Lesley Chesterman: What went wrong for Pâtisserie de Gascogne?

I hear about restaurant closings almost weekly, but when the news hit late Thursday afternoon that Pâtisserie de Gascogne was shuttering all its stores, I couldn’t believe it.
Founded in 1957 by Francis Cabanes and his wife, Lucie, who emigrated from France in 1952, Gascogne was Montreal’s eminent pastry shop whose reputation was well known in international circles. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a pastry shop with as stellar a reputation in Canada, or arguably No