Avenue Saint-Grégoire ends in a cul-de-sac at the foot of the Dame Blanche fall.
“It comes from the groundwater that floats on the surface of the cape, and it flows along a steep slope in a very thin, almost veiled stream,” we say in This website page Quebec City.
Wedding veil
Legend says this fall: “In the summer of 1759, the British besieged Quebec City. Handsome Louis left the coast of Beaupré to assist the French army deployed on the coast of Beauport. On July 31, during the Battle of Montmorency, Louis died in combat. Mad in pain, his fiancée Mathilde wears her wedding dress. Then throws itself from the top of Montmorency Falls. “
Since then, some have claimed that Matilde’s ghost appears on full moon nights, a thin white silhouette on the edge of the waterfall. It is also said that her wedding veil, which was blown by the wind, would have been deposited on the rocks to form, here, a new waterfall: the white lady, also called the bridal veil or little chute. “
Electricity
The waterfall, which is now free flowing, has long since been converted to produce electricity. “In 1884, the Quebec and Levis Electric Light Company installed the nation’s first hydroelectric power station there.”
“On September 29, 1885, engineer Sigismund Mohr made a real breakthrough at this site. He then succeeded in transmitting electricity from the power plant to Dufferin’s balcony in Quebec, 12 kilometers away. The transmission of electricity over this long distance is the first of its kind in the country! That evening, the crowd gathered on Dufferin Terrace. At around eight in the evening, the 34 arch lamps installed there lit up under the gaze of the astonished onlookers. “
nationalization
The Petite Chute Generation Plant has continued to expand over the past 20 yearse The century underneath various social names, including the name Quebec Railway Strong Light, Heat and Power. All activities in Montmorency ceased in 1964, when Hydro-Québec, a subsidiary of the Crown, took control of electricity distribution throughout the country. The al-Shallal al-Saghir installations were demolished in 1974.