Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Aftermath (cont’d): Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens

30 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Canada, Literature

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The Ice Bridge at Longue-Pointe, by Cornelius Krieghoof, 1847-1848

I did not write a conclusion to my last blog because Cornelius Krieghoof’s paintings were my conclusion.  In Krieghoof’s paintings, Quebec was mythified.  And it was also mythified in Philippe Aubert de Gaspé‘s (October 30, 1786 – Habyart 29, 1871) Les Anciens Canadiens (1863).  Les Anciens Canadiens, a novel, was first serialized in Les Soirées canadiennes, a magazine founded in 1861 by H. R. Casgrain, A. Gérin-Lajoie, the author of Un Canadien errant (the words only),  F. A. H. La Rue and J. C. Taché.

Aubert de Gaspé’s family manoir, 1900

A Literary Homeland Novel & an historical novel

Aubert de Gaspé wrote his Anciens Canadiens, Quebec (1863) when he was in his mid-seventies and did so in response to the Report of John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham GCB, PC (12 April 1792 – 28 July 1840), in which Durham stated that the Canadiens did not have a history or a literature.  Les Anciens Canadiens therefore constitutes a Patrie Littéraire achievement.  Charles G. D. Roberts‘s KCMG, FRSC (January 10, 1860 – November 26, 1943) 1890 translation of Gaspé’s novel entitled The Canadians of Old, remains a favourite, but there is at least one other translation.

Given that it was written one hundred years after the Treaty of Paris (1763), one may think this novel has little to do with the aftermath, except that it is a historical novel in which events take place as the Province of Québec replaces Nouvelle-France, which Aubert de Gaspé memorialized and idealized.

Its main protagonists are Jules d’Haberville, the son of a seigneur, and Archibald Cameron of Locheill, an exiled Highlander, both of whom are students at the Jesuit seminary in Quebec City and both of whom are fated to fight on opposite sides during  the Seven Years’ War or French and Indian War.

Moreover, while visiting Jules’s father manoir, Archibald meets Blanche, Jules’s sister, and the two fall in love, which almost takes us back to Krieghoof’s two major themes: the habitant and the Amerindian.  Krieghoof was fond of genre themes and, among these themes, a “typical scene” was one where “a British soldier flirts with a young francophone woman, the intimate moment interrupted by her husband or a parent.”[i]

Archibald, renamed Arché, is not “a British soldier flirting with a young francophone woman.”[ii]  However, like a “parent,” the parents of a French-Canadian girl, Blanche herself does not think she should marry Arché.  She is the daughter of a seigneur and she rejects Arché who is not just “un bon Anglais,” but Scottish and extremely handsome.  Blanche is simply too pure.  It is at times possible to correct the accidents of history.

Un Ancien Canadien

Dumais’s gratitude & the habitant as voyageur

However, being Scottish does save Archibald’s life.  The novel contains two perilous and related events.  Early in the novel, Dumais, an habitant, crosses the Rivière-du-Sud when the ice is too thin and breaks.  The Canadiens made ice bridges, as depicted in Krieghoff’s painting above.  In fact, Dumais is the victim of a genuine débâcle.  He breaks a leg and is hanging from to a tree hoping to be rescued. Archibald turns into a formidable athlete and saves Dumais’s life.

Later in the novel, Dumais will save Archibald’s life.  The British have attacked New France and Archibald is ordered to burn properties, including the d’Haberville’s manoir, which he doesn’t want to do.  However, as he is destroying properties, Archibald is captured by Amerindians and is about to be tortured and burned when Dumais surfaces, looking like an Amerindian, and tells the Amerindians that their captive is not an Englishman, but Scottish and that  “les Écossais sont les sauvages des Anglais[,]”[iii] or “the Scots are the Englishmen’s savages [Amerindians].”  Dumais then goes on to tell that Archie is the young man who saved his life on the day the ice broke.

Dumais even reveals that is not altogether the Amerindian he appears to be, but a sort of “voyageur,” the often métissé French-Canadian who manned the birch-bark canoes, first for fur-traders and later for Scottish explorers who crossed the continent, the voyageur who spoke the Amerindian languages and married Amerindians.

Reference to Cooper and Chateaubriand 

Interestingly, Les Anciens Canadiens, contains a reference to James Fenimore Cooper and, indeed, written by a Cooper the tragic events at the Rivière-du-Sud may have been better told.  “Only a Cooper or a Chateaubriand could have done justice to a depiction of the tragic events taking place on the shore of the Rivière-du-Sud.” « La plume d’un Cooper, d’un Chateaubriand, pourrait seule peindre dignement le spectacle qui frappe leurs regards sur la berge de la Rivière-du-Sud. »[iv]  Given Chateaubriand’s masterful style and Cooper’s quickly penned realism, this comparison is not altogether felicitous or convincing.

A Flaw, but not too tragic

Yes, there is the flaw.  Like Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens is a page-turner, but Aubert de Gaspé so idealizes New France that a comparison with Cooper is again rather inappropriate.  The seigneur is too cordial and life at the manoir, too perfect:  the meal, the May Fest, the Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the spontaneous singing, the good gentleman who has been imprisoned because others spent his fortune, the priest (le curé), the gentle treatment of the seigneur’s black slave, the friendship between Jules and Arché: frères (brothers), the much too “noble” Blanche.  In fact, even Archibald’s heroism is also a little too heroic.

