Montréal is Canada's most romantic metropolis, Québec's largest city, and an important port and financial center. Its office towers are full of young Québecois entrepreneurs ready and eager to take on the world. The city's four universities -- two English and two French -- and a host of junior colleges add to this youthful zest.

Montréal is the only French-speaking metropolis in North America and the second-largest French-speaking city in the world, but it's a tolerant place that over the years has made room for millions of immigrants who speak dozens of languages. Today about 15% of the 3.1 million people who live in the metropolitan area claim English as their mother tongue, and another 15% claim a language that's neither English nor French. The city's gentle acceptance has made it one of the world's most livable cities.

The city's grace, however, has been sorely tested. Since 1976, Montréal has endured the election (twice) of a separatist provincial government, a law banning all languages but French on virtually all public signs and billboards, and four referenda on the future of Québec and Canada.

The latest chapter in this long constitutional drama was the cliff-hanger referendum on Québec independence on October 30, 1995. In that showdown Québecois voters chose to remain part of Canada, but by the thinnest of possible margins. More than 98% of eligible voters participated, and the final province-wide result was 49.42% in favor of independence and 50.58% against. In fact, 60% of the province's Francophones voted in favor of establishing an independent Québec. But Montréal, where most of the province's Anglophones and immigrants live, bucked the separatist trend and voted nearly 70% against independence.

The drama has cooled; since 1998 the separatist government has turned its attention to the economy, and Montréal has prospered accordingly. Indeed, Montréal has emerged stronger and more optimistic.

And why not? It's a city that is used to turmoil. It was founded by the French, conquered by the British, and occupied by the Americans. It has a long history of reconciling contradictions and even today is a city of contrasts. The glass office tower of La Maison des Coopérants, for example, soars above a Gothic-style Anglican cathedral that squats gracefully in its shadow. And while pilgrims still crawl up the steps of the Oratoire St-Joseph on one side of Mont-Royal, thousands of their fellow Catholics line up to get in to the very chic Casino de Montréal on the other side -- certainly not what the earnest French settlers who founded Montréal envisioned when they landed on the island in May 1642.