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Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Monthly Archives: January 2014

Freemasonry & Abolitionism

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Black history, Mulatto

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Battle of Vertières, Code Noir, Freemasonry, French enlightenment, Haitian Revolution, Joseph Boulogne, The Black Legion, The French Revolution, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Toussaint Louverture

“Engraving depicting the exterior of Exeter Hall, reproduced on a 1905 postcard.”      (Caption and photo credit: Wikipedia)

 “Engraving depicting the exterior of Exeter Hall, reproduced on a 1905 postcard.” (Caption and photo credit: Wikipedia)[i]

The 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention, was held in Exeter Hall, a Masonic Hall. In fact, Exeter Hall is a synonym for the Anti-Slavery Society.

Quakers played an important role in the abolition of slavery. One of their leaders was French-born American Anthony Benezet (Antoine Bénézet). However, the Age of Enlightenment saw a rebirth of Freemasonry whose members took very seriously what would become the motto of France: liberté, égalité, fraternité (liberty, equality, brotherhood [fraternity]).

Prince Hall (Prince Hall Masonry)

Prince Hall (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, African-Americans could not join Masonry, except that Prince Hall (1735 – 1807) was allowed to establish Prince Hall Masonry during the eighteenth century. Yet, Freemasonry played an important role in the abolition of slavery, but it should be noted that although Freemasonry flourished during the Age of Enlightenment (the 17th and 18th centuries), Masonic Lodges did not and do not always consider other Lodges as “regular.” For instance, one condition of membership is a belief in a supreme being and scripture.  Given this condition, current French Masonic lodges are not considered legitimate.[ii] (See Freemasonry, Wikipedia)  

 

   

Eighteenth-Century Masonry

Ignatius Sancho

Ignatius Sancho

However, as mentioned above, eighteenth-century Masonry shared the ideals of abolitionism. For instance, John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu KG, KB, PC (1690 – 5 July 1749, made sure Ignatius Sancho was educated, and the Montagu family always protected Sancho. John Montagu was a Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge of England. Montagu family always protected Sancho. John Montagu was a Grand Master of the Premier Grand Lodge of England. Moreover, Blacks and mulattoes[iii] have been active abolitionists and Freemasons, including Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George, the “Black Mozart,” Europe’s finest swordsman, not to mention an accomplished equestrian.

The struggle to abolish slavery is linked with the Enlightenment which subjugated tradition to the rule of reason and promoted tolerance. Yet, a large number of French slave owners were cruel.

Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George

Famed mulatto Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint George, (spelled Saint-Georges by Tom Reiss and Gabriel Banat*) the “Black Mozart,” was a Freemason.  He was a friend of George IV, a future king of England and a Freemason.

* author of The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow

La Loge Olympique

Moreover, Saint-George (c. 1745 – 1799) was the conductor of the largest orchestra of his era, the Loge Olympique, founded by French Freemasons and, among French Freemasons, Joseph Boulogne, the “Black Mozart” himself.

In fact, Joseph Boulogne, was “the first person of African descent to join a Masonic Lodge in France. He was initiated in Paris to ‘Les 9 Sœurs,’ [The 9 Sisters] a Lodge belonging to the Grand Orient of France.” (See The Chevalier de Saint-George, Wikipedia.) He premiered, as conductor, Joseph Haydn’s “Paris Symphonies” at the Loge Olympique. Coincidentally, Joseph Haydn (31 March 1732 – 31 May 1809) was also a Freemason, as was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Moreover, in 1791, Joseph Boulogne (c. 1745 – 1799) was appointed colonel of the the “Black Legion,” or Légion franche des Américains et du Midi. The “Black Legion,” or Saint-George Legion, was comprised mainly of men of color with 800 infantry and 200 cavalry personnel. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, who was trained as a fencer by Joseph Boulogne at La Boëssière‘s Academy, would be Joseph Boulogne’s second-in-command.  For more information, please click on Joseph Boulogne.

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas[iii]

As for Thomas-Alexandre, Alexandre Dumas père‘s father, nicknamed “le diable noir” (the “Black Devil”), he joined the Queen’s Dragoons as a mere private and under the name (nom de guerre) Alexandre Dumas in 1786. I believe he was a Freemason but cannot confirm that he was.

In 1775, Antoine sold the four children born to him and Marie-Cessette Dumas to pay for his return trip to France. The children were probably sold à réméré, or “conditionally, with the right of redemption” (Reiss’ wording, p. 55), but Thomas-Alexandre is the only one of the four children Antoine redeemed. According to Alexandre Dumas, père, the author of The Count of Monte-Cristo and The Three Musketeers, his grandmother, Marie-Cessette, died of dysentery in 1772. (See Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Wikipedia.)

Haitian Revolution (Photo credit:  Wikipedia)

Haitian Revolution, Battle of Vertières (18 November 1803)
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Toussaint Louverture  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Toussaint Louverture
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Toussaint Louverture

Toussaint Louverture, nicknamed the “Black Napoleon,” was the leader of the Haitian Revolution (1791 -1804). According to Wikipedia, Toussaint Bréda was a Freemason. (See Toussaint Louverture, Wikipedia.)

Toussaint Bréda, probably born on All Saint’s Day, la Toussaint, had been a free man of color since 1776 or 1777 and he owned property in Saint-Domingue. Initially, Toussaint was an ally of the Spaniards in Santo Dominguo, but he changed allegiance when France abolished slavery under Robespierre on 4 February 1794. Toussaint Bréda, who became Toussaint Louverture or L’Ouverture (the opening), during the Haitian Revolution, was of African descent. He was not a mulatto. He spoke French and French créole, but did not acquire a good knowledge of written French.

By 1801, Haiti was unofficially free. However, Napoleon sent his brother-in-law Charles Leclerc to the island. Toussaint was betrayed, arrested and deported to France, where he was imprisoned, at Fort-de-Joux, and died in 1803.  

Before leaving Saint-Domingue, Toussaint said, prophetically:

“In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty; it will spring up again from the roots, for they are many and they are deep.” (See Toussaint Louverture, Wikipedia.)

On 18 November 1803, during the “second” Haitian Revolution, Jean-Jacques Dessalines defeated General de Rochambeau at the Battle of Vertières. Napoleon’s army had been weakened. It had lost two-thirds of its men to yellow fever. Haiti was proclaimed the Republic of Haiti on 1 January 1804. Dessalines named himself Emperor. The Haitian Revolution has been associated with the French Revolution. Authority was being questioned, which entailed enslavement.

Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants, oil painting by Agostino Brunias, Dominica, c.1764-1796

Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants, oil painting by Agostino Brunias, Dominica, c. 1764-1796 (Photo and caption credit: Wikipedia)

The Enlightenment: liberté, égalité, fraternité

The objectives of Freemasonry were in fact the objectives of the Enlightenment.  As I mentioned above, they are summed up by the French motto: liberté, égalité, fraternité. Tom Reiss writes that

French Enlightenment philosophers liked to use slavery as a symbol of human, and particularly political oppression. ‘Man is born free but is everywhere in chains,’ wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the The Social Contract in 1762. (p. 60)

But to be more precise, eighteenth-century Freemasonry recognized an aristocracy of the mind rather than an accidental aristocracy, i.e. a mere accident of birth. However, aristocrats and American Presidents, beginning with George Washington, wasted no time in applying for membership in an aristocracy above aristocracy. They joined composers such as Joseph Haydn and the “White Mozart,” the composer of the all-but-Masonic Zauberflöte (K. 620) (The Magic Flute). (See The Magic Flute, Wikipedia) 

In other words, eighteenth-century Freemasonry sought equality for both the “White Mozart,” who could never have married an aristocrat, and the “Black Mozart,” who could never have married a white woman. Freemasonry played an important role in the abolition of Slavery, but so did other elements and other groups, such as France’s Société des amis des Noirs (the Society of the Friends of the Blacks), the salons, cafés, etc.

