The oldest section of this complex - the building running from left to right roughly in the centre of the slide - was begun by Bishop Lava in 1678 as a training school for a Canadian Clergy. It is an excellent example of classical French architecture, with its long, unbroken lines, well-proportioned windows, and mansard roof. The almost stark appearance of the stucco covered stone walls pleases the eye. Tall elm trees once shaded the courtyard. Bishop Laval spent vast sums of money, much of it his own, on the interior decoration. For the chapel alone he ordered 2,000 pounds of gold leaf. By 1684 the building had cost 150,000 livres (roughly six or seven hundred thousand dollars in today's money) and Governor-General Frontenac estimated that it would cost 400,000 livres before it was finished. The students, however, did not live in luxury. They led extremely austere lives under strict discipline. They rose before dawn and had to account for every hour of the day until bed at 9:00 pm. Meals provided only the bare minimum of plain food. Few of the students who enrolled stayed more than two or three years. The regimen was too severe for Canadian boys who, accounts suggest, tended to be rather wild. The seminary is still a school for boys. The other sections of the complex were added over a long period of time, the most recent in 1888.
