Montréal in 1734

Founded in 1642, Montréal was a French colonial city, a trade and military outpost. In 1734, Montréal had a population of slightly more than 2,000 inhabitants living within the city walls. François-Xavier Charlevoix described the city in 1721; this description sums up the city some thirteen years later. Within that time, the city had gone through a few changes. To begin with, the walls, which were in the process of being constructed at the time of Charlevoix's visit, were almost completed in 1734. Stone houses were also more common, following a fire (see the section entitled “Fire”) that required the reconstruction of a quarter of the houses. Finally, work had been done on various public buildings, notably the prisons, which were reconstructed during the 1720s. Incidentally, notice that the pronunciation of the name of the city by many of its inhabitants goes back to the French regime.