However, I would agree with Mozart biographer Maynard Solomon (born January 5, 1930) who writes that “Mozart’s position within the Masonic movement … lay with the rationalist, Enlightenment-inspired membership, as opposed to those members oriented toward mysticism and the occult.” (See Mozart, Early Life, Wikipedia.)

781PX-~1

French Colonialism: The Code Noir

However, despite a number of massacres, French colonialism was less harsh on slaves than colonialism in other parts of the world. The Code Noir, promulgated in 1685 by Louis XIV, prohibited the abuse of slaves. In 1691, records of an incident read as follows:

“‘The King has been informed that two negroes from Martinique crossed on the ship the Oiseau,’ reads the laconic record of the incident in the Royal Naval Ministry. ‘[His Majesty] has not judged it apropos to return them to the isles, their liberty being acquired by the laws of the kingdom concerning slaves, as soon as they touch the Soil.’ The slaves were free.” (Reiss, pp. 61-62)

Would that Louis had acted as magnanimously with respect to the Huguenots, French Calvinist protestants. He didn’t. The Edict of Nantes, an edict of tolerance issued on 13 April 1598, was revoked in 1685. They were brutally persecuted.

—ooo—

In short, I can’t help thinking that the lumières themselves (Voltaire, Diderot, both of whom were Freemasons, and other major figures associated with the French Enlightenment) shuddered in their grave when the guillotine severed the head of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and scientist Antoine Lavoisier. The French Revolution went way too far.

Carmontelle's watercolour (1763) of Leopold Mozart with Wolfgang Amadeus and Maria Anna is among his best-known works.

Carmontelle‘s watercolour (1763) of Leopold Mozart with Wolfgang Amadeus and Maria Anna. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Dumas Dynasty repeated

  1. Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie (20 June 1714, at Belleville-en-Caux – 15 June 1786, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye) (arrived in France, aboard the Trésorier, the first week of December 1775); (Reiss, p. 52)
  2. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (25 March 1762, at Jérémie, Saint-Domingue, current Haiti – 26 February 1806, at Villers-Cotterêts [Aisne]), born to a black slave Marie-Cessette Dumas (arrived in France on August 30, 1776); (Reiss, p. 55)
  3. Alexandre Dumas, père (24 July 1802 at Villers-Cotterêts – 5 December 1870, at Puy, near Dieppe), the legitimate son of Marie-Louise Labouret;
  4. Alexandre Dumas, fils (Paris 27 July 1824 – 27 Novem­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ber 1895), the illegitimate son of Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay, a dressmaker.
Sources:
 
Le Code Noir pdf (accessed under Le Code Noir entries)
The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow, 
by Gabriel Banat (2006)
Joseph Boulogne 
 

RELATED ARTICLES

  • The Dumas Dynasty: Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (michelinewalker.com)
  • Créoles, Cajuns & Uncle Remus (michelinewalker.com)
  • Ignatius Sancho & Laurence Sterne: a Letter (michelinewalker.com)
  • The Abolition of Slavery (michelinewalker.com)

 ____________________

[i] The 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention was held in Exeter Hall, a Masonic Hall. In fact, Exeter Hall is a synonym for the Anti-Slavery Society.

[ii] At the moment, the Grand Orient de France is not considered as “regular” because its members have ceased to recognize a “supreme being.” (See Frédéric Desmons, Wikipedia.)

[iii] Tom Reiss, The Black Count: glory, revolution, betrayal, and the real Count of Monte Cristo (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012).

The “White Mozart” (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)
The Magic Flute (Queen of Night Aria)
Diana Damrau as Queen of Night
Dorothea Röschmann as Pamina
Royal Opera House
Colin Davis, conductor  
Toussaint L'Ouverture
Toussaint L’Ouverture (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
© Micheline Walker
30 January 2014
WordPress
 
 

 

 

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The Dumas Dynasty: Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

26 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in France, Literature, Mulatto

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Alexandre Dumas fils, Alexandre Dumas père, à réméré, Joseph Bologne, Marie-Cessette Dumas, mulatto, Napoléon Bonaparte, The Black Count Tom Reiss, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Tom Reiss

Thomas-Alexandre-Dumas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thomas-Alexandre-Dumas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie or Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

  1. Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie (20 June 1714, at Belleville-en-Caux – 15 June 1786, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye) (he arrived in France in 1775);
  2. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (25 March 1762, at Jérémie, Saint-Domingue, current Haiti – 26 February 1806, at Villers-Cotterêts [Aisne]), born to a black slave Marie-Cessette Dumas (he arrived in France in 1776);
  3. Alexandre Dumas, père  (24 July 1802 at Villers-Cotterêts – 5 December 1870, at Puy, near Dieppe), the legitimate son of Marie-Louise Labouret;
  4. Alexandre Dumas, fils (Paris 27 July 1824 – 27 November 1895) the illegitimate son of Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay, a dressmaker.

The List

The above list is quite impressive. The descendants of French marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a colonel and général commissaire in the artillery of the colony, include a famous general who played a significant role in Napoleon’s early military victories, between 1795 and 1799, the Directoire FR period of French history, or the first Republic.

Not only was Thomas-Alexandre a general but he was:

“the highest-ranking person of color of all time in a continental European army [and he is] the first person of color in the French military to become  brigadier general, the first to become divisional general, and the first to become general-in-chief of a French army.” (See Thomas-Alexandre Dumas , Wikipedia.)

In fact, “Dumas [Thomas Alexandre] shared the status of the highest-ranking black officer in the Western world only with Toussaint Louverture (who in May 1797 became the second black general-in-chief in the French military) until 1975[.]” (See Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Wikipedia.)

However, Thomas-Alexandre lived at a very difficulty time in the history of France, Revolutionary France. So did Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George, the “black Mozart,” a swordsman, an equestrian and Thomas-Alexandre’s life-long friend. They were members of the aristocracy, yet could ill-afford to oppose the notion of equality promoted in Revolutionary France. The two were mulattos, born to freed slaves in the Carribeans: Saint-Domingue (the current Haiti) with respect to Thomas-Alexandre (25 March 1762,- 26 February 1806) and Guadeloupe, in the case of Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George (approximately 1745 – 1799).

Aristocrats: Thomas A. Dumas & Saint-George

Both would be in the military during Revolutionary France and would do so as aristocrats. Just how Joseph Boulogne became an aristocrat is not entirely clear in my mind. His father Georges Bologne was ennobled in 1757 and, after completing his studies, Joseph Boulogne was appointed Gendarme de la Garde du Roi (Gendarme of the King’s Guard). In fact, Georges Bologne may have been the descendant of Italian aristocrats, but Joseph was born out-of-wedlock.

Marie-Cessette Dumas

Be that as it may, Thomas-Alexandre, was born to an aristocrat, marquis Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Antoine had joined his brother Charles, in Saint-Domingue, but he disappeared probably to escape his creditors. He took three slaves with him and started to live under a pseudonym: Alexandre Delisle. He sold his three slaves so he could buy a small sugar plantation at Jérémie, Saint-Domingue and then purchased “for an exorbitant price,” black slave Marie-Césette (Dumas).

Marie-Césette was not a mulâtresse.[i] It appears she was from Gabón and is the mother of three children: two sons and a daughter or two daughters and a son, by Antoine. Sources differ. But a fourth child, a daughter, was also born to Marie-Césette, or Cessette[ii] before she was bought.

Antoine’s Family Sold à réméré

Thomas-Alexandre and his sisters were sold, with an option to be bought back or the “right of redemption.” This sort of transaction was called à réméré. Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie became rich as a slave-trader and also sold various properties in France. He therefore repurchased Thomas-Alexandre who lived in France.

The name Dumas means “from the farm,” but the name could be Dûma,[iii] a name originating from an ethnic group called Fang. Thomas-Alexandre adopted his mother’s surname and it became the name of his very famous son, Alexandre Dumas, père (father) and grandson, Alexandre Dumas, fils (son). Both were very popular writers who were elected to the Académie française.

