I suppose I should have written physically uncomfortable, for actually a narrow strip, the width of a car only, was driven through the throng. The people were jammed so tightly back that when the line of cars stopped, as it frequently had to, the people clambered on to the footboards for relief.
In front of the classic portico of the Art Gallery the scene was amazing. The broad street was a sea of heads. Before this wedge of people the Prince's car was stopped dead. Here the point of impossibility appeared to have been reached, for though he was to alight, there was no place for alighting, and even very little space for opening the door of the car. It was only by fighting that the police got him on to the pavement and up the steps of the gallery, and though the crowd was extraordinarily good-tempered, the scuffling was not altogether painless, for in that heaving mass clothes were torn and shins were barked in the struggle.
The Prince was to stand at the top of the steps of the Art Gallery to take the salute of the soldiers he had reviewed in La Fontaine Park, as they swung past in a Victory March. He stood there for over an hour waiting for them. The head of the column had started immediately after he had, but it found the difficulties of progress even more apparent than the Prince. The long column, with the trophies of captured guns and machines of war, could only press forward by fits and starts. At one time it seemed impossible that the veterans would ever get through the pack of citizens, and word was given that the march had been postponed. But by slow degrees the column forced a way to the Art Gallery, and gave the Prince the salute amid enthusiasm that must remain memorable even in Montreal's long history of splendid memories.
Montreal had set to excel itself as a host, and every moment of the Prince's days was brilliantly filled. There were vivid receptions and splendid dances at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the big and comfortable Hotel Windsor. Montreal is the centre of most things in Canada; in it are the head offices of the great railways and the great newspapers and the leading financial and commercial concerns. The big men who control these industries are hospitable with a large gesture. In the hands of these men, not only the Prince, but the members of his entourage had a royal time.