[Opening shot of the place D’Youville in Montreal on a sunny day. The title “Treasures beneath the city” appears on screen.]

[Shot of Hendrik Van Gijseghem, project manager in archeology and history at Pointe-à-Callière.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
I’m standing on Place D’Youville where in 1832, St. Anne’s Market was built over the course of the Little River. In 1844 the Parliament of the Province of Canada came and sat here until 1849 when it was burned down. 

[A 19^th-century lithograph of the smoking ruins of the Montreal Parliament appears on screen.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
It’s on this site of national importance that Pointe-à-Callière undertook, between 2010 and 2017, major archaeological excavations. 

[A series of pictures of the archaeological dig appear on screen.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
Welcome to place D’Youville ! 

[The title “St. Anne’s Market” appears on screen. Shot of Hendrik Van Gijseghem and François Gignac walking on place D’Youville.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
It was, at the time, the largest building, civic building, in Montreal, measuring about 100 meters long by about 20 meters wide. 

[A virtual rendering of the St. Anne’s market appears on screen. The market has a large antique colonnade.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
And it was designed and built by British architects John Wells and Francis Thompson in a neoclassical kind of style. 

[A virtual rendering of a butcher’s stall at St. Anne’s market appears on screen. It is followed by a virtual rendering of a fishmonger’s stall, then of a poultry shop.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
It had a bunch of butchers on the ground floor, fishmongers and poultry shops and things like that, sold a lot of food. 

[A plan showing a cross-section of the market is shown.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
And then it had cellars, which were like semi-subterranean rooms that were rented out to a diversity of merchants selling furniture, perhaps some food, some alcohol. There was some prostitution going on in the cellars. We know that much. 

[Shot of François Gignac showing a variety of artefacts from the cellars.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
The good thing for archeologists is that a lot of the stuff that were in the cellars were thrown out down into the basements where they were preserved for archeologists to find 150 years later. So we have a tremendous number of objects that came from the cellars that teaches us a lot about what was going on in the market. The market was more than a market. It had a second floor that hosted a diversity of events, concerts, meetings of all sorts of associations that existed in Montreal at the time. So very quickly after 1832, the market became the focus of social life in Montreal. 

[A virtual rendering of the Parliament is shown on screen. Wooden doors have been added between the columns.]

Hendrik Van Gijseghem:
And because it was such a large and prestigious building, it is why it was selected to become the seat of Parliament when Montreal became the capital of the province of Canada. 

[A 19^th-century painting of the Parliament’s legislative assembly room appears on screen.]

[The logo of “A Parliament under your feet” appears on screen, under the title “outdoor exhibition.” There are two bubbles saying “free!” and “guides on-site.” The address “Place D’Youville, between St-Pierre and McGill streets” is at the bottom of the screen, next to the mention, “Until November 1^st.”]

[The logo of the Pointe-à-Callière museum appears on screen. Underneath it is the mention, “This project was made possible thanks to financial support from Tourisme Montréal’s Fonds de maintien des actifs stratégiques, with the financial participation of the Government of Quebec.” At the bottom of the screen are the logos of Tourisme Montréal, the City of Montreal and the Government of Quebec.]