The most famous Dumas, Alexandre Dumas, père had three illegimate children, one of whom is Alexandre Dumas, fils, born to Marie-Laure-Catherine Labay, a dressmaker. Dumas, fils, was an illegitimate child. He is the author of La Dame aux Camélias, or The Lady of the Camellias.

Antoine Returns to France

Alexandre Dumas, père, by Nadar

Alexandre Dumas, père, by Nadar (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Antoine was presumed dead and his brother Charles had returned to France, playing Marquis. However, Antoine also returned to France and reclaimed his real identity, that of Antoine Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie. That story was fictionalized as The Count of Monte-Cristo (1944), by Dumas, père and his ghost writer  Auguste Maquet. Auguste Maquet also co-wrote The Three Musketeers  (1844). Getting money out of Saint-Domingue was difficult and therefore perfect material for Dumas, père, a passionate writer. The Three Musketeers features d’Artagnan who arrested Nicolas Fouquet.

 

Athos, Porthos, Aramis & D'Artagnan (Photo credit; Wikipedia)

“D’Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos” by Maurice Leloir
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Saint-George and Thomas-Alexandre connection

  • La Boëssière’s Academy

It would appear that marquis Antoine Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie returned to France in c. 1775 and died at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in 1786, just short of the French Revolution (1789 – 1796). He had bought back his son Thomas-Alexandre who met the above-mentioned mulatto and aristocrat Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George (25 December 1745 – 10 June 1799) when both studied under fencing master La Boëssière, at La Boëssière’s Academy. That friendship ended with the death of Saint-George who did not find employment after the Revolution and was weakened by a two-year stay in a jail. He may have died of gangrene.

Along with Saint-George, Thomas-Alexandre was an illustrious man of colour in Europe. Thomas-Alexandre entered the military in 1786, at the age of 24. By the age of  31, Dumas was in command of 53,000 troops as the General-in-Chief of the French Army of the Alps. According to Wikipedia, “Dumas’ strategic victory in opening the high Alps passes  enabled the French to initiate their Second Italian Campaign against the Austrian Empire.” (See Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Wikipedia)

Thomas-Alexandre’s Demise

Thomas-Alexandre also served in Egypt where he had a verbal disagreement with Napoleon Bonaparte himself.  He therefore left on an unsafe ship and was taken prisoner in the Kingdom of Naples and thrown in a dungeon where he was imprisoned from 1799 to 1802.

When he was released, Thomas-Alexandre “was partially paralyzed, almost blind in one eye, had been deaf in one ear but recovered; his physique was broken.”A broken gentleman, Thomas-Alexandre, fathered Alexandre Dumas, père (born 1802) on his return to Villers-Cotterêts. However, Thomas-Alexandre was sick and he was poor, and Napoleon Bonaparte did not help him. He died of a stomach cancer in February of 1806.

Conclusion

The Dumas story is a success story. Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie had a gifted and prominent son, and equally accomplished grandson and great-grandson. In fact, there would be more prominent descendants of Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie and Marie-Cessette Dumas. However, our mulatto heroes, the Chevalier de Saint-George and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas were victims. One was the victim of the French Revolution, the other, Thomas-Alexandre, the victim of a heartless Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte did not have a conscience.

To a person who found fault with his lineage, Alexandre Dumas, père said:

My father was a mulatto, my grandfather was a Negro, and my great-grandfather a monkey. You see, Sir, my family starts where yours ends. [iv]

Wishing all of you a fine weekend.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Créoles, Cajuns & Uncle Remus
  • Koiné Languages and Créole Languages
  • Ignatius Sancho & Laurence Sterne: a Letter
  • The Old Plantation
  • The Abolition of Slavery
  • Vaux-le-Vicomte: Fouquet’s Rise and Fall (d’Artagnan)
  • Uncle Remus & Tar-Baby
  • Dumas, père & Marguerite de Valois Fictionalized

  • posts on Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George (to be compiled) ←

Sources and Resources

  • The British Library: Online Gallery, Black Europeans: Alexandre Dumas (Dr Mike Phillips)
  • Cessette or Césette Dumas (details)
  • The Memoirs of Alexandre Dumas, père’s EN (online)
  • Mémoires d’Alexandre Dumas FR (online)
  • The Black Count: Glory, Revolution and Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo, by Tom Reiss. This biography earned Mr Reiss the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.  
  • The Three Musketeers (Maurice Leloir, illust.) is a HathiTrust publication digitized by Google

_________________________

[i] guinguinbali.com

[ii] Reports vary concerning Marie Céseste or Cessette. Some biographers and historians claim she was of mixed ancestry. Some also claim she was not married to Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Antoine Alexandre did sell his family à réméré, i.e. with an option to buy then back but he did not claim Marie-Cessette back. It may be that she had died of dysentery c 1772 to 1774.

[iii] According to Alexandre Dumas, père’s Memoirs, Marie-Cessette died in 1772. Antoine married Françoise-Élisabeth Retou in 1786, the year he died. See Mémoires d’Alexandre Dumas FR (online) or The Memoirs of Alexandre Dumas, père’s EN (online)

[iv] Dumas, père & Marguerite de Valois Fictionalized (michelinewalker.com)

Lucia Lacarra and Cyril Pierre
Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912)
Thaïs, at Mariinsky Gala 2008
 
Alexandre Dumas, fils, in his later years (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Alexandre Dumas, fils, in his later years (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
25 January 2014
WordPress
 

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Créoles, Cajuns & Uncle Remus

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Mulatto

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Acadians, Alexandre Dumas père, Cajun, Creole, Deportation of Acadians, famous Créoles, Joel Chandler Harris, Joseph Boulogne, the Dumas family, Uncle Remus

Blue Heron, by John James Audubon

Great Blue Heron, by John James Audubon (Photo credit: Google images)

Great Blue Heron, by John James Audubon

Great Blue Heron, by John James Audubon (Photo credit: Google images)

More Notable Créoles 

I mentioned a few notable Créoles[i] in my last post, but did not include Beyoncé, who was born in Houston. Nor did I include General Russel T. Honoré, who was born in Lakeland, in Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana. Their case is somewhat problematical because they were not born in a French colony. It may be best to look upon them as descendants of Créoles. Despite his nickname, ‘the Ragin’ Cajun,’ retired US army General Russel T. Honoré is the descendant of a Créole family. To my knowledge, Honoré is not an Acadian name.  (See Famous Créoles & Cajuns of today, Wikipedia.)

Créole in a Red Turban, by Jacques Aman (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Créole in a Red Turban, by Jacques Amans (Photo credit: Wikimedia)

Michel Douradou Bringier, 1843, by Jacques Amans

Michel Douradou Bringier, 1843, by Jacques Amans (Photo credit: Wikimedia)

The Cajuns[ii]

The arrival in Louisiana of deported[iii] Acadians (1755 – 1763), known as Cajuns, increased the number of Louisiana citizens originating from France. Their arrival may also have affected Louisiana créole.  However, there were few marriages [iv] between Cajuns and Créoles in colonial Louisiana, or before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.

Matters may have changed. “Louisiana French dialects are now considered to have largely merged with the original Cajun dialects.” (See Cajun French, Wikipedia). I believe, however, that, initially, the Créole and the Cajun cultures differed substantially, as did the creole language and Cajun French. The Cajun language is rooted in Acadian French whereas Louisiana creole contains foreign linguistic elements, or elements that do not stem from the French language. (See Louisiana Creole French, Wikipedia.)

Moreover, Cajuns were not plantation owners.  Plantation owners could purchase slaves, but the Cajuns were deportees who had been torn away from family members and betrothed, and shipped in different directions without any of their belongings.

Some ships sailed to England and France. As for Acadians herded into ships heading south along the coast of the Thirteen Colonies, they were not allowed to leave their ships until they reached Georgia (US). As Catholics, they were unwanted neighbours. Moreover, when the deported Acadians reached Georgia, chances are the deportees socialized with black and mulattos slaves, rather than their white owners. They were the down-and-outs.

