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Micheline's Blog

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Monthly Archives: January 2012

Dans les prisons de Nantes, a Folksong from France

30 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Dans les prisons de Nantes, French folklore, music, words

Dans les prisons de Nantes (In the Prisons of Nantes), a French folksong
 
1. Dans les prisons de Nantes. (2)
Il y-a t’un prisonnier,  (il y a: there is)
Faluron, dondaine,
Il y-a t’un prisonnier,
Faluron, dondé.
 
2. Que personne ne va voir, (2)  (personne – ne: no one)
Que la fille du geolier,  (que: but, except)
Faluron, dondaine,
Que la fille du geolier,
Faluron, dondé.
 
3. Un jour il lui demande, (2)  (il lui demande: he asks her)
Qu’est-ce que l’on dit de moué* [moi]?  (l’on: they)
Faluron, dondaine,
Qu’est-ce que l’on dit de moué?
Faluron, dondé.
*‘moué’ is an older form of ‘moi’ (me)
 
4. Le bruit court dans la ville, (2)  (le bruit: noise) (courir: to run)
Que demain vous mourrez,
Faluron, dondaine,
Que demain vous mourrez,
Faluron, dondé.
 
5. Le garçon fort alerte, (2)
À la mer s’est jeté,
Faluron, dondaine,
À la mer s’est jeté,
Faluron, dondé.
 
6. Si je retourne à Nantes, (2)
Oui, je l’épouserai, (épouser: to marry)
Faluron, dondaine,
Oui, je l’épouserai,
Faluron, dondé.

07 Dans les prisons de Nantes

(please click on title to play song)

Translation:
1. In the prisons of Nantes, (2)
There is a prisoner, …
 
2. Whom nobody visits, (2)
Except the jailor’s daughter, …
 
3. One day he asks her, (2)
What are they saying about me?…
 
4. The word is in town, (2)
That you’ll die tomorrow,…
 
5. The very [fort] sprightly [alerte] young man, (2)
Jumps in the sea (se jeter: to throw oneself),…
 
6. If I go back to Nantes, (2)
Yes, I will marry her,…

 * * *

January 30, 2012

 
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Gabrielle Roy’s The Tin Flute

30 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada

≈ 370 Comments

Tags

Bonheur d'occasion, French-Canadian literature, Gabrielle Roy, irony, poverty, Saint-Henri, the Great Depression, war as salvation

Gabrielle Roy by Yousuf Karsh

Yousuf Karsh (1908-2002)

Bonheur d’occasion (1945) is one of the finest novels written in Canada.  Its author, Gabrielle Roy, is often referred to as “la grande dame” of Canadian Literature in French. In 1947, Bonheur d’occasion was first translated into English by Hanna Josephson.  Josephson’s The Tin Flute is a slightly abridged version of Bonheur d’occasion.  In 1980, Roy’s novel was re-translated by Alan Brown, again in a slightly abridged version.  It was then made into a film in 1983, the year Roy died.

Gabrielle Roy CC [Companion of the Order of Canada], FRSC [Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada] (22 March 1909 – 13 July 1983) was born in Saint-Boniface, a French-Canadian community that is now part of Winnipeg.  First, she worked as a school teacher and has written fine short stories about her teaching days.

Le Restaurant Philibert by Miyuki Tanobe (1983)

Miyuki Tanobe
Galerie Valentin

Bonheur d’occasion (FR), literally second-hand happiness was published in 1945, but it takes the reader back to the last days of Great Depression and the beginning of World War II.  By 1945, Roy had moved from Manitoba to Montreal and worked as a journalist.  Moreover, the last roman du terroir, regionalism, Ringuet’s Trente Arpents, had been published.

The Tin Flute (EN), a novel, is about a family living in Saint-Henri, in slums, on the wrong side of the track.  On the other side of the track, one goes up a hill to Westmount.  Given its nearness to the very centre of Montreal, Saint-Henri is now being gentrified.  It was a very poor area of Montreal.

Rose-Anna

Rose-Anna is the main figure.  She is married to Azarius Lacasse and is the mother of several children one of whom, Daniel, she carries in a little sleigh all the way up to a clinic.  He is dying of leukemia and is sent to a hospital.

Ironically, Daniel spends the last days of his vanishing life in a comfortable bed and a warm room, cared for by doctors and nurses who speak very little French but whom he just loves.  In fact, that episode, or those episodes, Daniel’s last days, epitomize the novel in that they constitute a fine example of Roy’s chief tool as the author of Bonheur d’occasion: irony.  One is happy when one is about to die.  Death is the solution.

