Canada Guide
Québec City
Musée de l'Amérique Française
Opening time: Late June to early Sept daily 9.30am–5pm; Sept– June Tues– Sun 10am–5pm
Telephone: 418/692-2843
Website: www.mcq.org
Price: $5, Nov– May free on Tues
Public access in the Séminaire de Québec is limited mainly to the ever-expanding Musée de l'Amérique Française, whose four sections occupy a small part of the old Séminaire. The entrance – and departure point for one-hour guided tours of the seminary – is in the Welcome Pavilion in the Maison du Coin, next to the basilica. It has a small exhibition on the early colonists upstairs and adjoins the Roman-style chapel, whose Second Empire interior houses Canada's largest collection of religious relics – bones, ashes and locks of hair of various saints, a few of which are on display. Laval's memorial chapel contains his ornate marble tomb, but not his remains, which were moved to the basilica when the chapel was deconsecrated in 1993. The whole interior is a bit of a sham, though: fed up with rebuilding after the chapel burnt down yet again in 1888, the church authorities decided to construct the pillars and coffered ceilings out of tin and paint over them; the stained-glass windows have been painted on single panes of glass and even the tapestries are the result of some deft brushwork.