But although it is understandable, the element that is most difficult to accept, in my opinion, is Blanche’s rejection of Archibald.  Although he has fought with the British against New France, as an enlisted soldier what choice did he have?  Blanche does seem too pure, pure to a fault.  To what extent is it necessary to use the misfortunes of history to one’s own detriment and to the detriment of the finest and most handsome of suitors?  Even the enemy is too much of an enemy.

Yet, Les Anciens Canadiens  is a good novel.  The portrayal of the d’Haberville family and of life at the manoir may be idealized, but this flaw is redeemed by the novel’s fine structure (the two near-death experiences, etc.), by discreet digressions or stories within the story: the Corriveau legend (next blog) and other legends.  It is also redeemed by the role played by Dumais, the habitant-voyageur, and Marie, the sorceress, not to mention the unexpectedly unflattering but relieving comments about the motherland.  However, more than any other factor, Aubert de Gaspé’s skills as a storyteller all but override his idealization of New France. 

Britannica labels The Last of the Mohicans  an “imperfect masterpiece.” We just may be looking not at a “great imperfect masterpiece,” but at a smaller “imperfect masterpiece.”[v]

* * *

Alouette folksong (Université de Moncton 21-voice male choir)[vi]
(please click on the title to hear the music)

__________________

[i] Arlene Gehmacher, “Cornelius Krieghoof,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/cornelius-david-krieghoff

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, Les Anciens Canadiens (Éditions Fides, collection Bibliothèque québécoise, 1988[1864]), p. 239.

[iv] Les Anciens Canadiens, p. 79.

[v] Arlene Gehmacher, “Cornelius Krieghoof,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/cornelius-david-krieghoff

[vi] Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageurs (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1998[1966]), p. 46.

The Aftermath & Krieghoff’s Quintessential Quebec

29 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in Aboriginals, Art, Canada

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—Bargaining for a Load of Wood by Cornelius Krieghoff (1815 – 1872), 1860
 
Galerie Walter Klinkhoff
http://www.klinkhoff.com/gwk/home/gwkexhbrowse.asp?WID=769&artist=75
 

“After Canada was ceded to Britain in 1763, new British laws respected the private agreements and the property rights of francophone society, and the seigneurial system was maintained.” The Canadian Encyclopedia

—ooo—

In 1755, the British deported thousands of Acadians but, in 1874, nineteen years later, the Quebec Act made French-speaking Canadians full-fledged British subjects.

At first, there were difficult years on both sides. But, as stated in the Canadian Encyclopedia, after Canada was ceded to Britain in 1763, “new British laws respected the private agreements and the property rights of francophone society, and the seigneurial system was maintained.”[i] For details regarding this question, one can read Michel Brunet’s French Canada and the early decades of the British Rule (go to pages 3 and 4).

The Royal Proclamation and the Quebec Act

The ROYAL PROCLAMATION OF 1763 renamed Nouvelle-France the Province of Quebec, but made it rather small, which would no longer be the case in 1774. According to the Quebec Act, “which received royal assent 22 June 1774 and became effective 1 May 1775,”[ii] the Province of Quebec would “include Labrador, Ile d’Anticosti and Iles-de-la-Madeleine on the east, and the Indian territory south of the Great Lakes between the Mississippi and Ohio rivers on the west.” This enlarged Quebec would have an elected assembly and Catholics could be elected into office.

Sir Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester

The Quebec Act came into effect under General and Right Honourable Sir Guy Carleton 1st Baron Dorchester, KB [Order of Bath] (Strabane, Co. Tyrone, Ireland, 3 September 1724 – 10 November 1808 Stubbings, Maidenhead, Berkshire), Governor of Quebec (1768–1778) and Governor General of the Canadas (1786–1796). But Lord Dorchester opposed the Constitutional Act of 1991 that created two Canadas: Lower Canada and Upper Canada.

Lord Guy Carleton[iii] was largely responsible for the Quebec Act, which helped to preserve French laws and customs (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-2833). (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

I will discuss the Constitutional Act (1791), which Lord Dorchester opposed, in a later post. For the time being, it suffices to tell about the life of the Canadien after the Treaty of Paris. France could have kept New France but it preferred to keep sugar-rich Guadeloupe. However, the terms of the Treaty of Paris, which protected Quebec, were respected.

It has been said that it was in Britain’s best interest to give full citizenship to the Canadiens in a formal Act, the Quebec Act. Its thirteen colonies to the South were threatening to part company with England. Therefore, why alienate the French Canadians? Yet, it has also been said that Britain acted in the best interest of its new British subjects.

Cornelius Krieghoff

So, let us remember Cornelius Krieghoof’s quintessential Quebec: a snow land, un pays de neige: snow as a country.

— Winter Landscape, c. 1889 (Photo credit: Art.com) 
 

Cornelius David Krieghoff (19 June 1815 – 8 March 1872) was born in Amsterdam and entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, in c. 1830. He moved to New York in 1836 and enlisted in the US army the following year, 1837. In 1840, he deserted the US army and married Émilie Gauthier.  “They moved to Montreal, where he participated in the Salon de la Société des Artistes de Montréal. While in Montreal, he befriended the Mohawks living on the Kahnawake Indian Reservation and made many sketches of them from which he later produced oil paintings.”[iv]

In 1844, the Krieghoffs travelled to Paris and Krieghoof made copies of works located in the Louvre under the direction of Michel Martin Drolling (1789–1851).  Krieghoof was invited to participate in the first exhibition of the Toronto Society of Arts, held in 1847. So the Krieghoffs returned to Montreal in 1846 and moved to Quebec City in 1853. Krieghoff returned to Europe twice. He did so briefly, in 1854, and at greater length, from 1863 to 1868.