Florentine

But let us walk back down the hill to Saint-Henri.  Rose-Anna has an adult daughter, Florentine, who works as a waitress at the restaurant counter of a dime store: le Quinze-Cents or the Fifteen Cents.  Florentine is a little thin, but she is very attractive. The money she earns helps the impoverished Lacasse family and her father has a job.  When Rose-Anna walks into the Quinze-Cents, Florentine is surprised to see her but treats her to a meal.  Before leaving the store, Rose-Anne buys a tin flute for Daniel.  So now we know why the novel was translated as The Tin Flute.

The Trip to the cabane à sucre (maple syrup)

However, everything goes wrong when, one day, Azarius tells Rose-Anna that they may borrow his employer’s truck and go visit her family who live in the country.  It’s maple sugar season.  Azarius had not been allowed to use the truck, so he loses his job.

Florentine and Jean Lévesque

In the meantime, Florentine has fallen in love with Jean Lévesque who has a profession and is employed.  She starts to dream.  During a visit to the Quinze-Cents, Jean tells Florentine to join him at the movie house, which she does, but he stands her up.  Later he comes to visit her at the family’s home and seduces her.

Ironically, Florentine gets pregnant not long after telling her pregnant mother that this must end.  They can’t afford more babies.  Rose-Anna says:  “What do you want, in life one does not do as one wants, one does as one can.”

Qu’est-ce que tu veux, Florentine, on ne fait comme on veut dans la vie; on fait comme on peut.[i]

Azarius unemployed

As for Azarius, he now spends the day with the “boys,” in a restaurant.  It’s their meeting-place and, together, they talk as though they could save the world, so they think.

La belle maison du coin triangulaire by Miyuki Tanobe

Florentine and Emmanuel Létourneau

Florentine is being courted by another man: Emmanuel Létourneau.  He comes from an upper middle-class family and wants to marry Florentine.  She loves Jean Lévesque, but Emmanuel is now her only salvation.  Although he is about to leave for Europe, as are his friends, they marry.  She will get money every month and will live in a nice apartment.

Azarius’s salvation

One day, after they have moved into a humbler home—the Lacasse move every year to avoid the raise in rent or possible eviction—Azarius comes home wearing a military uniform.  Like his son Eugène, Azarius has enlisted.  The family now lives next to the railway tracks.  When she sees her husband, Rose-Anna screams, but the deafening din of a train that seems headed for their house muffles her voice.

War kills. It is perdition.  But it ‘saves’ Azarius and some of the boys.  Rose-Anna will receive a pension cheque every month.   Let me quote Michèle Lacombe who writes that “[t]he inhabitants greet the war as a source of salvation, rescuing them from unemployment.”

Lorne Pierce Medal

Bonheur d’occasion is an extremely compelling novel.  Roy has managed to convey to the reader the degree of despair, and sometimes hope, of her characters.  Roy has also managed to reveal to her readers the compassion she feels for her characters.  I have seldom read so masterfully, yet subtly ironic a novel. However, Rose-Anna is not a mater dolorosa. On the contrary, few characters in Canadian Literature in French are as lucid and combative as she is. But what can she do?

Bonheur d’occasion, The Tin Flute earned Gabrielle Roy a major French literary prize, the Femina (France).  It also earned her the 1947 Governor General’s Award for fiction as well as the Royal Society of Canada’s Lorne Pierce Medal.  It sold more than three-quarters of a million copies.  In 1947, the Literary Guild of America made The Tin Flute its book of the month.  Madame Roy could barely believe the reception given the novel.  She had to leave for Manitoba to avoid the attention.

In short, if Canada is still looking for its great novel, it may have been written 1945.

—ooo—

Eric Satie, 18 Première Gymnopédie Gn. 
(please click on title to hear music)

___________________________

[i] Gabrielle Roy, Bonheur d’occasion (Montréal: Boréal, 1998[1945]), p. 89.

[ii] Michèle Lacombe, “Bonheur d’occasion”                             <http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/bonheur-doccasion>.

[iii] David M. Hayne and Kathleen Kellett-Betsos, “Canadian literature.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2012.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/91950/Canadian-literature>.

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Tis the Wind, the Fickle Wind…, Folksong

28 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

French folksong, T.C. Blegen, Université de Moncton's Male Choir, voyageurs

Duck

I am sending you the words to another voyageur song. This song is also entitled: Derrière chez nous.