Br'er Rabbit and Tar-Baby

Br’er Rabbit and Tar-Baby (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Joel Chandler Harris

In an earlier post, I suggested that Joel Chandler Harris‘ tales of Uncle Remus may have been brought to Georgia by deported Acadians. In the Uncle Remus stories, Renart the fox, the European trickster, is replaced by Bre’r Rabbit, but the cast is basically the same as in the medieval Reynard the Fox literary cycle, fabliaux and Æsopic fables.

So it could be that Acadians told their stories to black and mulatto slaves, some of whom may have been familiar with Louisiana créole, based on French. However, in all likelihood, Uncle Remus‘ stories would also be rooted, to a certain extent, in African tales.

In other words, the stories would be of mixed origin, as are the Louisiana créole language and the gullah language, a créole English, spoken by African-Americans. Joel Chandler Harris wrote in an eye dialect, nonstandard spelling that replicates, more or less, a gullah pronunciation, br’er for brother.[v] The tales of Uncle Remus are not easy to read.

Thomas-Alexandre-Dumas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Dumas Dynasty

The first Dumas to be taken to France was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Dumas père’s father. Thomas-Alexandre was a mulatto born in Saint-Domingue, the current Haiti, to black slave concubine, Marie-Cessette Dumas and her owner, French aristocrat and plantation owner Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie. Mulatto Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, Alexandre Dumas, père‘s father, would become a general in Revolutionary France and befriend Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George, the “Black Mozart,” the swordsman, and a legend in his own time. At any rate, I will end here and treat this post as an in-between post. But we are leaving the United States and travelling to Saint-Domingue, Martinique and Guadeloupe.

The Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase (Photo credit: Google Images)

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Dumas, père & Marguerite de Valois fictionalized (michelinewalker.com)
  • Uncle Remus and Tar-Baby (michelinewalker.com)

____________________

[i] “Creole.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/142548/Creole>. 
[ii] “Cajun.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/88637/Cajun>.
[iii] The Deportation of Acadians (The Canadian Encyclopedia).[iv] See EveryCulture.com.
[v] “Gullah.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 22 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/249228/Gullah>.
 
Joseph Boulogne, chevalier de Saint-George
Violin Concerto in D major/ré majeur, 2nd & 3rd movements
 
 

Monsieur de Saint-George (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Monsieur de Saint-George (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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22 January 2014
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Koiné Languages and Créole Languages

19 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, France, Mulatto

≈ Comments Off on Koiné Languages and Créole Languages

Tags

"joual", A few notable Créoles, Alexis de Tocqueville, colonialism and languages, Créole and créole, French colonies, koiné languages, standard and natural languages

American Flamingo, by John J. Audubon, Brooklyn Museum

American Flamingo by John J. Audubon, Brooklyn Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Famous Créoles

There are several famous Créoles. John James Audubon was born in Les Cayes, Saint-Domingue. Saint-Domingue is the current Haiti. Joséphine de Beauharnais, the first wife of Napoleon I, was also a Créole. She was born in Les Trois-Îlets, Martinique. Although Célestine Musson De Gas, Edgar Degas’ mother, was a Créole, Edgar was born in Paris, France and, therefore, Degas is not a Créole.

John Singer Sargent‘s controversial  “Madame X” was Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau. Virginie Gautreau was a Créole (people) from Louisiana. She was born in New Orleans, but moved to France at the age of 8. Virginie and Joséphine de Beauharnais may have been exposed to créole (the language), but they spoke French, a standard or koiné language. (See Créole Peoples, Wikipedia)

The Cotton Exchange, by Edgar Degas, 1873

The Cotton Exchange by Edgar Degas, 1873 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Colonialism and the development of natural languages

Colonialism led to the growth of languages called natural languages, many of these languages are créole languages. Créole languages are spoken by people inhabiting former French colonies as well as the former colonies of Spain and Portugal. (See Créole Language, Wikipedia)

The Development of créole (language)

The development of Créole languages is related to the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves created a language based on the language spoken by slave owners yet somewhat different. In his Uncle Remus‘ stories Joel Chandler Harris used an eye dialect to represent a Deep South Gullah “dialect,” the English spoken by Uncle Remus, Harris’ narrator. Reading Harris is not easy. Deep South Gullah is also a natural language, as is créole, except that it is based on English. Joel Chandler Harris has been discussed and will be discussed again in a forthcoming post. There are many French Créole languages, Louisiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe constituting three locations where it has been preserved.

Such is also the case with créole languages based on Spanish and Portuguese. Criollo is Spanish and crioulo, Portuguese. The word “créole” is derived from the Latin creare: to create. (See Creole language, Wikipedia.)

My goal was to include a discussion of prominent black persons, such as Toussaint L’Ouverture and mulattos. My post was too long. They will be discussed in a forthcoming post, perhaps today.

Quebec

The Wikipedia entry on French Créole languages includes French as it is or was spoken in Quebec among créole languages. That is problematical. Alexis de Tocqueville (29 July 1805 – 16 April 1859), and Gustave de Beaumont (6 February 1802 – 30 March 1866) were able to communicate fluently with the citizens of the former New France. There were a few slaves in New France, but I doubt that they had to create a language slave owners would understand.

Alexis de Tocqueville

In 1831, when Tocqueville visited Bas-Canada (Lower Canada), the French nation he discovered spoke 17th-century French.[i] “The French nation has been preserved there. As a result, one can observe the customs and the language spoken during Louis XIV’s reign.”

« Le Canada pique vivement notre curiosité. La nation française s’y est conservée intacte : on y a les mœurs et on y parle la langue du siècle de Louis XIV. » (Tocqueville)  

However, as Tocqueville noted, anglicisms were entering the French spoken in Bas-Canada.

« Tant à Montréal qu’à Québec, la langue anglaise domine dans la vie et sur la place publique : ‹ La plupart des journaux, les affiches et jusqu’aux enseignes des marchands français sont en anglais. ›» (Corbo & Tocqueville)

In both cities, “all the signs [enseignes] are in English and there are only two English theatres.” During his visit to the courthouse in Quebec City, Tocqueville observes the predominance of the English language and the mediocrity of the language of French-speaking lawyers, which is riddled with Anglicisms. (Corbo)

“Joual”

French-speaking Canadians or Québécois sometimes speak “joual,” which is the “joual” way of saying “cheval” (horse). Shame on them! I have also noticed that some of my Acadian students spoke French more intelligibly than others. But they spoke French. Acadian author Antonine Maillet was awarded the Prix Goncourt for her Pélagie-la-charrette (1979). The Goncourt is the most coveted literary prize for authors writing in French.

Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, better known as

John Singer Sargent’s Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, better known as “Madame X,” was a Creole from New Orleans. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘

The Créole people and the créole language

Créole people: the common denominator is the place of birth, not colour or mixed racial origin.

Créoles can be white people born in a French colony, or black and mulatto people inhabiting French colonies mainly. However, créole is also spoken by the descendants of Spanish or Portuguese settlers born outside Spain or Portugal, in a Spanish or Portuguese colony. According to Britannica, a Créole was “originally, any person of European (mostly French or Spanish) or African descent born in the West Indies or parts of French or Spanish America (and thus naturalized in those regions rather than in the parents’ home country).”[ii]

As for créole languages, they are natural languages, as is African-American English. Joel Chandler Harris‘ Uncle Remus speaks African-American English, a Gullah English. According to Britannica, créole languages are “vernacular languages that developed in colonial European plantation settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries as a result of contact between groups that spoke mutually unintelligible languages.”[iii]

Consequently, Créole people do not necessarily speak a créole language.  For instance, Edgar Degas‘ mother, Célestine Musson De Gas, was a Créole from Louisiana, but Edgar was born in Paris. He is not a Créole. Similarly, the first wife of Napoléon I, Joséphine de Beauharnais, was a Créole. Joséphine was born in Martinique, a French colony, although she was white, she may have been familiar with a créole language. However, both Edgar Degas and Joséphine spoke French, a standard language or koiné language. A koiné language is a standard language or dialect (English, French, Spanish, etc.) that has arisen as a result of contact between two or more mutually intelligible varieties (dialects) of the same language.” (See Koiné language, Wikipedia.)[iv]

