envisioned when they landed on the island in May 1642.

Those 54 pious men and women under the leadership of Paul de Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve, and Jeanne Mance, a French noblewoman, hoped to create a new Christian society. They named their settlement Ville-Marie in honor of the Blessed Virgin and set out to convert the native people. Mance established the Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu deSt-Joseph, still one of the city''''s major hospitals. In 1659 she invited members of a French order of nuns to help her in her efforts.

That order, the Religieuses Hospitalières de St-Joseph, now has its motherhouse in Montréal and is one of the oldest groups of nuns in the Americas. Marguerite Bourgeoys, who arrived 11 years after Mance, helped establish the colony''''s first school and taught both French and native children how to read and write. Bourgeoys also founded the Congrégation de Notre Dame, a teaching order that still has schools in Montréal, elsewhere in Canada, and around the world. Canonized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1982, she became Canada''''s first female saint.

Piety wasn''''t Ville-Marie''''s only raison d''''être, however. At the confluence of two major transportation routes -- the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers -- the settlement soon emerged as the leading center for the lucrative trade in beaver pelts that underpinned the whole economy of New France. The beaver''''s dense underfur was used to make the felt hats that were a staple of European fashion for a century. The fur-induced prosperity led to the development of other domestic industries, including iron smelting, farming, quarrying, and some mining. Through it all, the city''''s religious roots were never forgotten. Until 1854, long after the French lost possession of the city, the Island of Montréal remained the property of the Sulpicians, an aristocratic association of French priests. The Sulpicians were initially responsible for administering the colony and for recruiting colonists. They still run the Basilique Notre-Dame-de-Montréal and train priests for the Roman Catholic archdiocese.