Restaurant AUX ANCIENS CANADIENS

Restaurant at 34 rue Saint-Louis, Old Quebec.

Painting on exhibit in Paris from November 23 to 25, 2025...

This restaurant in Old Quebec, in the François-Jacquet-dit-Langevin house, occupies one of the oldest houses in Quebec.

Its construction dates from the late 17th century.

It is also among the very first private residences built in the Upper Town of Quebec.

Little altered over the years, it is a precious witness to the residential architecture of the French Regime.

Today it bears the mark of the most famous of its owners.

Around 1675, most of Quebec’s inhabitants lived in the Lower Town, near the river. Religious communities and the civil and military authorities shared the land of the Upper Town. But the scarcity of lots at the foot of Cap Diamant soon forced these great landowners to grant lots in the Upper Town to accommodate the growing population.

Such was the case of this lot, granted by the Ursulines to the master roofer François Jacquet dit Langevin in 1674. The following year he built himself a wooden house, then, around 1690, rebuilt it in dressed stone.

In 1815 the house passed to Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, a lawyer and seigneur of Saint-Jean-Port-Joli. He acquired it in a transaction that looks very much like real estate speculation, for he resold it at a profit the following year without ever having lived in it.

Many years later, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé published a landmark book in the literary history of Quebec: Les Anciens Canadiens, a historical novel with a nationalist flavour set in the 1750s. The name of the restaurant that has occupied the Jacquet-dit-Langevin house since 1966 is taken directly from that work.

René Martin, contractor and craftsman, carries on the roofer’s trade his father taught him. For him and his team, pride in work well done goes hand in hand with respect for the authenticity of the metal roofs of Old Quebec.

This is one of my SIGNATURE canvases, with a fire hydrant in its light, warm naphthol red.