Funeral of General D'Urban, 1849
The funeral of Lt.-General Sir Benjamin d'Urban passed down Rue Notre Dame in 1849 and was captured in a painting by James Duncan. The funeral was instrumental in allaying bitter feelings and in preventing clashes between troops and the populace following the Burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal on April 25, 1849. In her book British Regulars in Montreal, Elinor Senior describes the cortege as follows: "All shops were closed from half-past ten in the morning until one o'clock. Sir James Edward Alexander estimated that 10,000 lined the street as minute guns sounded from Saint Helen's Island to mark the movement of the cortege to the military burying ground on Victoria Road (now Rue Papineau)". The spire of Christ Church can be seen on the left, together with one of the towers of Notre-Dame Basilica in the background. The building with the cupola and pennant at half-mast, in the middleground on the right, is Donegana's Hotel, which was situated at the corner of Notre-Dame and Bonsecours streets. It was destroyed by fire only a few months after the procession, on August 16, 1849.
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