* * *

C’est le vent frivolant (It is the Frivolous Wind)

Chorus or refrain
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2)
 
1. Derrière chez nous y-a-t’un étang
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines)
Trois beaux canards s’en vont baignant,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole. 
Refrain
 
2.  Trois beaux canards s’en vont baignant,
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines) 
Le fils du roi s’en va chassant,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole.
Refrain
 
3.  Visa le noir, tua le blanc,
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines)
Ô fils du roi tu es méchant,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole.
Refrain
 
4.  D’avoir tué mon canard blanc,
C’est le vent, c’est le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines)
Par dessous l’aile il perd son sang,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole.
Refrain
 
5.  Toutes ses plumes s’en vont au vent,
C’est le vent, c’et le vent frivolant. (2: repeat the first two lines)
Trois dames s’en vont les remassant,
C’est le vent, qui vole, qui frivole.
Refrain 
 

* * *

  
This song is a ballad.  Here is what it means: 
 
1. Behind our place, there is a pond, (Derrière chez nous, il y a un étang,) 
Three beautiful ducks are bathing, (Trois beaux canards s’en vont baignant,)
Tis the wind a-blowing, frivolous.
Refrain 
 
2. Three beautiful ducks are bathing, (Trois beaux canards s’en vont baignant,)
The king’s son is going hunting, (le fils du roi s’en va chassant,).
Tis the wind a-blowing, frivolous. 
Refrain
 
3. Aimed for the black one, killed the white, (Visa le noir, tua le blanc,)
Oh you, the kind’s son, you are mean, (Ô, fils du roi, tu es méchant,)
Tis the wind…
Refrain
 
4. To have killed my white duck, (To have killed my white duck,)
Blood is pouring from under his wing, (Par-dessous l’aile il perd son sang,)
Tis the wind…
Refrain
 
5. The wind is blowing all his feathers away, (Toutes ses plumes s’en vont au vent,) 
Three ladies are picking them up, (Trois dames s’en vont les ramassant,)
Tis the wind…
Refrain
 

03 C’est le vent frivolant

(please click on title to hear the song)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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The Canadien’s Terroir

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature

≈ 318 Comments

Tags

Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Champlain, classification, Curé Labelle, farming, French-Canadian literature, Henri-Raymond Casgrain, Maria Chapdelaine, roman du terroir

La Rivière Magog by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté*

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869 – 1937)
NB. The terroir is the Canadien‘s land. 

Classification of Canadian Literature in French

Until recently, Canadian Literature in French was divided into four periods.  This has changed.

  • The Literary Homeland (1837-1865): Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline, 1855

A few years ago, the period of French-Canadian literature during which l’abbé Casgrain’s books were published was called  la “Patrie littéraire” or the “Literary Homeland” and it took us from 1760 (the battle of the Plains of Abraham)[i] to 1895.

That period is still called the “Literary Homeland,” but it begins in 1837 and ends in 1865.  It has been shortened by seventy-seven (77) years now labelled “Canadian Origins” (1760-1836).

  • The “Messianic Survival” (1866-1895)

Henri-Raymond Casgrain‘s Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline was published in 1855.  It was therefore written eleven years before the start of the next period currentled called: “Messianic Survival” (1866-1895).  However, Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline does underline the importance of the priest as leader in the organisation of a territory, in our case, Acadie under l’abbé Sigogne and other French émigrés priests sent by England to the seminary in Quebec city (Lower Canana).

  • Exile and the Establishment of Roots (1896-1938): Maria Chapdelaine, 1914

As for Maria Chapdelaine, it is now classified in a period of French-Canadian literature called “Exile and the Establishment of Roots (1896-1938).” Where Maria Chapdelaine (1916) is concerned this classification is accurate, but only to the extent that classifications can be correct.  Formerly it was included in a period called: “Vaisseau d’or [the title of a poem] et Croix du chemin [road side crosses]” (1895-1938)

What may be good to remember about Maria Chapdelaine is

  • that Maria’s choice is the choice of a patriot, and
  • that her choice is also the choice the Church advocates.

Not that Maria is a nationalist.  The poor girl would not know anything about nationalism or any “ism,” but she nevertheless makes the patriotic choice in deciding to marry a settler.  Colonisation was a way of keeping French Canadians in their province, in their parish, and farming.

Curé Labelle

Priests feared that once a French Canadian settled in the United States, he and members of his family would cease to be good Catholics and would no longer speak French.  In all likelihood, this is what motivated the colourful Curé Labelle (November 24, 1833 – January 4, 1891) to urge people to go north and to create land: faire de la terre, faire du pays.

—ooo—

New France: farming as a priority

I should note moreover that even in the earliest days of New France, France saw its colony as a colony of farmers.  Pierre Dugua de Mons or Champlain had managed to convince Henri IV, le bon roi Henri, to move the colony from Port-Royal in Acadie (in the current Nova Scotia) to what is now the province of Quebec.  As well, Champlain explored the great lakes.  Moreover, he engaged in fur trading, but Louis XIII, no doubt acting on the advice of Richelieu and Marie de Médicis, Henri IV’s widow, ordered Champlain to stop exploring and to govern instead.  So Champlain was Governor of New France and New France was a nation of farmers.

