Cap Diamant (

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

: Cape Diamond) is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a hood in the chaperon. Th ...

on an edge of the Promontory of Quebec and on which

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

is located, formed by the confluence of a bend in the St. Lawrence River to the south and east, and the much smaller Saint-Charles River to the north.

Jacques Cartier Jacques Cartier ( , also , , ; br, Jakez Karter; 31 December 14911 September 1557) was a French- Breton maritime explorer for France. Jacques Cartier was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of ...

, the French explorer who found glittering stones in the high cliff, thought the stones contained

diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...

. After he brought samples of these stones to France in 1542, experts concluded that these "diamonds" were actually

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical f ...

, hence the proverb "Faux comme un diamant du Canada" ("as fake (or as false) as a Canadian diamond"). In 1759, the troops of British General

James Wolfe James Wolfe (2 January 1727 – 13 September 1759) was a British Army officer known for his training reforms and, as a major general, remembered chiefly for his victory in 1759 over the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec. ...

climbed Cap Diamant toward the

Plains of Abraham The Plains of Abraham (french: Plaines d'Abraham) is a historic area within the Battlefields Park in Quebec City, Quebec, anada. It was established on 17 March 1908. The land is the site of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which took plac ...

to conquer Quebec. In 1889 the Quebec rockslide fell from Cap Diamant.

Popular culture

A song entitled "Cap Diamant" was on Canadian singer-songwriter

Coeur de Pirate Cœur is the French word for heart, and may refer to: * '' Cœurs'', a 2006 French film by Alain Resnais * Coeur (playing cards), a brand of playing card produced by VEB Altenburg in East Germany People with the surname * Jacques Cœur ( – 1 ...

's second CD, ''

Blonde Blond (male) or blonde (female), also referred to as fair hair, is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some yellowish color. The color can ...

''.

References

Commission de toponymie du Québec - Cap Diamant
Landforms of Quebec City Landforms of Capitale-Nationale Headlands of Quebec Saint Lawrence River {{Quebec-geo-stub