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Montreal is French at heart, but street level; it's a modern-day Babylon—decadent, hedonistic and multi-lingual. About 60 percent of Montrealers are Francophones, but they find themselves awash in a deepening pool of other languages, immigrant cultures and expats, whether from English-speaking Canada or abroad. This eclectic mix makes for a burgeoning arts scene. Rent-controlled Montreal remains one of the cheapest cities of its size in North America. And its low cost of living and cosmopolitan attitudes attract artistic types from all over, regardless of language, political convictions or medium.

Despite Montreal's shifting demographics, it remains the second-largest French-speaking city in the world after Paris. This qualifies Canada’s province of Québec as the second superpower in la Francophonie, the French equivalent of the British Commonwealth. It also gives Montreal a scope on the world stage that goes far beyond its reputation within English-speaking North America. (By all accounts, Expo '67 was the city's debut.)

Until 2000, Max Stern's Dominion Gallery on Sherbrooke Street was the epicenter of Montreal's art scene. A patron, collector and dealer Stern played a key role in promoting Canadian art, like the Group of Seven and Emily Carr, to the rest of the world. Educated as an art historian, Stern took over the family's gallery until he fled Germany before World War II. He was the first to sell works by Vasily Kandinsky to New York’s Museum of Modern Art and held the exclusive rights to sell the sculpture of Auguste Rodin in Canada.

Upon Stern's death in 1987, Montreal's museums received nearly one-third of his private collection—160 paintings in all. The estate also provided for the sculpture garden in front of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), an annual international symposium at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal and a curatorial post at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Art Gallery of Concordia University.

"I have visitors coming from Europe every week—and I’m not exaggerating," says Guy Cogeval, the director of Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts, in testament to the city’s popularity among his friends and colleagues. Fine- and decorative-arts collectors visiting Montreal in September will be delighted by the citizenry's joie de vivre, the architecture's European flair, the foliage’s changing colors and the vast array of cultural outings, shopping excursions, dining options, swank accommodations and nightlife possibilities.

And all this is sweetened by a favorable exchange rate. Everything's reasonably priced by American standards. In 2005 the loonie is at an all-time high against the greenback; however, Montreal is still a deal. For those spending American dollars, every price tag has a built-in discount of 23 percent. (There are sales taxes totaling 15 percent on most items, but visitors can recoup the federal portion of 7 percent upon leaving Canada.)