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It was at Place-Royale that Champlain built New France's first permanent settlement in 1608, to begin trading fur with the aboriginal peoples. The square - known as Place du Marche until the bust of Louis XIV was erected here in 1686 - remained the focal point of Canadian commerce until 1759, and after the fall of Quebec the British continued using the area as a lumber market, vital for shipbuilding during the Napoleonic Wars. After 1860 Place-Royale was left to fall into disrepair, a situation reversed as recently as the 1970s, when the scruffy area was renovated. Its pristine stone houses, most of which date from around 1685, are undeniably photogenic, with their steep metal roofs, numerous chimneys and pastel-coloured shutters, but it's a Legoland townscape, devoid of the scars of history. Fortunately, the atmosphere is enlivened in summer by entertainment from classical orchestras to juggling clowns, and by the Fetes de la Nouvelle-France, when everyone dresses in period costume and it once again becomes a chaotic marketplace. In Maison Hazeur, a seventeenth-century merchant's house, the interpretive centre at 27 rue Notre Dame (late June to mid-Oct daily 10am-5.30pm; mid-Oct to late June Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; $3), outlines the stormy past of Place-Royale, the mercantile aspects and the changes in the look of the square from the days when it was inhabited by the Iroquois to its recent renovation. Domestic objects and arrowheads are on the upper floors, from where you can see Gille's Girard's A rebrousse-temps , an enigmatic three-storey sculpture that plays with the idea of determining an artefact's original purpose. The vaulted cellars have modern-looking displays of 1800s domestic scenes; kids can try on period costumes. The Eglise Notre Dame-des-Victoires (daily 9am-4.30pm), on the west side of the square, nearly always has a wedding in progress during the summer. It was instigated by Laval in 1688 but has been completely restored twice - after being destroyed by shellfire in 1759 and after a fire in 1969. Inside, the fortress-shaped altar alludes to the two French victories over the British navy that gave the church its name: the destruction of Admiral Phipp's fleet by Frontenac in 1690 and the sinking of Sir Hovenden Walker's fleet in 1711. Above the altar, paintings depicting these events hang by copies of religious paintings by Van Dyck, Van Loo and Boyermans, gifts from early settlers to give thanks for a safe passage. The model ship suspended in the nave has a similar origin.
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