Quebec women caught speaking créole: Language Watchdogs Alerted

Recently, the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), the Quebec Board of the French Language, received a complaint because two women were speaking créole, in the workplace, rather than French.

http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/creole-speaking-hospital-workers-elicit-warning-from-oqlf-1.1597784

RELATED ARTICLES:

  • Alexis de Tocqueville in Lower Canada (michelinewalker.com)
  • Colonization & The Revenge of the Cradles (michelinewalker.com)
____________________
[i] Claude Corbo, Encyclopedia of French Cultural Heritage in North America. As indicated, Corbo is at times the narrator and, at times, a translator. 
[ii] “Creole.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 17 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/142548/Creole>.
[iii] “creole languages.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/142562/creole-languages>.
[iv] “koine.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/321152/koine>
 
 
Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-George (c. 1745 – c. 1799)
11th Concerto, in G Major, Opus 7, No. 2, Largo
Orchestre de chambre de Versailles
Bernard Wahl & Anne-Claude Villars
The painting is a detail from Jean-Honoré Fragonard‘s  “Progress of Love: the Meeting”  
LindoroRossini

Portrait_of_Chevalier_de_Saint-George

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19 January 2014
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Monsieur de Saint-George, Portrait de Mather Brown & William Ward.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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“À la claire fontaine:” it seems an anthem

16 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Songs, Voyageurs

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

À la claire fontaine, chanson en laisse, French-Canadian Folklore, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor Coté, Songs of Voyageurs, The Nightingale, Theodore C. Blegen, Université de Moncton

marc-a1
 
— Settlement on the Hillside, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté,* 1909 (National Gallery of Canada)
 

*Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté

Chanson en laisse

In a chanson en laisse, such as À la claire fontaine, the end of a couplet is the beginning of the next couplet.  In poetry, the couplet is called a 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 an anthem, it could be À la claire fontaine.  According to Wikipedia’s French-language entry on À la claire fontaine, the song dates back to the 18th century and it was the national anthem (un hymne national) of New France.  If so, it is unlikely to date back to the 18th century.  It would be an older song, as indicated in Wikipedia’s English-language entry on the same song.  (See À la claire fontaine, Wikipedia.)

The canoemen (coureurs des bois or voyageurs) went up and down the St Lawrence River (the fountain) carrying fur pelts.  Bathing in the St Lawrence River meant settling in New France.  There were oak trees on both sides of le fleuve Saint-Laurent.  After 1763, the year France ceded Nouvelle-France to England, the rose symbolized the English and the rosier (rosebush), England.  Moreover, the you in il y a longtemps que je t‘aime (I have loved you for a long time) was France.  (See À la claire fontaine, Wikipedia FR.)

À la claire fontaine was a favourite song among voyageurs, who were singers.  This song has five hundred versions.

The Movie: The Painted Veil

A movie entitled The Painted Veil contains a lovely rendition of  À la claire fontaine, so I have included the relevant video.  The Painted Veil is a 2006 film adaptation of Somerset Maugham‘s The Painted Veil.  Nostalgia is a feeling all human beings share.

About: À la claire fontaine

This song, a ballad, is about a young man who strolls 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/mon ami/e) 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) into the sea (la mer).
 
f: feminine, m: masculin, p: plural
 
 

English Translation from The Painted Veil, 2006

Chorus: So long I’ve been loving you, I will never forget you.  (incomplete)
 
  1. At the clear fountain, While I was strolling by, I found the water so nice That I went in to bathe. Chorus
  2. Under an oak tree, I dried myself. On the highest branch, A nightingale was singing. Chorus
  3. Sing, nightingale, sing, Your heart is so happy. Your heart feels like laughing,  Mine feels like weeping. Chorus
  4. I lost my beloved, Without deserving it, For a bunch of roses, That I denied her. Chorus
  5. I [would like] the rose To be still on the bush,  And even the rosebush To be thrown in the sea. Chorus

À la claire fontaine

À la claire fontaine,
M’en allant promener, (to stroll)
J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle, (the water)
Que je m’y suis baigné.
 
Refrain
Lui y a longtemps que je t’aime, (Il y a longtemps)
Jamais je ne t’oublierai. (Never will I forget you)
 
Sous les feuilles d’un chêne, (an oak tree)
Je me suis fait sécher, (to dry)
Sur la plus haute branche,
Le rossignol chantait. (the nightingale)
Refrain
 
Sur la plus haute branche, (the highest)
Le rossignol chantait, (sang)
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai. (heart)
Refrain
 
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai,
Tu as le cœur à rire, (to laugh)
Moi, je l’ai à pleurer. (to cry)
Refrain
 
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l’ai à pleurer,
J’ai perdu ma maîtresse/mon amie, (I lost my lady friend) (I lost my friend)
Sans l’avoir mérité. (without deserving it)
Refrain
 
J’ai perdu ma maîtresse,
Sans l’avoir mérité, 
Pour un bouquet de roses,
Que je lui refusai. (I denied her)
Refrain
 
Je voudrais que la rose (I would like)
Fût encore au rosier, (still)/*
Et que le rosier même (the rosebush itself)
À la mer fût jeté. (the sea) (to be thrown)
Refrain
 
The Painted Veil
*/Et que mon doux ami (And that my gentle friend)
Fût encore à m’aimer. (Still loved me)
____________________
   
À la claire fontaine (from The Painted Veil.)
Lang Lang (accompanist)
 

The Painted Veil.  Poster, 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Painted Veil Poster, 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
© Micheline Walker
16 January 2014
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Maria Chapdelaine

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

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

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

colonisation, coureur des bois, happiness unattainable, Louis Hémon a visitor, lumberjack, Regionalism, roman de la terre, to make land

The Chapdelaine Farm, by Clarence Gagnon
The Chapdelaine Farm, by Clarence Gagnon

Louis Hémon[i]

This is the first post I wrote on Maria Chapdelaine. I went on to write a second one.

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[iii]

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 a 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 black flies, 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.

Hémon describes Québec as un pays, a country. In 1937, Félix-Antoine Savard will feature le délié, a person who is no longer tied (lié) to the land and is therefore looked upon as a man who sold himself: un vendu. (See Menaud, maître-draveur, Wikipedia.)

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

pu-logo

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

(please click to hear the song)

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 FR
Canadian literature: The Montreal School, 1895–1935
First serialized in Le Temps (1914) (Paris)
Published in book form in 1916 (Montreal)
Translated into English in 1921 (W. H. Blake)
Translated into 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), p. 16-23. 
 
[iii] Maurice Poteet (ed.), Textes de l’Exode (Montréal: Guérin Litérature, coll. Francophonie, 1987).
 
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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Posts on Quebec Regionalism, Roman de la terre, Roman du terroir…

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

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

≈ Comments Off on Posts on Quebec Regionalism, Roman de la terre, Roman du terroir…

Tags

Claude-Henri Grignon, Félix-Antoine Savard, Germaine Guèvremont, Le Survenant, Maria Chapdelaine, Patrice Lacombe, Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, Regionalism, Ringuet's Thirty Acres, Trente arpents

Boy with Bread, by Ozias Leduc
— Boy with Bread, by Ozias Leduc (8 October 1864 – 16 June 1955)
 
 
I believe this is the complete list of posts on regionalism, “roman de la terre,” “roman du terroir” I have written so far. They are at times repetitive because I do not know whether or not someone has read earlier posts. Maria Chapdelaine was written by Louis Hémon, a Frenchman, or an outsider. However, it is the one novel interested persons should read. Menaud, maître-draveur (a draveur is a river driver taking lumber logs to their destination) is a very poetical novel. 
 
Louis Hémon, the author of Maria Chapdelaine, sees Quebec as eternal. Such hope is not expressed by Félix-Antoine Savard whose 1937 novel, Menaud, maître-draveur, is embedded in Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine. Foreigners have come… 
 
As you will notice, I did try to give more descriptive titles to older posts, but failed miserably. Fortunately, my cat said: enough!  He’s in charge, so what could I do. Lists were my solution. 
  