In short, Maria Chapdelaine, 1916, is a “roman du terroir,” a regionalist novel, extolling the virtues of farming.  There would be other such novels, the last of which was published in 1938:  Ringuet’s Trente Arpents.

Conclusion

So far, we have examined works belonging to two periods of Canadian Literature in French:

1. The Literary Homeland or Patrie Littéraire (1837-1865): Un pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline (1855) and

2. Exile and the Establishment of Roots (1896-1938): Maria Chapdelaine, 1913.  During this period French-speaking Canadians were either leaving Canada or settling in new areas, the North mainly.  For instance some sons became voyageurs. The family farm could no longer be divided, so they had to find other means of making a living.  Yet farming remained the mission of French-speaking Canadians and his only means of earning a living.

3. But, I have also touched on a third period: The Messianic Survival (1866-1895).  Priests are organizing a new Acadie.

But, for the time being, our plate is full.  We pause.  I am including an Ave Maria because as Maria Chapdelaine senses her François is in danger, she recites a thousand Ave Marias.

This is not a new post, but it is a clearer one. I cannot presume you already knew about the mythic, yet very real Évangéline, or Maria Chapdelaine.

________________________

[i] The Battle of the Plains of Abraham, 1759, opposed the French, under the Marquis de Montcalm and the English, under General Wolfe.  The English won and four years later, in 1763, Nouvelle-France became a British colony.

© Micheline Walker
27 January 2012
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À la claire fontaine: Complete Version

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Songs, Voyageurs

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

À la claire fontaine, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor Coté, Songs of Voyageurs, The Nightingale, Theodore C. Blegen, Université de Moncton

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté* (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

*Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté

Chanson en laisse

In a chanson en laisse, the end of a couplet is the beginning of the next couplet.  In poetry, the couplet is called stanza (une strophe).  Usually, the couplet consists of four lines (vers).  À la claire fontaine also has a refrain. (See chanson en laisse, Wikipedia FR.) If the Province of Quebec had a anthem, it could be À la claire fontaine.  According to Wikipedia’s French-language entry on this song, it dates back to the 18th century and it was the national anthem (un hymne national) of New France.

The canoemen (coureurs des bois or voyageurs) are going down the St Lawrence River, (the fountain ).  Bathing in the St Lawrence River meant settling in New France.  There were oak trees on both sides of le fleuve Saint-Laurent.  The rose symbolizes the English and the rosier (rosebush), England.  (See À la claire fontaine, Wikipedia FR.)

It was a favourite song among voyageurs, who were singers.  After 1763, the year France ceded Nouvelle-France to England, the you of il y a longtemps que je t‘aime ( I have loved you for a long time) represented France. This song has five hundred versions.  (See À la claire fontaine, Wikipedia FR.)

The Movie: The Painted Veil

A movie entitled The Painted Weil contains a lovely rendition of  À la claire fontaine, so I have included the relevant video.  The Painted Weil is a 2006 film adaptation of Somerset Maugham‘s The Painted Weil.

About: À la claire fontaine[i] 

This song, a ballad, is about a young man who walks by a clear fountain.  The water (eau[f]) is so beautiful that he goes in to bathe (se baigner).
 
He lets himself dry (sécher: dry up) under the leaves (feuilles[fp]) of an oak-tree (chêne[m]).
On the highest (la plus haute) branch, a nightingale (un rossignol [m]) sang.
 
He tells the nightingale to sing (chanter) because he has a happy heart (tu as le cœur gai). You feel like laughing (rire), but I feel like crying (pleurer).
 
I lost (J’ai perdu) my lady friend (ma maîtresse) without deserving it (sans l’avoir mérité). Because I refused to give her (Je lui ai refusai) a bouquet of roses (la rose[f]).
 
Would that the rose still be (fût) on the rosebush and the rosebush itself be (fût) thrown (jeter: to throw) in the sea (la mer).
 
f: feminine, m: masculin, p: plural
 
À la claire fontaine
 
À la claire fontaine,
M’en allant promener,
J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle,
Que je m’y suis baigné.
 
Refrain
Lui y a longtemps que je t’aime, (Il y a longtemps)
Jamais je ne t’oublierai.
 
