Today, it is blissfully quiet - though back in town, on the elegant Rue St-Louis, there is a cannonball still wedged in the roots of a tree that is said to date from that battle.

BBC: Qu��bec's wood runners

He came from a religious family (the family tree includes a Roman Catholic priest who helped Charles II escape after the battle of Worcester in 1651).

ECONOMIST: Trevor Huddleston

An injunction has been granted to allow the felling of a tree in North Yorkshire which has been the subject of a five-year battle to save it.

BBC: The tree in Irton

Enter tree lover Peter L. Malkin, a real-estate heavyweight perhaps best known for his lengthy battle with Leona Helmsley over control of the Empire State Building.

WSJ: If a Tree Falls, Will the Lights Go Out? Maybe in Connecticut