He then moved to Chicago to retire, and Chicago was his last destination. He died on 8 March 1872 at the age of 56 and is buried in Graceland Cemetery in Chicago. The Great Quebec Fire of 8 June 1881 destroyed many of his sketches, “then owned by John S. Budden, who had lived with the artist for thirteen years.” (Wikipedia). Cornelius Krieghoof is considered the finest Canadian artist of the nineteenth century. However, although called a Canadian, he could be labelled a Dutch master.

The Habitant and his Seigneur

Just below is a painting of habitants, the name given censitaires or tenants under the Seigneurial System, abolished in 1854. They had been called habitants since the seventeenth century. The word has now become pejorative.

Habitants, painting by Cornelius Krieghoff

Habitants, 1852 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two Major Themes

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia:

“Krieghoff early on established in his repertoire two major themes that he would revisit throughout his career and for which he is perhaps best known: rural francophones and aboriginals. His HABITANT scenes cover a range of situations: in some, for example, folk greet one another en route, play cards, race their sleds, fraternize at the local in, or attempt to settle a tract of un-arable land – granted to them by the government – in the hinterlands of Québec.”[v]

The hinterlands would be Maria Chapdelaine’s Peribonka: les pays d’en-haut (the countries above), a story told by Frenchman, Louis Hémon.  As for the aboriginals, when he served in the US army, Krieghoff was assigned for service in the Seminole Wars in Florida.  Krieghoff had made sketches of the Second Seminole War.  The Seminoles were Amerindians.

— Wyandot hunter calling a moose, c. 1868 (print)

Track 25 Beethoven Rondo in C major C-Dur; ut majeur Op. 51.1, Louis Lortie
(please click on Track 25 to hear the music)
© Micheline Walker
_________________________
[i] Jacques Mathieu, “The Seignorial System,” The Canadian Encyclopedia http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/seigneurial-system  
[ii] Nancy Brown Foulds, “Quebec Act,” The Canadian Encyclopedia
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/quebec-act 
[iii] S. R. Mealing, “Guy Carleton,” The Canadian Encyclopedia  http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/guy-carleton-1st-baron-dorchester 
[iv] “Cornelius Krieghoff,” Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Krieghoff 
[v] Arlene Gehmacher, “Cornelius Krieghoff,” The Canadian Encyclopedia
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/cornelius-david-krieghoff
 
 
 

An Election Year in France: a Link to a WordPress Post

27 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in France, History

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La Mort de Marat, by Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825)

This is an election year in France (please click) and WordPress author “Becoming Madame” has published an essential post on the subject. I have to let you know about this post. 

Jean-Paul Marat (24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a “radical voice.” He escaped the guillotine, but was killed by Charlotte Corday on July 13, 1793. He was working in his bathtub where he found relief from a debilitating and itchy skin disease, probably dermatitis herpetiformis or Duhring’s disease, not caused by the herpes virus.

 
                              
 
 
 
 

Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d’Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793) being led to her execution, by famed Venezuelan artist Arturo Michelena (16 June 1863 – 29 July 1898)

 
 
 
 
 Berlioz – La Marseillaise (please click) 
 
 

The Battle of Fort William Henry & Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans

26 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in History, Literature

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James Fenimore Cooper, by
John Wesley Jarvis
(c.1781 – 1839)
 
 
 
 
  
The Last of the Mohicans, 1826 
 

The Last of the Mohicans, an american historical novel written by James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851), commemorates the Siege of Fort William Henry.

 
Drawing of Otsego Hall, the residence of Unite...
Drawing of Otsego Hall, the residence of United States author James Fenimore Cooper. A few years after his death it burned, and the surrounding land was sold by the heirs. His daughter, Susan Fenimore Cooper, incorporated some of the bricks in a residence she built. It had been built by his father (completed 1799).
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Otsego Hall

 
 

Six years earlier, Cooper had begun his literary career with the publication of The Precaution (1820), written in response to his wife, Susan DeLancey, who “challenged his claim that he could write a better book than the English novel he was reading to her.”[i]  Good for her and good for all readers.  Cooper’s second book, The Spy, published in 1821, was a great success and marks the birth of a great American novelist. In 1823, he published The Pioneers, which confirmed his amazing talent for creating very fluent novels based on life in America. 

The Pioneers was the first of his Leatherstocking Tales, a series in which he inserted The Last of the Mohicans, a novel which features Natty Bumppo (Hawkeye), a pioneering scout.  Ending his Leatherstocking Tales series are The Pathfinder (1840) and the The Deerslayer (1841).

