Montreal
"I am astonished that this country is so unknown in France. Not six months ago I believed, with every one else, that Canada had become completely English. In my mind had always stuck the returns of 1793, which gave the French population as only 60,000. But since that time the rate of increase has been as great there as in the United States; and to-day there are in the single province of Lower Canada 600,000 persons of French descent. I tell you that you can't dispute them their origin. They are as French as you and I. They even resemble us more closely than the Americans of the United States resemble the English. I can't express to you what pleasure we felt on finding ourselves in the midst of this population. We felt as if we were home, and everywhere we were received like compatriots, children of old France, as they say here. To my mind the epithet is badly chosen. Old France is in Canada; the new is with us. . . ."
Tocqueville, letter to Abbe Lesueur (Pierson 314)
"The towns, and in particular Montreal (we have not yet seen Quebec), bear a striking resemblance to our provincial towns. The basis of the population and the immense majority are everywhere French. But it is easy to see that the French are the conquered people. The well-to-do belong for the most part to the English race. Even though French is the language almost universally spoken, the majority of the newspapers, the posters, ane even the signs of French shopkeepers, are in English. Commercial enterprises are almost all in their hands; they are truly the governing class in Canada."
Tocqueville (Pierson 318)
Itinerary