General

  • Colonization & the Revenge of the Cradles
  • Alexis de Tocqueville on Lower Canada
  • The End of Regionalism in Quebec Fiction & Marc-Aurèle Fortin (list of all Canadiana posts)
  • The Regionalist Novel in Quebec: Survival
  • The Canadien’s Terroir
  • Claude-Henri Grignon: Notre culture sera paysanne, ou ne sera pas (1941, letter to André Laurendeau)
  • New France: “Once upon a time…”

Fiction

  • Germaine Guèvremont’s Le Survenant (1945)
  • Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Part Two) (1938)
  • Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Part One) (1938)
  • Félix-Antoine Savard: Menaud Maître-Draveur: a Metaphysical Land (1937)
  • Claude-Henri Grignon: Séraphin, Un Homme et son péché, or Heart of Stone (1933)
  • Louis Hémon: Regionalism in Quebec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine (1914; 1916)
  • Louis Hémon: Maria Chapdelaine (1914; 1916) (Louis Hémon)
  • Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau‘s Charles Guérin (1846) DCB/DBC
  • The Honorable Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau (Biography) Dictionary of Canadian Biography
  • Patrice Lacombe‘s La Terre paternelle (1846) Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Resources

  • Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCE/DBC)
  • The Canadian Encyclopedia
  • Encyclopædia Britannica
 
Armand Bastien
Frescoes/Fresques by Ozias Leduc
Young Student, by Ozias Leduc

Young Student, by Ozias Leduc

© Micheline Walker
15 January 2014
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Menaud, maître-draveur: a Metaphysical Land

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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

≈ Comments Off on Menaud, maître-draveur: a Metaphysical Land

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1937, Clarence Gagnon artist, Félix-Antoine Savard, French-Canadian literature, Menaud maître draveur, Regionalism, Saguenay River, Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean

Village de Baie-Saint-Paul en hiver (Charlevoix), Clarence Gagnon

Maison à Baie-Saint-Paul, 1924, Clarence Gagnon (La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff)

In 2005, Félix-Antoine Savard‘s 1937’s Menaud, maître-draveur[i] (Master of the River) was selected as one of Canada‘s ‘100 Most Important Books’ by The Literary Review of Canada. The popularity of Savard’s novel is increasing.

Unless otherwise indicated, the artwork featured in this post is used with permission from La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff.

 
 

Félix-Antoine Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur and Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine, are intertwined as in a liturgical responsory, expressing legitimate nationalism, attachment to one’s root, and somewhat aggressive nationalism.

The Voice of Quebec: Maria Chapdelaine & Menaud

As Maria is trying to decide whether she will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a cultivateur (a farmer) or leave for the United States as Lorenzo Surprenant’s wife, she hears inner voices, one of which is the voice of Quebec. The voix du Québec directs Maria to live as her mother lived. Jack Warwick[ii] has defined this voice as “l’appel du Nord,” the call of the north. The voice Maria hears resembles that her father, Samuel Chapdelaine, also heard when he went north to “make land.” I should think it is also the voice Menaud is listening to and has always heard. Menaud is the main character in Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur (1937).

In Maria Chapdelaine, the voice of Quebec is a mélopée (from the Greek melopoia), a recitative and monotone chant. Still, in Menaud, l’appel du Nord is a tearful lament and, at other times, a visceral and angry scream. Menaud loves the land he has inherited from his forefathers. He loves its smell, voice, wind in the willows, rough shape, and majestic Saguenay River.

So Menaud lives up the Saguenay River, as do Samuel Chapdelaine and Savard. Félix-Antoine Savard, an ordained priest, was born in Quebec City (1896), but he was raised in Chicoutimi and died (1982) in Charlevoix, where he had founded the parish of Clermont.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Menaud’s Story: the Plot of the Novel

Menaud is, first and foremost, a draveur or river driver. He has driven wood down the river all his life, dancing atop the wood boxed in so it is transformed into somewhat fragile rafts. But Menaud is also an agriculteur, a voyageur, a coureur des bois and a hunter. A widower, he lives in his grey house with Marie, his daughter, and Joson, a son he will lose to the river but not the Saguenay. Joson, Menaud’s son, drowns in the Malbaie (formerly: Murray Bay).

Le Délié: the first Suitor

Menaud and his neighbours in Mainsal (the main sale means: dirty hand) are on the verge of losing access to their mountain, a mountain that has provided sustenance since the early days of New France. The mountain has been rented out to Englishmen by le Délié (the unattached). Lier is to bind, as in to link.

The same Délié has also made plans to marry Marie when winter comes. He tells Menaud that, as his father-in-law, he will be allowed to go to the mountain. Menaud is mourning his son and knows his daughter plans to marry le Délié. Having lost his son, he is about to lose his daughter. Finally, he and his people have lost their mountain, not so much to Englishmen as to le Délié’s greed and lack of respect for his roots. The mountain did not belong to anyone, but le Délié would be renting it, making money. We are witnessing faithlessness.

Alexis le Lucon: a second suitor

Fortunately, Alexis le Lucon, who tried to rescue Joson, finds a place in Marie’s heart. She chases away le Délié and tells Alexis le Lucon that it might be pleasant to live peacefully “here” (icitte):  « Il y a de la bonne terre, avait-elle dit; ce serait plaisant de vivre icitte tranquille ! »  (There is good land, she had said; it would be nice to live here quietly.)

« Je n’ai plus que toi » (I have no one left but you)

Then, as her father enters into a delirium bordering on dementia, Marie tells Alexis that she has no one left but him. « Je n’ai plus que toi[,] » (p. 211) and that, if he loves her (avoir de l’amitié [love as it was then called]), he will continue, as did Joson, as did Menaud. « Alors, si tu as de l’amitié  pour moi tu continueras comme Joson, comme mon père ! »  He opened his arms and made himself a refuge, she cried for a long time with her head leaning against his face: « Puis, dans le refuge des bras qu’il ouvrait, longtemps elle pleura contre son visage. » (p. 212)

Félix-Antoine Savard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Félix-Antoine Savard: biographical notes[iii]

Félix-Antoine Savard, OC MSRC (August 31, 1896 – August 24, 1982) was a priest, a poet, a folklorist and, in 1945, a few years after the publication, in 1937, of Menaud, maître-draveur, he became Professor of Literature at l’Université Laval, in Quebec City, and served as Dean of his Faculty from 1950 to 1957. He was a member of the Order of Merit of Canada and the Royal Society of Canada.

Menaud, maître-draveur earned Savard a medal from the French Academy, l’Académie française, an honour he richly deserved given his exceptional command of the French language and proficiency as a writer. Menaud, maître-draveur changed the course of Savard’s life. From a parish priest, he was transformed into an academic and a very productive poet and novelist. See Wikipedia‘s entry on Félix-Antoine Savard. It has a list of his works and a list of his awards.

Savard’s Menaud, maître-draveur, a novel, is successfully embedded in Hémon’s poetical Maria Chapdelaine but further poeticized. Although Félix-Antoine Savard was born in Quebec City, his family moved to Chicoutimi, up the majestic Saguenay River near Lac Saint-Jean. That is Maria Chapdelaine’s country, filled with raftsmen, whom Savard often visited, lumberjacks, coureurs des bois, men like Maria’s François Paradis. He was also acquainted with men, cultivateurs, who tilled an inhospitable land tirelessly. In other words, Savard knew the people and the region that led Louis Hémon to write his eternal Maria Chapdelaine, published in 1914.

Moreover, Father Savard occupied various ecclesiastical positions in Charlevoix as a priest and founded a parish in Clermont. Savard calls Charlevoix his land, a metaphysical land. In 1989, it was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO.[iv]  You may remember that Du Gua de Monts, under Tonnetuit and Gravé Du Pont, tried to establish a settlement at Tadoussac, now a town located at the confluence of the St Lawrence River and the Saguenay. Savard died in 1982 at Charlevoix. He was 85.