The PLOT as told in the Oxford Companion to American Literature [ii]

The Last of the Mohicans is a romance featuring Cora and Alice Munro, the daughters of the English commander, Lieutenant-Colonel George Munro.  They wish to join their father and are accompanied by Major Duncan Heyward and the singing teacher David Gamut, Alice’s fiancé.  Also present is Amerindian Magua, a traitor to the British who will meet a sorry end, shot by Hawkeye and falling down a precipice to his death.  As the party travels to besieged Lake George, Magua’s treacherous intentions are foiled by Hawkeye, Bumppo, and his friend, chief Chingachgook and his son Uncas.  They are the “only survivors of the Mohican Aristocracy.” Cora and Alice are captured by Magua with the help of the Iroquois.  Here Magua promises them safety if Cora will become his Squaw, which she refuses.  At this point, an instance of kairos, the opportune moment, Hawkeye rescues the girls.  They reach Fort William and remain there until their father, Munro or Monro capitulates.  

A gallant Montcalm “gives them a safe-conduct[,]” but, as we know, the Siege of Fort William Henry was followed by a massacre.  Fortunately the forever vigilant Hawkeye finds Cora, imprisoned in a Delaware camp, and Alice, in a Huron camp.  But Heyward who has entered the camp “in disguise, rescues Alice and, with Uncas, escapes to the Delaware camp,” where they are well received.

Upon learning Uncas’s identity, old chief Tamenund “hails him as his destined successor.” The plot thickens, however, when Magua, our traitor, shockingly claims Cora as his “rightful property” and Uncas cannot object.  However, “joined by the English, leads his tribe against the Hurons” and, when Magua “attempts to desert,” Uncas follows, and tries to rescue Cora.  Uncas and Cora are killed, and Hawkeye shoots Magua, who falls from a precipice to his death,” as mentioned earlier.  The group returns to “civilization,” except for Hawkeye “who continues his frontier career.” 

 

It’s all there: good and bad Amerindians, brave Munro or Monro who fights to the bitter end, gallant Montcalm, the death of Uncas, the last Mohican, Cora, who will not be a traitor’s squaw, the death of the bad Amerindian, action galore, losses and gains, and, finally, the clash between civilization and the frontier, the novel’s main source of tension. 

Civilization versus the frontier

James Fenimore Cooper was fascinated by the juxtaposition of the “civilized” and the unpredictable “frontier.”  Let me quote Wikipedia: “In the Last of the Mohicans, the stereotypical, nineteenth century view of the native is seen in the character of Magua, who is devoid of almost any redeeming qualities.  In comparison, Chingachgook, the last chief of the Mohicans, is portrayed as noble, courageous, and heroic.”

Cooper was an extremely prolific and successful novelist.  He was admired everywhere and by almost everyone, including the equally prolific Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885).  Not that his art was very polished, but that he was inventive and a phenomenal storyteller, a feature that keeps the reader in suspense.  Rare are those writers whose books one cannot put down as of the end of the first paragraph.

James Fenimore Cooper
1940 issue

Cooper is best remembered for his Leatherstocking Tales, featuring the wilderness scout called Natty Bumppo, or Hawkeye.  They include The Pioneers (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841).  According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the “Leatherstocking” tales are Cooper’s “great imperfect masterpiece.”[iii]

However, he had been a midshipman and wrote sea novels or romances.  He also wrote the scholarly History of the Navy (1853) and championed egalitarianism.

* * *

The Last of the Mohicans: YouTube
(please click on the title to see the video)
 March 26, 2012
_________________________ 

[i] James D Hart, with revision and additions by Phillip W. Leininger, The Oxford Companion to American Literature (Oxford University Press 1995[1941]).

[ii] George G. Dekker, “James Fenimore Cooper.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 26 Mar. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/136268/James-Fenimore-Cooper>.

[iii] Ibid.

Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran

25 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by in Canada, History

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Sketch of the Death of Montcalm, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 1902

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869 – 1937)

09 MOZART-concerto clarinette et orch, K.622: Michel Portal (clarinette), Wiener Kammerorchester (Philippe Entremont, dir.)
(click on the title to hear the music)
 

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham (September 13, 1759), is a battle that takes its name, Abraham, from the fact that it was fought on a piece of land belonging to Abraham Martin (1589-1664), a fisherman and a river pilot (Wikipedia), nicknamed The Scot.  The Battle of the Plains of Abraham killed both General Wolfe and General Montcalm and I suspect that, as he was nearing death, at the age of 47, General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm knew that the colony he had been sent to protect would be ceded to Britain. 

In my last post, I wrote that, as he lay dying, Montcalm was not told that Major-General James P Wolfe had died.  I was puzzled, but let us read the testimonial of the American historian Reverend Francis Parkman (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893), the author of the seven-volume France and England in North America.  The sixth volume is entitled Montcalm and Wolfe (1884).

So, allow me to quote Parkman, quoted in Wikipedia:

He (Montcalm) then asked how long he might survive, and was told that he had not many hours remaining. “So much the better,” he said; “I am happy that I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec.”

Officers from the garrison came to his bedside to ask his orders and instructions “I will give no more orders,” replied the defeated soldier; “I have much business that must be attended to, of greater moment than your ruined garrison and this wretched country. My time is very short; therefore, pray leave me.”

The officer withdrew, and none remained in the chamber but his confessor and the Bishop of Quebec. To the latter, he expressed his contempt for his own mutinous and half famished troops, and his admiration for the disciplined valour of his opponents. He died at midnight, and was buried at his own desire in a cavity of the earth formed by the bursting of a bombshell.

As indicated above, Montcalm used the word “wretched,” referring to the colony.  He had been short-changed by Vaudreuil who was not a military tactician and opposed Montcalm’s use of European warfare on North-American soil.  The two feuded from the moment Montcalm arrived in New France, in May 1756 .

