Place-d'Armes: June 4, 2014

Decoration on the fountain in the center of the Square, whose name references the bloody battles that took here between religious settlers who arrived in 1642 and First Nations tribes who clashed over control of what would become Montreal.  French fur traders arrived in the area more than 100 years earlier, in 1535.  After years of off-and-on fighting with the Iriquois, the French settlers erected a stone citadel in 1721.

Ah, yes.  The fleur-de-lis.

The Basilique Notre-Dame can be seen in the background, on the edge of the square.

Iroquois and French settlers alike are memorialized at the Place de Armes.

Frenchman Maisonneuve arrived with 50 settlers in 1642 to found the colony of Ville-Marie, later to become Montreal.