Quebec City, population about 500,000, crowns an imposing several hundred foot high promontory on the north bank of the Saint Lawrence River. Think Salzburg, Prague, Koblenz, etc. This fantastic position for a ramparted city and citadel allowed Quebec’s cannons to easily dominate the fast moving river below it. The cannons are still there, modernized throughout the ages until I guess maybe 125 to 150 years ago.  

Logically, Quebec City was the key to the North American interior for Canada and even cities further in like Detroit. However, on the other side of the St. Lawrence directly across from Quebec is the rather affluent town of Levis, population 144,000. It too sits on a bluff high above the waters. Levis is named not after the riveted jeans, but François Gaston de Lévis (1719-1787), a French Marshall who, among his many accomplishments, fought the British semi-successfully in the Seven Years War and was second in command only to General Montcalm, the hero of Quebec.