Expertise should override uninformed opinion

Canadian-born Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnal, Marquis de Vaudreuil (22 November 1698 – 4 August 1778), Governor of New France, had been in the military, but his second-guessing Montcalm was not very judicious.  Between Montcalm and Vaudreuil, Montcalm was the better soldier and, as a rule, one must defer to greater expertise.

The Battle of Fort Oswego

Although Montcalm was not familiar with the hit-and-run type of warfare Vaudreuil favoured, the siege and Battle of Fort Oswego, fought  between August 10 – 14, 1759, three months after Montcalm arrived in New France, was proof positive that there was merit to European warfare.  As happens in wars, Colonel James Mercer, the British leader, lost his life at Fort Oswego.  The battle was then fought under the command of James Littlehales.  At Oswego, the French were well prepared, which was not the case at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

The Battle of Fort William Henry

The Siege of Fort William Henry, (click on the above picture to enlarge it)conducted between August 3 and 9, 1757, seems an inglorious victory. The British forces, led by Lieutenant-Colonel George Monro (1700–1757) were defeated by Montcalm’s troops which included 1,800 Amerindians of different tribes and 6,200 “regulars” and militia. The British were outnumbered and lost, but suddenly disorderly and blood-thirsty Amerindians, who had fought under Montcalm’s command, started to kill British soldiers and civilians. 

Monro and Montcalm were not able to subdue the Amerindians, so infamy is attached to this siege or battle of Fort William Henry.  However the Amerindians made the mistake of unearthing the corpses of individuals who had recently died of smallpox.  They wanted trophies.  As a result, they went back to their various encampments carrying the seeds of a disease that would be more costly than their rampage. 

British General Jeffery Amherst would remember the massacre.  This was not European warfare.  Lieutenant-Colonel George Monro died suddenly a few months after the battle.

The Battle of Carillon

The Battle of Carillon, also known as the 1758 Battle of Ticonderoga, took place between July 6 and July 8, 1758.  Once again, Montcalm, ably assisted by the Chevalier de Lévis, his second in command, was victorious under troops led by James Abercombie and George Howe.  Fort Carillon was a French Fort built on the shores of Lake Champlain.  How the French won that battle is difficult to explain.  They were outnumbered because Vaudreuil had sent half of New France’s troops to Louisbourg, against the advice of Montcalm.

Rhodes Scholar and Pulitzer-prize laureate American historian Lawrence Henry Gipson (1880–September 26, 1971) has faulted Abercombie for the disaster at Carillon.  Just how did the French win this battle? (click on the picture below to enlarge it)

— The Victory of Montcalm’s troops at Carillon /Ticonderoga, by famed American illustrator Henry Alexander Ogden (1856–1936)  

 

The Battle of Beauport or Montmorency

The Battle of Beauport or Battle of Montmorency was Montcalm’s last victory on North-American soil.  It was fought a short distance away from Quebec City by British troops under the command of Major-General James P. Wolfe.  It was fought on July 31, 1759, six weeks before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, a final battle for Major-General Wolfe and General Montcalm and two weeks after the British had succeed in passing seven ships, including the HMS Sutherland and two frigates, the HMS Diana and HMS Squirrel to the west of Quebec city.  My question is the expected: how could this have happened unnoticed?

Beauport, located near the Montmorency Falls, was a French redoubt.  So General Wolfe’s 6,000 regulars were outnumbered by Montcalm’s 10,000 regulars and militia.  General Wolfe lost more than 211 men and 233 soldiers were wounded, but ironically, British ships having passed through the narrow strait between Lévis, to the south, and Québec City, to the north, the British were in a very good position to attack the French.  Six weeks later, Montcalm’s troops were defeated at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. 

Conclusion

Montcalm lost one of his five battles in North America.  He was a good soldier.  But he lost not only this one battle, but his life, and so did Wolfe.  Wolfe was only 32 and he was also a good soldier.  As is quoted above, Montcalm praised General Wolfe on his death-bed, which is not insignificant.  On the contrary! 

There would be another battle: the Battle of Sainte-Foy, sometimes called the Battle of Quebec, fought on April 28, 1760.   It opposed the French under the Chevalier de Lévis, and the British under General James Murray.  The French won that battle, but Lévis was not able to retake Quebec City.  The British retrenched and waited for reinforcement.  It had been a difficult winter and scurvy had taken British lives.  Lévis also waited for reinforcement, but it came too late.  France came too late and, in 1763, it chose to keep Guadeloupe. 

 — Louis-Joseph de Montcalm, by Antoine-François Sergent-Marceau     (1751 – 1847)

In the end, it seems all was decided in the corridors of power.  So let Montcalm’s final words be my final words.

February 25, 2012

Nouvelle-France’s last and lost Battle: the Battle of the Plains of Abraham

24 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by in Canada, History

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Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon,
Marquis de Saint-Veran                      
C. W. Jefferys, 1869 – 1951
 
 

France in the Eighteenth Century

During the eighteenth century, France was not as vigilant as it could or should have been regarding the management of its North-American colonies. The motherland had considerable problems of its own that culminated in the French Revolution (1789-1794).

