PLANS, SPECIFICATIONS AND CONTRACTS

The design of this vast building, as well as the décorations of ihe vestibules and Législative Council and Législative Asseinbly Chambers, and of the ornamentation in carving and incrustations of the inside and outside of the building, are due to Mr. Eugène Taché, architect.

That part ot the Government Buildings which, froin the year 1880, has been occupied by the public departnients (facing Ormide Allée and St. Augustin and St. Julia Streets), was built by Messrs. Nicholas Piton and S. X. Ciraon, contractors, under a contract passed before Mr. Cyrille Tessier, Notary, on the 8th May 1877, under the DeBoucherville Administration and according to plans and spécifications signed by

9f) GOYERNMJEKT BV^LDIKGS

Mr. Eugène TacW and Mr. Pierre GfUfeyreau^ The latter was then chi:ef engineer of . th^ construction of the buildings.

The .work was commenced under the E>e- Boucherville Governm^nt and continued under the Joly and Chapleau Governments* The Department of Agriculture and Piïblic Works was installed in the new building on the Ist September, 1880; that of the Provincial Secretary was transferred there on the 6th Deceraber of the same year.

The other departments soon followed.

The fou^idation of the main burlding facing on Dufferin avenue (LQgiâ|a4iiiCje Building) was built by Mr. WilUai^J.

Piton, under con tract of the 18th.A^gUÉ(t, 1881, before Mr. Jean A. Charlebais, Npti^çy, under the ChapJeau Administration. The principal contract of this portion of the building, according to plans and spécifie* ations drawn up and prepared by Mr. Eugène Taché and Mr, J. B. Derome, was awarded to Mr. Alphonse Charlebois, con^ traetor, by deed passed on tlie 9th February,

1883, before Mr. Cyrille Tessier, Notary, under the Mousseau Government.

From the signing of the latter con tract dates the motto of the Province of Québec *' Je me souviens." ^

1. The arms of the Province of Québec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were assigned by warrant of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, dated from the Court of St. James on the 26 th May, 1868. Hère is a description of the arms of the Province of Québec as set forth in the royal warrant :

" Or, on a fess gui es between two fleurs de lis in chief, azuré and a sprig of three leaves of maple slipped in vert ; in base, a lion, j^a^^an^, guardant, or.^'

In 1883, the motto '< Je me souviens " was added to thèse arms ; it most admirably expresses the raison d'être of the Canada of Champlain and Maison neuve, as a distinct province in the Confédération. •

Mr. Eugène Taché had drafted the plan of the front of the Québec Législative Buildings, and had introduced in it th« arms of the Province with the motto <^ Je me souviens " of which he is the author and which was until then unknown. The plans and spécifications drawn up by Mr. Taché, architect, Mr. J. B. Derome, engineer, and Messn. Cousin, Trudelle, Saint Michel and other draughtsmen, served as a basis for and were annexed to the con. tract for the érection of the Législative Building, passed before Mr. C. Tessier, Notary, on the 9th February, 1883, under the authority of an order-incouncil of the 22nd January of the same year, and signed by Mr. Alphonse

82 QOVIRNMENT BUILDINGS

The work on the Législative Buildij^g under tKe contract of the 9th February, 1883, was finished in the autumn of 1886, under the Boss Goverument.

Charlebois, the contractor, of the one part, and on the part of the Govemment by Hon. A. Elisée Dionne and Mr. EciiWBt GAg(M>P} the former as €oi&mi«dioii«r«iid tiiB la<^r f« Stt^çetfK'y Pf the Departmtsvit of Pi^blio W^iifis. TKè P^i^ies also pigne4 t)i9 p}ans 'finneiced to the eotltsact oà whif^ the arois of t()e PeaTlaoe w^re drawa with thé iQpt^i << Je me Bouvieiis/' It may therefore be-jaid ihat it it from the 9th February, 1883, when the conteadttjfor t|;kl9iPQnprtraçt|9n o.f that-pqrtionof tlteOoremiat&t Butldiilg Wai9:«ig^l^^tbat ^is motto <f Je j«ie sonv-ÎMi»'' assiuadd an officiai character.

IN QUEBCC 83