Sous les feuilles d’un chêne, 
Je me suis fait sécher,
Sur la plus haute branche,
Le rossignol chantait.
Refrain
 
Sur la plus haute branche,
Le rossignol chantait,
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai.
Refrain
 
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai,
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l’ai à pleurer.
Refrain
 
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l’ai à pleurer,
J’ai perdu ma maîtresse,
Sans l’avoir mérité.
Refrain
 
J’ai perdu ma maîtresse,
Sans l’avoir mérité,
Pour un bouquet de roses,
Que je lui refusai.
Refrain
 
Je voudrais que la rose
Fût encore au rosier,
Et que le rosier même
À la mer fût jeté.
Refrain
____________________
 
[i] Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageur (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1998 [1966]).
 
À la claire fontaine, Université de Moncton (Male Choir) 
(please click on the title to hear music)
 
 
 
© Micheline Walker
16 January 2014
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Maria Chapdelaine

26 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Clarence Gagnon artist, colonisation, Curé Labelle colonisation, exode, Louis Hémon author, Maria Chapdelaine, Regionalism, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, three film adaptations

The Chapdelaine Farm, by Clarence Gagnon

The Chapdelaine Farm by Clarence Gagnon

Louis Hémon[i]

French author Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913) moved to Canada in 1911. By then he had already published several books. As for his Maria Chapdelaine, he wrote it during the winter of 1912-1913, sent his manuscript to France and started travelling west.

Hémon died in a train accident at Chapleau, Ontario. Had he travelled a little further he would have met the descendants of voyageurs, Métis, and aristocrats referred to as “The French Counts.”[ii] They had settled in the Assiniboia region: Count Henri de Soras, the Marquis de Jumilhac, Viscount Joseph de Langle, Count de Beaulincourt and others.

Church at Peribonka by Clarence Gagnon

Historical Background: two choices

  • L’Exode or Exodus

Louis Hémon came to Quebec during a period of its history when there was very little work for French-speaking Canadians inhabiting Quebec and Acadia. This period of Canadian history is called the Exode. Nearly a million French Canadians and Acadians moved to the United States where they could work in factories.

  • The Curé Labelle: colonisation

This could not be the Church’s best choice. One priest, the famed Curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891), was the chief proponent of colonisation. He urged French-Canadians to settle north and “make land,” faire de la terre, faire du pays, as their ancestors had done. This was their mission.

—ooo—

Making Land: Samuel’s Choice

So making land had been Samuel Chapdelaine’s choice. He had taken his family to the Lac-Saint-Jean area where he and his sons were turning inhospitable land into arable soil. I should think Hémon named Samuel Chapdelaine after Samuel de Champlain, whom we could call the founder of New France.

Louis Hémon in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

When Louis Hémon arrived in Canada, 1910, he lived in Montreal. But two years later he travelled north and stopped at Peribonka, in the Lac Saint-Jean area. At first, he worked as a farmhand, helping “settlers,” but, as noted above, he spent the winter of 1912-1913 writing Maria Chapdelaine.

Hémon had sent his manuscript to France but he never savored the success of his novel. It was serialized in France in 1914 and published by J. A. Lefebvre in Quebec in 1916, with black and white illustrations by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. It was an international bestseller. An English translation, by W. H. Blake, was published in 1921.

Maria Chapdelaine

There is summary of Maria Chapdelaine (just click on the title) on the website of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, housed in Kleinburg, a village just north of Toronto. Clarence Gagnon‘s (8 November 1881 – 5 January 1942) 1933 illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine are part of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

Napoléon Laliberté by Clarence Gagnon

A Summary of the Plot

However, I will summarize the summary.

Maria is the daughter of a “settler.” She is a little plump, but beautiful. One Sunday, the day on which parishioners get together and chat, Maria meets François Paradis. François is a sort of coureur des bois, voyageur, canoeman, lumberjack: the mythic fearless pioneer.

When François meets Maria, he is attracted to her and tells her that he will stop by her family’s farm before escorting Belgian travelers who are looking for fur. Maria and François fall in love. They will be married when he returns from the logging camp. However, he dies in a blinding snowstorm attempting to visit with Maria on New Year’s Eve.

Eutrope Gagnon and Lorenzo Surprenant: the other suitors

Maria has two other suitors: Eutrope Gagnon, a settler and neighbour, and Lorenzo Surprenant, who has travelled from the United States to find a bride. What Lorenzo has to offer is an easier life: no blackflies, no back-breaking labour, milder weather, nearness to a Church and to stores. She is genuinely tempted to marry him, despite the fact that she is not in love with him. For Maria, love died the day François died.

However, she rejects Lorenzo. She will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a settler, and will live as her mother lived.  When she is making her decision, she hears voices telling her that in Quebec, nothing must die and nothing must change: « Au pays de Québec rien ne doit mourir et rien ne doit changer… »

The names are all symbolic:  Paradis for paradise; Surprenant; for surprising or amazing; and Gagnon for winning.