A Distinct Novel of the Land

Menaud, maître-draveur differs from Patrice Lacombe‘s La Terre paternelle and Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau‘s Charles Guérin.

  • First, it is both a novel and a poem. As a poem, it is a formulaic poème en prose. It contains a recurring refrain, and the refrain is borrowed from the novel’s source, Maria Chapdelaine:  « Nous sommes venus il y a trois cents ans et nous sommes restés. » (Menaud, p. 31)[v] (We came three hundred years ago and we stayed.)  Menaud has his daughter Marie read passages from Maria Chapdelaine to him, which comforts him. Louis Hémon wrote: « Au pays de Québec, rien n’a changé. Rien ne changera. » (p. 194) (In the land of Quebec, nothing has changed. Nothing will change.) Louis Hémon also wrote: « Ces gens sont d’une race qui ne sait pas mourir…  Nous sommes un témoignage. » (Maria Chapdelaine, p. 194):  “These people belong to a breed that does not know how to die…  We are a testimonial.”

I have translated the word “race” by “breed,” which is the word’s meaning in the current context.

  • Second, Menaud is un homme du Nord, a voyageur, a coureur des bois, and perhaps an explorer. He is, at any rate, bigger than life and, therefore, a mythic figure. He has lived dangerously and, by dint of doing so. However, he is now an older man, suddenly feeling young again, putting on his snowshoes and walking in the direction of the Royaume [kingdom] du Saguenay, as that region is often called. The snow is thick, so he gets tired and can’t continue. He takes off his snowshoes and sends Baron, the dog, to fetch help. Alexis finds him, but Menaud’s legs will no longer take him very far. So Menaud is not a typical farmer.
  • But there is a third dimension, a dimension I have introduced: nationalism, but nationalism with a slightly different twist. There is much nostalgia, but more importantly, there is a French Canadian, le Délié (the unattached), who has rented the mountain and will collect the rent. So, Menaud, maître-draveur features a new breed of men: the capitalist. Money is now the motive. Le Délié is, therefore, a “vendu” (a sold man). Was that mountain for him to rent out? We are entering a new world in which Menaud’s profound pride in his land and lineage will not be taken into account no more than ecological concerns. It is the world we live in.

Alexis’s last words in Savard’s novel are: “Ce n’est pas une folie [Menaud’s dementia or madness] comme une autre! Ça me dit, à moi, que c’est un avertissement.” (It is not just another madness. What it tells me, what I hear, is a warning.) (p. 231)

As for my post, I will close it by quoting the most nationalistic statement in Maria Chapdelaine and repeated in  Menaud, maître-draveur. I will close, but I prefer not to comment except to say that estranged people are cutting down the rainforest and letting the planet melt. Not to mention that we can no longer afford our father’s house. It was too expensive.

Autour de nous des étrangers sont venus, qu’il nous plaît d’appeler des barbares ; ils ont pris presque tout le pouvoir ; ils ont acquis presque tout l’argent ; mais au pays de Québec rien n’a changé.  Rien ne changera. » Maria Chapdelaine. p. 194; Menaud, maître-draveur, p. 32 and elsewhere.[vi]  

(Around us, foreigners have come, whom we call barbarians; they have taken nearly all the power; they have acquired almost all the money: but in the land of Quebec, nothing has changed. Nothing will change.)

—ooo—

[i] Félix-Antoine Savard, Menaud maître-draveur, (Québec: Librairie Garneau, 1937).  The novel has been translated by Alan Sullivan as Boss/ Master of the River (Toronto, Ryerson Press, 1947).
[ii] Jack Warwick, L’Appel du Nord dans la littérature canadienne-française : essai (Montréal : Hurtubise/HMH, 1972).
[iii] “Canadian literature.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.            
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/91950/Canadian-literature>.
[iv] “As early as 1760, Scottish noblemen Malcolm Fraser and John Nairn hosted visitors at their manors. For much of its history, Charlevoix was home to a thriving summer colony of wealthy Americans, including President William Howard Taft.” (Wikipedia)
[v] All my quotations are from Félix-Antoine Savard, Menaud, maître-draveur (Montréal & Paris: Fides, 1973[1937]).                           
[vi] Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine (Montréal, Bibliothèque québécoise et Fides, 1990 [1914]).
 
Menaud_1937 
© Micheline Walker
14 June 2012
WordPress
 
 
 

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Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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

≈ Comments Off on Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

Tags

1914, Clarence Gagnon, illustrations, Louis Hémon, Maria Chapdelaine, Quebec, Quebec seen by a Frenchman, Regionalism, roman de la terre, roman du terroir

Revised on 14 January 2014
Images by Clarence Gagnon

Péribonka

The next step in our examination of regionalism in Quebec literature is Maria Chapdelaine.  I have published a short post on Maria Chapdelaine, a novel written by Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913), a Frenchman born in Brest.  After studying law and oriental languages at the Sorbonne, Hémon moved to London and, in 1911, to Quebec, Canada.  In 1912, he spent several months working with cultivateurs, or farmers, in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, up the beautiful Saguenay River.  He  lived in a community called Péribonka and spent the winter of 1912-1913 in that community, writing his novel.

Having completed his manuscript, Hémon sent it to France and started travelling west, probably to Edmonton, where French citizens had settled at that time.  Hémon was killed in a train accident on 8th July 1913, at Chapleau, Ontario.  He did not live to see Maria Chapdelaine become a bestseller.  It has been translated into more than 20 languages in 23 countries and it has been made into three movies.[i] 

The plot is simple. But, although Maria Chapdelaine is a roman du terroir, it differs substantially from Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle and from Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin. Louis Hémon did not feel dispossessed of his ancestral land and betrayed.  And he had not transformed the insurrections of 1837-1838 into an ethnic conflict, which they were not, at least initially.

pu-logo

The artwork featured in this post are illustrations for Maria Chapdelaine, executed by Clarence Gagnon and housed at the McMichael Museum, in Kleinburg, Ontario.

However, Hémon worked with men like Maria Chapdelaine’s father, Samuel Chapdelaine a name not coincidentally resembling that of the Father of New France, Samuel de Champlain.  These otherwise unemployed men were trying to transform rebellious soil into arable land.  They had gone north, as the colourful curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891) advocated, and were “making land” (faire de la terre).[ii]  Father Labelle preached “colonisation.” That was the “patriotic” alternative to leaving for the New England states.

Maria’s ‘Choices:’  F. Paradis, L. Surprenant & E. Gagnon

As indicated in my post, Hémon gives Maria Chapdelaine three suitors: François Paradis, Lorenzo Surprenant and Eutrope Gagnon.  François dies in a snow storm, which was to be expected.  In traditional Quebec society, happiness was viewed not only as impossible, but as dangerous.  Lorenzo Surprenant has come north to find a wife and take her down to the United States, but Maria turns him down.  She will marry a neighbour, Eutrope  Gagnon, and live as her mother lived.  The names of the suitors are revealing: Paradis is paradise, Surprenant, surprizing, and Gagnon, close to the verb gagner: to win.  Hémon’s novel is somewhat stylised.

Maria Chapdelaine also differs from La Terre paternelle and Charles Guérin in that, unlike Chauveau’s Charles Guérin, it does not feature an ‘ugly’ Englishman: Mr Wagnaër. As for La Terre paternelle, although the novel does not feature an explicit ‘ugly’ Englishman, Jean Chauvin fails where an Englishman would have succeeded.  I believe this is the reason why Lacombe views cities as unhealthy.  

 —ooo—

Our next regionalistic novel is Father Félix-Antoine Savard‘s (August 31, 1896 – August 24, 1982) Menaud maître-draveur, 1937 (translated as Boss of the River, or Master of the River by Alan Sullivan (1947).  It earned Savard a Medal from the French Academy.  

To view more illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté,
please click on the following link: http://www.archiv.umontreal.ca/exposition/louis_hemon/oeuvre/oeuvre_page2-3.html
 
_________________________  

[i]  1934: Maria Chapdelaine, directed by Jean Duvivier, starring Madeleine Renaud and Jean Gabin (France); 1950: The Naked Heart, directed by Marc Allégret, starring Michèle Morgan (France); 1984, Maria Chapdelaine, directed by Gilles Carle, starring Carole Laure (Québec).

