L’Enfant au pain (Boy with Bread) by Ozias Leduc 1892-99, National Gallery of Canada

Until the Act of Union, 1840-1841, the former citizens of New France were surprisingly happy with their new masters.  They enjoyed the fact that they no longer had to bend their head before an intendant or a gouverneur and, although the Seigneurial system was maintained, British Rule brought a Parliament. Moreover, Canadiens could also express themselves in newspapers and their priests occupied a privileged position.

Here are testimonials:

Le Canadien: a newspaper

« Vous avez peut-être vécu dans ces tems malheureux qui on précédé la conquête de ce pays, où un Gouverneur étoit une Idole devant laquelle il n’étoit pas permis de lever la tête. »[i]

Translation

“You may have lived during these unfortunate days that preceded the conquest of this country, when a governor was an idol in whose presence one was not allowed to raise one’s head.”

The above quotation is taken from the 4 November 1809 issue of Le Canadien, a newspaper founded on 22 November 1806.  Earlier in the same article, the anonymous Canadien had also praised freedom of the press, which had not been allowed the citizens of New France.  Later, in the same article, our anonymous writer would praise the British Constitution.

The Oraison Funèbre (the funeral oration) of M^gr Jean-Olivier Brian

More eloquent, however, is Father Joseph-Octave Plessis‘s (1763-1825) Oraison Funèbre. In his funeral oration, Oraison Funèbre, on the death of M^gr Jean-Olivier Brian, Bishop of Quebec from 1764 to 1784, Plessis apologized on behalf of his people, the Canadiens, for having feared British rule.  He said that the people of New France had been rather apprehensive because they could not be persuaded that foreign men, unaccustomed to New France’s land, laws, customs and religion, would be able “to give back to Canada what it had just lost by changing masters:”

« On ne pouvait se persuader que des hommes étrangers à notre sol, à notre langage, à nos lois (laws), à nos usages (customs) et à notre  culte (religion), fussent jamais  capables de rendre au Canada ce qu’il venait de perdre en changeant de maîtres. »[ii]

Translation

“We could not persuade ourselves that men who knew little about our land, our language, or laws, our customs and our religion could ever return to Canada what it had just lost by changing masters.”

Back to the Quebec Act and Lord Dorchester

There can be doubt that the Canadiens had much to gain when Sir Guy Carleton, Lord Dorchester made them full-fledged British citizens under the Quebec Act.[III] Nothing had been taken away from Britain’s French subject and they had now gained the right to have newspapers and be members of Parliament.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), it had been negotiated that the Canadiens were to be left undisturbed.  But, ironically, the citizens of the Province de Québec (1774) and of the two Canadas, born of the Constitutional Act of 1791, had been provided with the tools that would allow them to regain what they lost when the Act of Union was signed into law: Parliament, as the word suggests.

The Rebellions and the Act of Union

The events of 1837-1838 and the ensuing decision to unite the two Canadas and to prohibit the use of French were regrettable.  However, once order was restored, the new United Province of Canada was again enjoying the benefits of the British Constitution.

When first appointed Joint Prime Minister of the United Province of Canada, in 1842, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, or LaFontaine, was not heading a responsible government, which would cause him to resign, but the United Province of Canada had a Canadien voice and it so happened that this Canadien, Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine, spoke English.  You may recall that Lafontaine had travelled to Britain in an effort to avert a call to arms in 1837.

A Bilingual Household

Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine was married first to Lynzee Rickard (1813–1859) who became his wife on 9 July 1831.  When Lynzee died (in 1859), Louis-Hippolyte married the widowed Jane Élisabeth Geneviève Morrison (1822-1905) daughter of Charles Morrison.  They were married on 30 January 1861 and lived on rue Saint-Denis in Montreal.  It was a bilingual household.

As joint Prime Minister of the United Province of Canada, Louis-Hippolyte first addressed the assembly in French and then he and his political partner Robert Baldwin set about returning to Canadiens the right to speak their own language.

In fact, assimilation would have been difficult due to the land tenure system, the   seigneurial system.  As for those Canadiens who were not farmers they gathered  around a priest, in a parish.  That was what I like to call the “parochial” system.

Conclusion

So let me close this blog on an optimistic note. In the 1840s, we have fine men in Parliament and their goal, responsible government, had been attained between 1842 and 1848, when Baldwin and Lafontaine became Joint Prime Ministers.

In my next post, we will examine the Seigneurial System which was not abolished until 1854.  In fact, Louis-Joseph Papineau was a seigneur and, from 1774 (the Quebec Act) until 1854, French-speaking Canadians had both seigneuries and a Parliament.

Ravel: 10 Jeux d’eau 

 

© Micheline Walker
28 April 2012
WordPress

 

 

 

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[I] René Dionne, Les Origines canadiennes (1763-1836), in Gilles Marcotte, dir. vol. 2, Anthologie de la littérature québécoise (Montréal: L’Hexagone, 1994), p. 324. 

[II] Op. Cit., p. 331.

[III] The Quebec Act: 1774 

The Quebec Act of 1774 was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 14 Geo. III c. 83) setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. The principal components of the Act were:

• The province’s territory was expanded to take over part of the Indian Reserve, including much of what is now southern Ontario, plus Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota.
• The oath of allegiance was replaced with one that no longer made reference to the Protestant faith.
• It guaranteed free practice of the Catholic faith.
• It restored the use of the French civil law for private matters while maintaining the use of the English common law for public administration, including criminal prosecution.
• The province’s territory was expanded to take over part of the Indian Reserve, including much of what is now southern Ontario, plus Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota.
• The oath of allegiance was replaced with one that no longer made reference to the Protestant faith.
• It guaranteed free practice of the Catholic faith.
• It restored the use of the French civil law for private matters while maintaining the use of the English common law for public administration, including criminal prosecution.
• The province’s territory was expanded to take over part of the Indian Reserve, including much of what is now southern Ontario, plus Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota.
• The oath of allegiance was replaced with one that no longer made reference to the Protestant faith.
• It guaranteed free practice of the Catholic faith.
• It restored the use of the French civil law for private matters while maintaining the use of the English common law for public administration, including criminal prosecution.