Ringuet’s Trente arpents (Second Part)

12 Sunday Jan 2014

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

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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, 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.

Ringuet’s Trente arpents (First Part)

12 Sunday Jan 2014

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

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cultivateur, Dr Philippe Panneton, exode, Exodus, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor Coté, Regionalism in Quebec fiction, Ringuet, roman du terroir, Trois-Rivières, United States

Returning from the Field, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté
(National Gallery of Canada)

Returning from the Field

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (6 April 1869 – 29 January 1937)

Sans l’homme la terre n’est point féconde c’est ce besoin qu’elle de lui qui le lie à la terre, qui le fait prisonnier de trente arpents de glèbe. (p. 65)

[Without man, the land is arid. It is because the land needs him that man is tied to it and becomes the prisoner of thirty acres of soil.]

Thirty Acres (Trente Arpents)[i]

by Ringuet (pseudonym of Philippe Panneton), 1938

translated by Felix and Dorothea Walter

Trente Arpents is considered the last of the regionalist novels. It is a gem of a novel and won its author, Ringuet, a pseudonym for Dr Phillippe Panneton (30 April 1895 [Trois-Rivières] – 28 December 1960 [Lisbon]), a medical doctor who went on to write more novels and became a diplomat.

However, among his other novels, none is so moving as the story of the rise and fall of Euchariste Moisan who is wedded to the trente arpents he has inherited from his uncle Éphrem. L’oncle Éphrem and his wife never had children, but they brought Euchariste whose entire family perished in a fire when he was still a tiny child.

Spring

At the very beginning of the novel not only does Euchariste learn that he will inherit his uncle’s land, but arrangements are being made for Euchariste to marry a neighbour’s daughter a neigbours’s daughter who will dutifully have “son nombre,” or the number of children she is destined to bear, as though her numerous and draining pregnancies had nothing to do with sexual intercourse.

Soon after Éphrem tells Euchariste that when he dies he will inherit the thirty acres, he dies and Euchariste finds himself the owner of the thirty acres farmers, the habitants of New France, rented from their SEIGNEUR. Because Éphrem dies, Euchariste and Alphonsine may marry a little earlier than anticipated and occupy the large room: “la grande chambre” The household also includes “la vieille Mélie,” an unmarried elderly woman who simply arrived at Éphrem’s door and never left. Mélie helps Alphonsine until she is very old and dies almost imperceptibly in her chair. As for Alphonsine, she gives birth first to a son, Oguinase, then to a daughter who dies shortly after the birth of the couple’s third child.

Il [Euchariste] les accueillait ces naissances, sans plaisir comme aussi sans regret…. Il fallait qu’Alphonsine eût ‘son nombre’. (p.67)

[He welcomed these births, without pleasure, yet without regret. Alphonsine simply had to have ‘her number’.]

Summer

In the second part of the novel, appropriately divided into the four seasons, Euchariste is more of an owner, but tilling the land and looking after the farm animals is onerous. Despite years of draught, Eucharists prospers. He puts money in the notary’s safe regularly. As for Alphonsine, she is raising her children and still “féconde” (fertile). At this point, Éphrem is asked to see the curé, the parish priest. Oguinase is old enough and sufficiently gifted to be recruited for the priesthood by the curé. He will not have to pay tuition fees.

So Oguinase leaves for the petit séminaire, the private school, now abolished, that allowed graduates to enter the priesthood, le grand séminaire, or university (law or medicine). Euchariste talks about his projetcs. On their way home, they visit a cousin living in a village. The house is more humble than Euchariste had expected. Euchariste talks about his projects: raising hens. Two events now mark the year: Oguinase’s departure for the college and his return.

Euchariste hopes his son Éphrem will now help more and more, but Éphrem is growing into rebel. Moreover, the world is changing. Machines are being used by farmers, machines that can cut fingers off, and cars the kill Euchariste’s hens. The parist has grown to such an extent that a new parish is founded. All around him, Euchariste’s world is changing and his new circumstances cause him to stiffen.

Moreover, it seems Alphonsine is again pregnant, but she feels that something is amiss. She sees her reflection in a mirror and the woman looking at her is no longer Alphonsine. In the mirror she sees an old and sick woman. A doctor is called who tells her to stay in bed, her death-bed.

Alphonsine raises her family; there are good years and years of draught. Euchariste saves his money. Oguinase is sent to the petit séminaire. On their way to the séminaire Euchariste stops in a village to visit with a cousin and says he will be raising hens. Machines, cars, enter the picture and they are very destructive. Machines, cars, enter the picture and they are very destructive. Euchariste will be raising hens. Éphrem turns into a bit of a rebel. Alphonsine dies. An American cousin and his wife visit. We suspect Éphrem will leave for the United States.

(Allow me to pause at this point as this blog is now too long. I am posting a sequel.)

Regionalism in Quebec’s Literature: Thirty Acres

12 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, French-Canadian Literature, Régionalisme

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Clarence Gagnon, cultivateur, habitant, Regionalism, roman du terroir, Trente arpents

Oxen Ploughing by Clarence Gagnon, 1902 (National Gallery of Canada)

Clarence Gagnon (1881 – 1942)

“It was not the over-sensitivity of the misunderstood that made me move to Paris… Over there, I paint only Canadian subjects, I dream only of Canada. The motif remains fixed in my mind, and I don’t allow myself to be captivated by the charms of a new landscape. In Switzerland, Scandinavia-everywhere, I recall my French Canada.” (Clarence Gagnon)

I am republishing two posts that describe regionalism and the period when Quebeckers were leaving for the United States looking for employment.

Ringuet, or Dr Philippe Panneton, is the writer I am featuring. He is the author of Trente arpents (Thirty Acres). The novel was published in 1938, when the habitant had become a “cultivateur.” Colonisation had ennobled his work.

You will note a considerable degree of acceptance. The protagonist’s wife, Alphonsine, gives birth year after year, but her husband, Euchariste Moisan, sees the birth of children as Alphonsine’s inescapable fate. She has to have “son nombre,” her number. Therefore, Euchariste is somewhat indifferent. Yearly pregnancies and the death of children do not seem to affect him. Life goes by as inexorably as the seasons. Euchariste does not welcome changes: machines.

Euchariste also accepts the curé‘s, or parish priest, request. He will contribute a son to the Church. This was normal. Whenever a child showed intellectual promise, he was chosen by the parish priest and eventually entered the Grand Séminaire. Oguinase’s destiny is to become a priest.

Another son, Éphrem, is somewhat rebellious and is influenced by a relative who has left Canada for a more comfortable life in the United States. This relative has even changed his name.

I have chosen this particular post as it documents the rise and fall of the habitant turned cultivateur.

So good morning to all or you.