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham

Yes, there were battles, the most significant being the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, in Quebec City. It took place on September 13, 1759.  The British won, but the battle claimed the life of Major-General James P. Wolfe (2 January 1727 – 13 September 1759). As for Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran (February 28, 1712 [O.S. February 17, 1712] – September 14, 1759), he was mortally wounded. There were sufficient men on both sides, but “many of the French were ill-trained militia,” not “regulars.” In other words, the French were not in a position to fight Major-General Wolfe’s professional soldiers. [i] 

C. W. Jefferys (1869 – 1951)

The Death of General Montcalm depicts the Marquis de Montcalm mortally wounded in 1759. He died on September 14, 1759.

The Treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763

Signed on February 10, 1763, the Treaty of Paris brought to a close both a European conflict, not to say the first world war, the Seven Years’ War, and the North-American French and Indian War. Nouvelle-France was ceded to Great Britain on February 10, 1763.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the King of Great Britain

  • granted “the liberty of the Catholick [sic] religion to the inhabitants of Canada,”
  • agreed that the French inhabitants of Canada might withdraw from Canada without hindrance, and
  • gave to French fishermen “the liberty of fishing in the gulph [sic] of St. Lawrence” and “the liberty of fishing and drying on a part of the coasts of the island of Newfoundland”, as well as
  • the ownership of the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon, “to serve as a shelter to the French fishermen.”[ii]

The Canadiens

For the Canadiens (French-speaking Canadians), the loss of New France was a devastating blow.  The Canadien felt he had abandoned by the motherland, in which he was mostly correct.  The shores of the St Lawrence had become his country. He could not return to France. According to the Treaty of Paris, the Canadiens would be free to practice their religion and farmers did not lose their farms, nor did city dwellers lose their home.  However, aristocrats working in Nouvelle-France returned to France.  This was also a stipulation of the Treaty of Paris. 

The Voyageurs

However, as I wrote in an arlier post the voyageurs may not have learned they had become British subjects immediately.  But they learned.  Certain fur-trading posts were no longer French, but British or American.  Under the terms of the Treaty of Ghent, signed on 24 December 1814, ending the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, a border would have to be drawn between British and American territories in the Northern limits of what would become the continental United States of America.

For one thing, many voyageurs would work for John Jacob Astor (July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848), the owner of the American Fur Trade Company, established in 1808.  Ramsay Crooks urged John Jacob Astor to hire Canadiens as boatmen.  Americans, who had first been hired, lacked the ability to work as a team and could not respect Amerindians.

In theory, Joan Jacob Astor’s American Fur Trade Company could not hire Canadiens who were British subjects. However, during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, an exception was made to the Embargo Act of 1897.  Here is a link to a narration of these events: https://michelinewalker.com/2012/01/14/john-jacob-astor-the-voyageur-as-settler-and-explorer/

In a famous council on April 27, 1763, Pontiac urged listeners to rise up against the British. (19th century engraving by Alfred Bobbet)
(please click on picture to enlarge it)
 

The Pontiac Rebellion

The Treaty of Paris had not made provisions for North-American natives, the Amerindians. Somehow and regretfully, the negotiators had not thought of them. This shameful oversight led to the Pontiac Rebellion which lasted from 1763 to 1766 and opposed the British and Chief Pontiac’s forces. Chief Pontiac was the leader of the Ottawas.  On July 25, 1766, Pontiac met with the British superintendent of Indian affairs, Sir William Johnson, at Fort Oswego, New York. Hostilities ended on that day. As for Chief Pontiac, he was murdered on April 20, 1769. His assassination was not investigated.

* * *

I will end this blog here, but it will be followed by an account of the battles that took place during the French and Indian War (or the Seven Years’ War).  All I will say for now is that Montcalm died on September 14, 1760. When he learned that his wound would take his life, he is reported to have said that his death was a blessing.  He died unaware that the Battle of the Plains of Abraham had also claimed the life of General James P. Wolfe.  (please click on picture to enlarge it)

Wolfe dying, The Battle of the Plains of Abraham,
by Benjamin West (1738 – 1820)

 10 À la claire fontaine, University of Moncton 30-voice male choir [iii]        
(please click on the title to hear the music)

____________________

[i] I am quoting the Quebec Encyclopedia (Marianopolis College) and the Canadian Encyclopedia. <http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/TreatyofParis1763-QuebecHistory.htm>
W. Stewart Wallace, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. V, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948,  p. 87. 
 
[ii] C. P. Stacey (revised by Norman Hillmer), “Battle of the Plains of Abraham”
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/battle-of-the-plains-of-abraham  
 
[iii] Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageurs (St. Paul. Minnesota Historical Society, 1998[1966], p. 44. 
 

March 24, 2012

Health Care: a Note to Fareed Zakaria

22 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by in Sharing, Uncategorized

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Fareed Zakaria

 

Comments on Mr Zakaria’s Report

A few days ago, I watched Fareed Zakaria‘s televised report on health care in various countries.  It was an excellent program.

Three initial Steps

The information Mr Zakaria provided has led me to think that there are three initial steps in managing universal health care.

1.  In my opinion, the first step is a government-run program, which excludes private insurance except for extras, i.e. for what the doctor does not prescribe and for care provided in private hospitals.  But that does not preclude a universal health-care program.

2.  The second step would be strict regulation concerning the price of pharmaceutical products.  Pharmaceutical companies sell medication as though each pill or capsule or whatever was a precious diamond. 

