Place d'Youville has had more lives than seems reasonable for a single Montreal square. Named after Marguerite d'Youville, the first Canadian-born saint and founder of the Grey Nuns, it opened in 1833 as a market for fruit and vegetable sellers heading to the port.

By 1844, the Parliament of the Province of Canada had moved in, briefly making Montreal the country's capital. That ended on April 25, 1849, when an English-speaking mob, furious about a pardon for Lower Canada rebels, burned the building down. Queen Victoria, unimpressed, shifted the capital to Ottawa.
Archaeological digs between 2010 and 2017 unearthed over 350,000 artifacts beneath the square, many now displayed in the old fire station opposite.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours trace this odd arc, explaining how a vegetable market briefly housed a parliament and why Montreal lost its capital status to a mob with matches.