Canada Guide
Québec City
Séminaire de Québec
The old Séminaire de Québec was founded by the aggressive and autocratic Monseigneur François de Laval-Montmorency in 1663. At its construction, the seminary was the finest collection of buildings the city had seen, leaving Governor Frontenac muttering that the bishop was now housed better than him. Primarily a college for priests, the seminary was also open to young men who wanted to follow other professions, and in 1852 it became Laval University, the country's first francophone Catholic university. Today, only the school of architecture remains; most of the other departments were moved to the western suburb of Ste-Foy.