3.  As for the third step, it would be regulation of fees paid to medical practitioners.  At the moment, these fees are not consistent with their years of training and competence.  Nor are these fees consistent with the fees paid other well-trained or better-trained individuals.  Often, these better-trained individuals are on salary. 

As a University teacher, I had to deal with students who would come to my office to request very high marks because they wanted to study medicine and enter a profession that would earn them a few luxuries.  So I would explain that they would have to earn their good grades.  Many did and I was proud of them. 

Tax deductions 

I do not wish to impoverish medical doctors and I fully realize that they require offices and secretaries, but so do other professionals.  Normally, these expenses are tax-deductible to a reasonable degree. 

Doctor-Patient Confidentiality, but a Database

As well, I believe that the doctor-patient confidentiality must be maintained and that one should still choose one’s own doctor,* except that information with respect to the medication an individual is taking, his or her allergies, a health history (surgical procedures, an earlier or on-going illness, etc.) should be available.  It seems there should be a national databank accessible to the staff of emergency-care units.  Accidents happen.

*I live in Canada but have always had my own doctors.

What if these three steps are not taken?

If these three steps are not taken, there will have to be a sizeable increase in taxes and the rich will have to pay their fair share of taxes.  This is plain common sense.

The Other Side of the coin

Moreover, no system can work if people themselves do not look after their health.  Smoking and obesity are killers.  There are, of course, a few exceptions but, generally speaking, smoking and obesity are killers and obesity is not necessarily genetic.  In cases where a condition is genetic, the need for medical attention is legitimate.  But nothing is black and white.

Conclusion

There is a lot more to say, but there are authorities in this area.  However, these three points seem an essential starting-point.  Health care, including medications, is too expensive. 

Doctor Zhivago – Lara’s Theme

March 22, 2012

It’s Etch a Sketch & Praise for President Obama

22 Thursday Mar 2012

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Bloomsbury Dictionary

It’s Etch a Sketch

I am so sorry.  It’s the Etch a Sketch Day, not Etch and Sketch, as I called the last event in the race for the leadership of the Republican Party, US.  Obviously, life is keeping me humble, which is very good.

 

 

Art:  Hector Giacomelli  (April 1, 1822 and died in Menton on December 1, 1904)

As some of you know, I have long battled Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the symptoms are: getting lost in mid-sentence, not remembering how to spell a word, you have been able to spell since age 8, difficulty concentrating, constant fatigue, poor balance (one tends to fall).   Poor (short-term) memory causes me to repeat what I have just said.

Such a condition is a burden.  But the mind is otherwise unaffected and, as one of my dearest readers put it so aptly, one needs to put a long night’s sleep between  days.  I do.  The nights will now grower shorter and shorter until the Summer Solstice (about June 24th: St John’s Day).  This year, 2012, the Summer Solstice is on June 20th.   Canadians have long relied on the Old Farmer’s Almanac to know when to plant their vegetables.  

So Etch a Sketch it is and it is making waves.  Personally, I find the whole kerfuffle very sad.  It is possible to be a head-of-state and remain honest and gracious.  When President Obama was elected into office, he did not blame anyone for the difficulties his administration had inherited.  Moreover, he is capable of expressing sorrow when Americans do something very wrong. 

Would you believe President Obama has been criticized for apologizing on behalf of the US for last week’s killing of innocent Afghans?  They are calling him weak. 

It was not weakness.  It was strength, wisdom and good manners.  President Obama did his duty, both as President and a decent human being.  Moreover, he reminded viewers around the world that the US had to get out of Afghanistan.

I have work to do and a post in preparation, so I must go.  A good day to all of you.  Yesterday’s post featured daisies by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, and  today, the painting is featured at Art.com.  It is a coincidence.

Hector Giacomelli, Le Perchoir / The Perch

 

Beethoven (1770–1827 ): 7 Ländler Dances D-dur Woo 11
(please click on the title to hear the music)
 
Ländler (a folk dance)

March 22, 2012 

Still Life with Daisies, the News & Answers to your Questions

21 Wednesday Mar 2012

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“Still life with Daisies” or “Marguerites”
Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869 – 1937)

 

 12 Mendelssohn Lieder ohne Worte, Op.30 – No. 6. Allegretto in F sharp minor ‘Venetian Gondola Song’ (click on the title to hear the music)

I would like to be able to say that I am the artist who made the above painting, but it would be a lie.  This is one of Suzor-Coté’s paintings.  I consider it a privilege to be able to see flowers so beautifully depicted.

 

The United States: The Etch-a-Sketch Day

The Etch-a-Sketch day (click to see the story)

Today was a special day in the history of the United States.  Americans were made to realize, albeit inadvertently, that the person who will oppose President Obama in the November election might not have become the leader of his party by telling the truth.  I knew this but, suddenly, so does every body else. 

Answering Questions

I have been receiving Questions and cannot answer each of them.  So here are, to the best of my knowledge, a few right answers:

  • one does not need to know HTML to write a post or blog;
  • the platform I use is WordPress.com;
  • blogging does not have to be expensive: in fact, it can be free;
  • blogging can be very demanding, depending on one’s goal;
  • there may be “white” pages, because the administrator is updating her blog;
  • I do not know how to keep hackers away;
  • one may quote elements of my blogs, provided one acknowledges one’s source.