[ii] Curé Labelle, a legendary figure, is featured in Claude-Henri Grignon’s (Sainte-Adèle, 8 July 1894 – Québec, 3 April 1976) novel Un homme et son péché (1933).  Grignon’s novel was transformed into a very popular serialized radio and television drama.   A film adaptation, entitled Séraphin: Un homme et son péché, Séraphin: Heart of Stone, was released in 2003, but it had been filmed in 1949.  Séraphin is a miser and he is cruel to his wife Donalda.

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon 
 
 
thedayafterthestorm300© Micheline Walker
7 June 2012
WordPress 
 
revised
14 January 2014
 
 
 
 
Related Posts:
  • Maria Chapdelaine
  • Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle (3 June 2012)
  • Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin (5 June 2012)

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Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Second Part)

12 Sunday Jan 2014

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

≈ Comments Off on Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Second Part)

Tags

Dr Philippe Panneton, Euchariste Moisan, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor Coté, Regionalism, Ringuet, the Great Depression, Thirty Acres, Trente arpents, United States

 
Hauling Logs, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (National Gallery of Canada)

Hauling Logs, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 1924
(National Gallery of Canada)

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

Thirty Acres (Trente Arpents)

by Ringuet (pseudonym of Philippe Panneton), 1938
translated by Felix and Dorothea Walter 
 

Fall

The fall chapters of Trente Arpents start with he a praise of life on one’s thirty acres.  It is a “un chemin paisible et long,” (a lengthy and peaceful road) despite various difficulties: storms, winter.

[l]à-dessous, toujours, la terre constante, éternellement virginale et chaque année maternelle. (p. 149)

(And underneath, the soil forever faithful, eternally new and each year maternal.)
 

The land has a persistent face:  “un visage (a face) persistant,” (p. 149) but as he praises the land’s persistence and fertility, Euchariste is confronted with a series of unfortunate events, some of which he has helped create…

Oguinase

Oguinase becomes a priest, but he does not live in a lovely parish and he works too hard.  When Euchariste visits him, he is coughing and weak.  He will soon die of tuberculosis.  During Oguinase’s last visit home, he tells his sister Lucinda that she should not be sleeveless in the presence of an ordained priest.  She feels offended and is not seen again.

The Conscription Crisis of 1917

Then comes conscription: World War I.  Suddenly, these farmers remember pre-Revolutionary France:  Christ and the King:  “la France du Christ et du Roi.” (p. 158)  They remember a somewhat revisionist Rebellion of 1837, called ’37.  Would that they had a leader and were their own masters!  The past is mythified.

Éphrem

Euchariste had hoped his son Éphrem would settle of his own thirty acres.  There is money at the notary to buy “la terre des Picard,” the Picard’s farm, and Euchariste has even thought of a possible bride.  There is no room for him on Euchariste’s thirty acres.  The land cannot accommodate several sons.  Yet Éphrem is not ready to become a farmer.

C’est vrai que not’ terre elle est bonne, mais elle n’est pas ben grande! (p.163)

(It’s true, our land is good, but it isn’t very large.)
 

Éphrem eventually decides to leave for the United States.  His uncle, Alphée Larivière (Walter Rivers), who visited during the summer, has found work for him in Lowell, Massachusetts.  Later, Éphrem marries an Irish woman and moves to White Falls.

Phydime Raymond vs Euchariste Moisan

Oguinase dies, which saddens Euchariste immensely, and he then gets embroiled in an expensive legal battle with his neighbour Phydime Raymond.  Decades ago, Euchariste sold a small piece of his thirty acres to Phydime, but Phydime is now taking more land that he bought.

Étienne: “le seul maître” 

Matters do not improve.  Having been burdened with legal fees Eucharist never thought would be astronomical, misfortune does not relent.  One night Eucharist’s barn burns to the ground and he suspects that Phydime set fire to it.  There are losses but the farm animals are safe.  They had been removed immediately and a new barn is built but not according to Euchariste’s wishes.  It is built according to Étienne’s standards.  Étienne loves the land.  Each year, it grows more and more into “a spouse and a lover:”

épouse et maîtresse, sa suzeraine [like a feudal lord] et sa servante, à lui Étienne Moisan. (p. 165)

Napoléon or Pitou: the arrangement

An arrangement is made.  Étienne will run the farm with Napoléon, called Pitou.  A new house will be built for Pitou and his family.  All is arranged, except that Euchariste is in the way.  It would now be convenient for him to live elsewhere. However, the notary leaves town taking with him Euchariste’s savings.  He is dispossessed.

Winter

When the winter of his life begins, an impoverished Euchariste gives his land and his possessions to Étienne.  In exchange, he will receive an allowance, a rente (a pension).  But he is nevertheless again dispossessed, “land and beasts, gains and debts.”  He is blinded by tradition: from father to son.

Il se ‘donna’, terre et bestiaux, avoir et dettes. (p. 219-20)

(He ‘gave’ himself, land, beasts, assets and debts.)

Euchariste has therefore lost his home.  Étienne is now the only master: “seul maître.”  (p. 220)  He has already moved into the large house, which he hopes his father will soon leave.  After all, Étienne is the new owner.

The Holiday in the United States: The “Exode”

Euchariste is therefore sent on a “holiday” to the United States to visit Éphrem who works in a factory and lives in White Falls.  Euchariste is completely disoriented.  Moreover, his daughter-in-law does not speak French, nor do his two grandchildren.  Not once does his daughter-in-law express pleasure at his being in their household.  In fact, Sunday mass becomes Euchariste’s only respite.

Sundays: the only day

Sunday is the only day Euchariste meets a few persons who do not feel at home in the United States.  It has been a long and disappointing holiday, all the more since Étienne has not been sending the monthly allowance, la rente (the pension), he had promised he would give his father in return for ownership of Euchariste’s lost thirty acres.

Going home has therefore become difficult.  In fact, Euchariste has no home and, suddenly, the market crashes and he is “needed” in the United States.  The factory where Éphrem has been working for six years is letting people go or making them work on a part-time basis.

The Great Depression: Euchariste returns to work

Therefore, an older and sadder Euchariste wants to work again, possibly for a farmer.  Éphrem finds a job for his father, that of night watch in a garage.  But, Euchariste hesitates to accept this position, not because he will not work on a farm, but for fear of falling asleep for a moment and being remiss in his duties.  Times have changed!

Ce qui le terrifiait au début, c’était la crainte de s’endormir, de manquer un instant à son devoir de surveillance. (p. 268)

(What terrified him at first, was fear that he would fall asleep and fail for a moment to be vigilant, which was his duty [devoir]).   
 

He earns fifteen dollars a week, but Éphrem takes ten of the fifteen dollars.  Moreover, Étienne also wants money.  It is as though there had been no arrangement between Étienne and Pitou.  Euchariste is therefore needed not only in the US but also in Canada.  His daughter Marie-Louise is sick.  She is dying of tuberculosis and needs medical care, which is expensive.  She soon dies.

* * *

At the end of the novel, Euchariste is depicted as a very frail old man huddling near a little stove in the garage where he works.

Yet, although it is sad, the end is also poetical.  Ringuet takes us away from the plight of one man to the plight and joy of mankind, or from the particular to the general.  He writes that every year spring returns and that, every year, the land is generous.  The land is always the same, toujours la même, not to the same men, men pass, but to different men:

…à des hommes différents…
…une terre toujours la même.
 
Suggested reading:
 
The Canadian Encyclopedia
Ringuet (Athabaska University)
 

—ooo—

 
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893)
Andante Cantabile
Yo-Yo Ma, Cello
 
 
After the Breakup, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (National Gallery of Canada)

After the Breakup, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 1914 (National Gallery of Canada)

© Micheline Walker
July 28, 2012
WordPress 
 
revised
January 12, 2014
 
After the Breakup
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Micheline Walker

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Micheline Walker

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