Beaver Coin

My summary of Maria Chapdelaine may have diminished Maria’s suitors. But Hémon makes them very real and anxious to live their lives, which means taking a wife. Although it is a simple novel, finding a more focused, but somewhat stylized, account of life as it was in 1912 would be difficult. This novel is a jewel. 

Film Adaptations

The novel was an instant, international success. In 1934, Julien Duvivier directed a film adaptation of Maria Chapdelaine starring Madeleine Renaud and Jean Gabin. A second film, entitled Naked Heart, was produced in 1950 by Marc Allégret, starring Michèle Morgan. In 1983, a third adaptation, entitled Maria Chapdelaine, was produced by Quebec filmmaker Gilles Carle, starring Carole Laure.

pu-logo

Folklore: À la claire fontaine, Université de Moncton, Male Choir

Maria Chapdelaine can be read online. It is a Gutenberg Project e-book.
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, FR) [EBook #13585]
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, EN) [EBook #4383]
Maria Chapdelaine PDF
Canadian literature: The Montreal School, 1895–1935
First serialized in Le Temps (1914) (Paris)
Published in book form in 1916
Translated into English in 1921 (W. H. Blake)
Translated in all the major languages
 
____________________
[i] “Louis Hémon.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261010/Louis-Hemon>. 
 
[ii] Ruth Humphrys, “Dr Rudolph Meyer and the French Nobility of Assiniboia,” The Beaver (The Hudson’s Bay Company: Outfit 309:1, Summer 1978), pp. 16-23.
 
Johannes Brahms: Drei Intermezzi, Op 117 No 2

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon

The White Horse by Clarence Gagnon

© Micheline Walker
26 January 2012
WordPress
 
 

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Envoyons de l’avant: Folksong

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

Boat Song, Canadiana Folklore

Canoes

Envoyons de l’avant

(please click on title to hear song)

Envoyons de l’avant  (Let’s go forward)
 
Chorus (sung twice)
Envoyons de l’avant, nos gens !
Envoyons de l’avant.
 
1. Quand on part du chantier,
Mer chers amis, tous le cœur gai,
Pour aller voir tous nos parents,
Mes chers amis le cœur content.
Chorus
 
2. Pour aller voir tous nos parents,
Mes chers amis, le cœur content.
Mais qu’on arrive en Canada,
Il va falloir y mouiller ça.
Chorus
 
3. Ah ! mais que ça soit tout mouillé,
Vous allez voir que ça va marcher !
Mais que nos amis nous voyent arriver,
Ils vont se mettre à rire, à chanter
Chorus
 
4.  Dimanche au soir, à la veillée
Nous irons voir nos compagnées,
Elles vont nous dire, mais en entrant,
Voilà mon amant, j’ai le cœur content !
Chorus
 
5.  Et au milieu de la veillée,
Elles vont parler de leurs cavaliers.
Elles vont nous dire, mais en partant,
As-tu fréquenté les amantes ?
Chorus
 
 
6.  Elles vont nous dire, mais en partant,
As-tu fréquenté les amantes?
Qui a composé la chanson?
C’est pour Blanchette, le joli garçon.
Chorus
 

—ooo—

 
This song is about loggers (chantiers are for loggers).  However, they are canoeing back to Canada.  They are happy, and look forward to having a good drink (mouiller ça: wet this).  When we have had a good drink (mais que ça soit tout mouillé).  You’ll see how smoothly things will go (ça va marcher). 
 
When our friends (nos amis) see us arrive, they’ll be laughing and singing (Ils vons se mettre à rire, à chanter).  On Sunday evening (dimanche au soir), we’ll go and see our sweethearts (nous irons voir nos compagnées). 
 
When our sweethearts see us arrive (en entrant), they will be happy.  They will say when we come in: Here’s my sweetheart, my heart is happy (Voilà mon amant [boyfriend], j’ai le cœur content !).
 
As the evening (la veillée) progresses, the girls will talk about their [other] beaux and when the men leave (mais en partant), they will ask them about their [other] sweethearts.
 
 
Envoyons de l’avant (La Bonne Chanson)

 

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Songs of Voyageurs: À Saint-Malo

25 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

À Saint-Malo, Micheline Walker, voyageurs, words and music

À Saint-Malo

Chorus 
Nous irons sur l’eau,
Nous y prom-promener,
Nous irons jouer dans l’île,
Dans l’île.
 
