MONTREAL — A crowd shouting competing cheers and boos greeted the royal couple as they arrived at a hospital for children on Saturday afternoon.

Royal watchers and antimonarchy protesters began gathering in the blistering sun on the small lawn outside Hopital Sainte-Justine several hours before Prince William and Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, arrived in their motorcade from the airport shortly after 4:30 p.m. Saturday.

There was no walkabout or greeting fans with handshakes and smiles this time as the newlyweds hurried from their vehicle into the front door of the hospital, even though about 500 people were lined up to see them, either on the lawn or in a cooler spot underneath trees across the street.

The royal watchers were there for a different reason than the group of about 40 anti-monarchist protesters, a coalition of groups advocating Quebec sovereignty, who showed up to tell the royal couple to go home and bring the institution they represent with them.

“Parasite go home,” said a large sign carried by Dominique Beaulieu, with the militant separatist group Reseau de resistance du Quebec, which is planning a larger protest in Quebec City on Sunday.

Using the phrase that Quebec Solidaire leader and MNA Amir Khadir used to dismiss the newlyweds as a couple of undeserving dependents on the public purse, Beaulieu also accused the British monarchy of war crimes ranging from the 1755 deportation of the Acadians from Atlantic Canada to British participation in the Iraq war against the will of the United Nations.

Natalie Patatoucakis, 31, marched up to him on the lawn to tell him to bring his protest elsewhere.

“It’s disgusting,” she later said of the protests, adding that since the royal couple were visiting hospital patients, it would only make Quebecers look like they have no class.

The protest was organized by a coalition of separatist groups called the Cap sur l’independance, and leaders took turns reading a declaration through a megaphone that ran through a litany of historic wrongs against the Quebecois people and then urging Prince William to go home.

One protester even held up a sign asking William to do some good by taking Quebec Premier Jean Charest with him.

The protesters were loud, but most in the crowd just came to see the famous newlyweds.

That included Victoria Sicurello, 11, who brought a bouquet of roses and a homemade card congratulating the pair on their recent wedding.

“They’re an important symbol of Canada,” she said, adding that they are a modern, young couple that have nothing to do with what the monarchy was in the past.

“They should bury the hatchet,” said her father, Angelo Sicurello.