I hope the above is fairly comprehensive.  Where technical issues are concerned, I am occasionally at a loss, but I think I am slowly making progress.

* * *

But let us focus on Suzor-Coté’s Still life with Daisies and these Apples. 

 February 21, 2012

You can’t please everyone: Æsop retold

21 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Fables

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Le Meunier, son fils et l’âne, François Chauveau*

*François Chauveau[i]

Jean de La Fontaine (July 8, 1621 – April 13, 1695)

This fable is very old and everybody knows it.  But fables have a way of never going out of fashion.  Moreover, I am using La Fontaine’s rewriting of this fable, which updates it considerably.  It is now a seventeenth-century masterpiece.

Aarne-Thompson-Uther Type 1215: The Man, the Boy and the Donkey
Æsop‘s The miller, his son and the donkey, Perry Index 721 (English)
[eBook #25433], page 23
 

La Fontaine’s immediate predecessor was Honoré de Racan, seigneur de Bueil, (February 1589 – 21 January 1670), a disciple of François de Malherbe (1555 – October 16, 1628), a critic, a poet, and a translator who all but dictated the rules of classical poetics.  La Fontaine’s rendition of this fable was dedicated to his dearest friend, Monsieur de Maucroix (1619 – 1708).

Æsop as depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel in 1493

* * *

The miller, his son and the donkey

A father and his son want to take a donkey to market and sell it.  They tie the donkey’s feet together and run a rod underneath the tied feet.  This is their way of carrying their merchandise.

i100_thi099_th

(Please click on the images to enlarge them.)

The miller, his son and the donkey, by Milo Winter (August 7, 1888 – 1956)
(Photo credit: The Æsop for Children, Gutenberg EBook #19994)
 

A man

On their way to market, the father and his son meet a man who makes fun of them and calls them: ânes, which is this case means “asses.”  So the donkey is set on its four legs and the son rides on it.  The donkey protests “en son patois” (in his dialect).

Three merchants

They then come across three merchants who give themselves the right to tell the son that his father should be riding on the back of the donkey, the father being older.  So the father starts riding on the back of the donkey while the son walks.

Three girls

A little later, they meet three girls who tell the father that he looks like a bishop (un évêque) and is acting like a calf (un veau: an idiot). 

Tandis que ce nigaud [idiot], comme un évêque assis,
Fait le veau sur son âne, et pense être bien sage.
 
 

The miller, his son and the donkey, by Ferdinand Hodler*

The miller, his son and the donkey, by Ferdinand Hodler (14 March 1853 – 19 May 1918)

A third group

The father’s first reaction is to tell the girls to go their own way, but he starts second-guessing his answer and sits his son on the donkey.  No sooner is the son comfortably seated, that a third group exclaim that both the son and the father are crazy (fous).  Can’t they see that they are killing the poor donkey?

So they let the donkey lead the parade and, once again, find a critic who calls the donkey, the son and his father “trois ânes,” or three asses, at which point the father says that whether he is blamed (blâmer) or praised (louer), he will do as he pleases: à ma “tête.”

The Moral or the Morals

Usually, this fable is given the following moral: one cannot please everyone.  But I suspect there is a moral underneath this first moral.  The moral beneath the first moral would be that they are encountering judgmental individuals.  The people they encounter do not even ask for an explanation before they start throwing stones.

Can't please everyone

Can’t please everyone

Walter Crane‘s (1845 – 1915) composite illustration of all the events in the tale for the limerick retelling of the fables, Baby’s Own Aesop, an 1887 children’s edition of Æsop’s Fables or fables credited to Æsop (620 – 560 BCE).  Doubt lingers as to whether or not there ever lived a Æsop.  There is, however a Æsopic corpus.  In this image, our fable is entitled “The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey.”

(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

Sources:

La Fontaine’s Poetics

As I have mentioned in other blogs, usually La Fontaine lets animals talk, which is obliqueness,’ or dire-sans-dire, at its best.  Given that this fable is the first of tome 1, book III, it is part of La Fontaine’s “poetics.”  The first fable of each book includes comments on the writing of fables.  This time, animals are not the ones who talk; the fable uses human beings, which makes it a lybistic fable, a fable featuring humans.  However, before the ancient story is told, La Fontaine quotes Malherbe who says: “What, please  everyone!” Contenter tout le monde!).  Furthermore, Malherbe, not La Fontaine, is the one who tells the story.  Malherbe was an authority.

Persons who have read earlier blogs know that there are ways of telling without telling or dire-sans-dire (to say without saying). “Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne” is an example of dire-sans-dire.  It is a discours oblique or, to quote Jürgen Grimm, a discours enveloppé, or wrapped up.

Moreover, those who have read my blog on “The Oak Tree and the Reed,” also know that there may be more than one moral to a fable.  There may be an implicit moral underneath an ‘explicit’ moral.  Good readers can grasp the moral underlying the moral, and my readers are good readers.

______________________________

[i] François Chauveau (10 May 1613, Paris – 3 February 1676, Paris).  Chauveau was the first artist to illustrate La Fontaine’s Fables.  La Fontaine called on him to illustrate his first book of Fables, published in 1668.

Le Meunier, son fils, et l’âne and The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey

la_fontaine_par_rigaud© Micheline Walker
March 21, 2012
WordPress
 
Revised
May 15, 2013  
 
Jean de La Fontaine,
par Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659 – 1743)