1. À Saint-Malo beau port de mer, (2)
Trois gros navires sont arrivés.
Chorus
 
2. Chargés d’avoine chargés de blé, (2)
Trois dames s’en vont les marchander.
Chorus
 
3. Marchand, marchand, combien ton blé ? (2)
Trois francs l’avoine, six francs le blé.
Chorus
 
4. C’est bien trop cher d’une bonne moitié, (2)
Montez, madame, vous le verrez.
Chorus
 
5. Marchand d’avoine n’a pas ton blé. (2)
Si je ne le vends, je le donnerai.
Chorus
 
6. Si je ne le vends, je le donnerai. (2)
À ce prix-là, on va s’arranger.
 
Chorus
Nous irons sur l’eau,
Nous y pro-promener.
Nous irons jouer dans l’île,
Dans l’île.
 
We’ll go on the water,
To wander around.
We’ll go play on the island,
On the island.
 

 * * *

Jacques Cartier, who claimed Canada for France (1534), left from Saint-Malo, but this song has nothing to do with him.
 
1.  First, it tells what a beautiful harbour Saint-Malo is and that three big ships (trois gros navires) have arrived (sont arrivés).
 
2.  Three ladies (trois dames) go to a merchant whose boats contain oat (chargés d’avoine) and wheat (chargés de blé[le]).  They want to know how much the wheat costs: combien ton blé ?
 
3.  How much is your wheat ? 
It’s three francs for the oat (l’avoine[f]) and six for the wheat (le blé).
 
4. They say it’s too expensive (trop cher), it should be half (la moitié) the price.
Come up (Montez) ladies, you’ll see it (vous le verrez).
 
5. The oat merchant does not have your wheat.
He says that if he does not sell it (si je ne le vends pas),  he’ll give it. (je le donnerai)
 
6. He repeats that if he does not sell it, he’ll give it.
At that price, (à ce prix-là), one can arrange something. (on va s’arranger) 
 
 

À Saint-Malo

(please click on title to hear the song)

* * *

 
 
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Évangéline & the “literary homeland” (cont’d)

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Antonine Maillet, Évangéline, Jean-Mandé Sigogne, Pélagie-la-Charette, Prix Goncourt, Thomas Chandler Haliburton

Une Acadie heureuse

So we were discussing the manner in which a dispersed nation can find a mythic yet very real past that allows resistance. Yes the deportation of Acadians did take place. It’s a fact. But it did not destroy Acadie. Although he could not have anticipated the fate of his heroine, Longfellow had given Acadians a redeeming symbol. Acadie was Évangéline, both a saint and a martyr!

There were twelve-thousand Acadians who lived more or less amicably with Amerindians. They were farmers.

Most of the Acadians who were deported did not come back. But among those who were finally allowed to leave the ships in Georgia, US, some started travelling towards Louisiana which was still a French colony. However, many decided to return home. Antonine Maillet’s Pélagie-la-Charette tells the story of Acadians travelling back home. Madame Maillet was awarded the 1979 prestigious Prix Goncourt for this truly fine novel.

Antonine Maillet

If fact, I analyzed Pélagie-la-Charette, and my publication is online, in French. If you click on Patrie Littéraire, my article will appear. Bourbeau is my mother’s name.

Le Père Sigogne

We are now returning to Acadie where we will meet one of the French Catholic priests who fled to England, but whom England sent to its French-speaking colony where some became missionaries to Acadians who were settling back.

Father Sigogne [i] was born on April 6, 1763, in Beaulieu-lès-Loches, France, and died in Ste Marie (Church Point or Pointe-de-l’Église) on November 9, 1844. He had spent forty-five years in what is now Nova Scotia, and he is the best known of the French missionaries sent to the Maritime Provinces.

Sigogne’s story is quite the story. According to l’abbé Casgrain, our Father Sigogne had his head under the about-to-fall blade of the guillotine when he was saved: [ii]

Father Sigogne & the guillotine

(please click one page to read text) 

Yet, although he had escaped the guillotine, father Sigogne decided to join several other priests who had fled to England. This was the same England that had been a refuge to Huguenots, French Calvinist Protestants. And this was the England who having deported thousands of Acadians would make its French-speaking Canadian subjects into full-fledged British subjects, under the terms of the Quebec Act of 1774.  History is so convoluted.

* * * 

The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoléon and Pope Pius VII, signed on July 15, 1801. Priests could return to France safely, but Father Sigogne and other priests were already in Canada. Sigogne stayed in the current Nova Scotia, and some stayed in Quebec, then Lower Canada. When studying Canadian Music, I was able to detect the presence of French priests in Quebec. Between 1800 and 1802, three chant and hymn books, “modelled on the traditional French service,” were published in Quebec: Le Graduel romain, published in 1800, Le Processional romain, published in 1801, and Le Vespéral romain. [iii] There can be no doubt that these hymn and chant books are the product of fresh information from France.

