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After lunch the King wanted a smoke badly, but could not light up, according to the protocol that rules his conduct until he had been toasted. The Prime Minister tapped a bell, and, in Veuve Cliquot '28 the guests toasted first the King then the Queen, then both. Then the King lit up before a waiter could get to him with a match (the Queen does not smoke in public), and listened while Prime Minister King reminded the diners: "Today as never before, the throne has become the centre of our national life." Stammering slightly His Majesty spoke in English: . . . Deeply moved . . . moment is historic . . . anticipation too great for expression." Then, in unhesitating French, he said: "It is here today that two great races dwell happily side by side. The spirit of Quebec is a happy fusion of vigorous spirit, proudly guarded."
That afternoon Their Majesties went to the Plains of Abraham, there heard 50,000 school children sing O Canada and God Save the King in French. That night there was a speechless dinner at the Château, at which the King dawdled over snowbird breasts on toast and trout, while the Queen, who is apparently dieting, ate almost nothing, fussed with her gloves until at dinner's end the King led the way to bed.
Second Day. Next morning, bound for Montreal, 180 miles up the St. Lawrence Their Majesties boarded the Royal train, a silver, blue and gold twelve-car streamliner with Royal bedrooms connected by a sliding, panel, gold-plated telephones, a lounge car, offices and bedrooms for the staff and party. At every whistle-stop the populace waved frantically, but the only full stop was at Three Rivers, where the King and Queen walked over the tracks on a wooden platform to greet 50,000 appreciative gazers, twice the town's population.
At Montreal, biggest city in Canada and next to Paris the largest French-speaking city in the world, 2,000,000 (again double the population) awaited them. So did mercurial, bouncy little Mayor Camillien Houde, anti-conscriptionist, Italophile (TIME, Feb. 20), a municipal executive with the verve of Manhattan's Mayor LaGuardia and the political slant of the late Huey Long. At the station, Queen Elizabeth delayed proceedings for a five-minute chat with kilted, Black Watch Captain S. S. T. Cantlie, but from then on Mayor Houde stole the show. He and his pert wife stole the Queen and King respectively from Dominion bigwigs, hovered over them while they signed the Golden Book at City Hall, led them on a breathless four-hour tour of the town, the Mayor taking bows right and left before throngs, some of whom paid as high as $30 for window seats for the show.
In a Montreal baseball park 50,000 children, mostly French Catholic, 900 of them forming a great Union Jack, sang while the King & Queen sat in an open Buick near home plate.
Third Day. What Their Majesties had seen in the first whirlwind two days was mostly quaint, Arcadian stuff—a Frenchy people curious, appreciative but not essentially King-loving in the British manner. Beef-eating Ottawa more than made up for this.