As for the Maritimes, the Acadians who were settling back needed the institutions they had had: parishes, schools, colleges. This is how Father Sigogne and other French priests could help them. Moreover, as well educated and refined a gentleman as Father Sigogne befriended the authorities. In his article on Thomas Chandler Haliburton, (December 17, 1796 at Windsor, N.S — August 27, 1865 at Isleworth, Middlesex, England), Fred Cogswell writes that Haliburton was a “friend of the celebrated Abbé Jean-Mandé Sigogne.” [iv]  As for Bernard Pothier, in his entry on Jean-Mandé Sigogne he writes that Haliburton, the creator of Sam Slick, found him, i.e. Sigogne, “a man of strong natural understanding, well informed.”

* * *

So, the fictional Pélagie, who travels back to Acadie, and Father Sigogne, who creates parishes, schools, etc., resemble our voyageurs. They gave themselves a purpose and they were happy to have a job. In England, there was very little for l’abbé Sigogne to do, but in Acadia, everything had to be rebuilt. For Sigogne, this was a real opportunity. People stumble and rise up again.

As for l’abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain, during his pilgrimage, he was looking at what a priest would consider a miracle: an Acadie rising from its ashes with priests leading the way. Times have changed. 

Charette

 Grieg: Ave Maris Stella,* St. John’s College Choir

(please click on title to hear music)
* The Ave Maris Stella is the national anthem of Acadians. 
 
 
_________________________
[i] Bernard Pothier, “Jean-Mandé Sigogne,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol VII) <http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=3662>
 
 
[ii] Henri-Raymond Casgrain, Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline, p. 426. 
<http://www.archive.org/stream/cihm_00528#page/425/mode/2up>
 
 
[iii] Timothy J. McGee, The Music of Canada (New York & London: Norton & Company, 1985), p. 42.
 
 
[iv] Freg Cogswell, “Thomas Chandler Haliburton,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Vol VII) <http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=4475>
 
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Évangéline & the “literary homeland”

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canadian History, French-Canadian Literature

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

Deportation of Acadians, Expulsion of Acadians, French priests, French Revolution, Henri-Raymond Casgrain, La Patrie littéraire, Longfellow, Un Pèlerinage au pays d'Évangéline

Évangéline, a Tale of Acadie

A few years ago, I published a paper in which I told about French priests who fled to England to escape the guillotine and were then sent to Canada where many became missionaries in Atlantic Canada. 

I gathered my information from l’abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain’s Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline (1855) and Une Seconde Acadie (1894). These books are now available online, but I had to read them under the supervision of a librarian. 

First, let me point to the title of l’abbé Casgrain’s first book: Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline. As I have mentioned in an earlier blog, Évangéline is a fictional character created by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882).  She is the heroine of a long poem published in 1847. Longfellow heard the story of an Évangéline while he was having dinner with Nathaniel Hawthorne (4 July 1804 – 19 May 1864), the author of the famous Scarlet Letter (1850).

The Deportation of the Acadians by Charles Jefferys

The Deportation of the Acadians, 1755

There may have been an Évangéline separated from a Gabriel during the deportation of Acadians. The soldiers who put these victims into boats separated members of the same family. But Longfellow’s Évangéline is a fictional character whom Acadians have mythified, thereby giving themselves a symbol that bestows selfhood, an identity. Longfellow’s poem was a great success, but he could not possibly have expected that his poem would be successful not only as a literary work but as resistance. The literary homeland is resistance.

As for l’abbé Casgrain, he corralled the fictional Évangéline into the giants that gave French-speaking Canadians both a past and mythology.  In fact, he gave her a homeland: un pays and he called his trip to Atlantic Canada a pilgrimage.  The title tells the story: Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline (A Pilgrimage to the Country of Évangéline).

However, Évangéline is a metaphor. When Acadians were deported, couples were separated.  Évangéline, therefore, represents all the women who were separated from their fiancés and, for that matter, her Gabriel represents all the young men who were separated from their betrothed. 

But what makes this book particularly fascinating is the presence in Atlantic Canada of French priests: aristocrats. Many Acadians had found their way back to their former land and even though their farms had been given new owners, they started to build a second Acadie… 

(I will stop here because I lost most of this blog, by clicking on the publish button.  I have rewritten two-thirds of my blog, but I am now tired.  So I will finish it in the morning and will also send you the words and music of a second voyageur song.)

Antoine Gérin-Lajoie, 1842 
Un Canadien errant
Alan Mills
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Evangeline: a Tale of Acadie (1847)
 
Love to everyone  ♥

Afficher l’image source

© Micheline Walker
24 January 2012
WordPress
 
 
 
 
 

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