25 Thursday Mar 2021
Posted in French songs, la Chanson française
This song, « Jean de France », is very touching. For several hundred years, France was a monarchy. Didier Barbevilien sings that we do not recover from our childhood. No one does. « Nul ne guérit de son enfance. »
© Micheline Walker
25 March 2021
WordPress
11 Thursday Mar 2021
Posted in Foklore, French songs, Music in Canada
Tags
Antonine Maillet, Glascow, Julie Fowlis, Le Vent du Nord, Les Nègres blancs d'Amérique, Lettre à Durham, Lord Durham's Report, Pélagie-la-Charette, Pierre Vallières, The Expulsion of Acadians
A discussion of the concept of anamnesis could take us to Plato but it also leads to Canada and, more precisely, to both provinces of New France: Acadie and the current Quebec.
In an earlier article, October 1837, I wrote that the deportation (1755) was cruel. It deprived 11,500 Acadians of their home, and exiles were put pêle-mêle aboard ships that sailed in different directions, including England and France. Families were divided. “Approximately one-third perished from disease and drowning.″ (See Acadians, Wikipedia.) Some sailed down Britain’s Thirteen Colonies and walked from Georgia to Louisiana. They are the Cajuns of Louisiana. Some exiles returned to Acadie, but not to their farms.
Errance et Résistance, an article, is my reading of Antonine Maillet‘s Pélagie-la-Charrette (1979). The novel is an anamnèse. Pélagie is a deported Acadian walking back to Acadie with other deportees using a charrette, a cart. When the group reaches Acadie, they exclaim: la terre rouge, a reference to the biblical mer Rouge, the Red Sea. The soil is rouge, which may result from the huge tides of the Bay of Fundy (from fendu, split). Pélagie-la-Charrette earned Antonine Maillet the Prix Goncourt 1979 (France).
In 1838, George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham was sent to the two Canadas to investigate the Rebellions of 1837-1838. In his report, he depicted French Canadians as culturally inferior to English Canadians. Although it was not the grand dérangement, Lord Durham’s Report was humiliating. French-speaking Canadians did not have a history and lacked a literature. French Canadians quickly built a literary homeland: la Patrie littéraire, which was an anamnesis.
Comme bien des Britanniques de l’époque, Lord Durham est convaincu que les valeurs et les politiques anglaises sont supérieures à celles des autres nations et qu’en les appliquant, une société est vouée à la prospérité. À l’opposé, il considère les Canadiens francophones comme étant un peuple sans histoire et sans littérature. [As did many Britons in his time, Lord Durham believed English values and policies were superior to those of other nations and that a society putting these into practice was bound to prosper. Contrarily, he looked upon francophone Canadians as a people without a history and without a literature.]
Le Rapport Durham | Alloprof
These were inebriating days for Britain’s Empire. What does the Sun Never Sets On The British Empire Mean? – WorldAtlas. In his Report, Lord Durham recommended that the two Canadas be united, which led to the Act of Union of 1841. Lord Durham’s Report was humiliating. It was hoped that the Act of Union would lead to an assimilation of French-speaking Canadians. You will hear the words: à genoux, on their knees and cicatrices (scars). However, after the two Canadas were united, Robert Baldwin (1804-1858) and Sir Louis-Hyppolite LaFontaine (1807-1864) built a government for a bilingual Canada with a responsible government. Then came Confederation (1867). Its precedent was Durham’s Report, not the Canada envisaged by Baldwin and LaFontaine.
Matters have changed. The Patrie littéraire, an anamnesis, was successful. However, during the 1960s, terrorists, the Front de libération du Québec (the FLQ) killed and maimed, but they ceased to be active after the October Crisis of 1970. Pierre Vallières (1938-1998) published Les Nègres blancs d’Amérique (The White Niggers of America) in 1968, but he had killed as a member of the FLQ. During the 1960s the Felquistes (FLQ) put bombs in mailboxes and other locations. Vallières converted. It was a troubled decade.
There are ups and downs, les hauts et les bas, but we live peacefully.
RELATED ARTICLES
Sources and Resources
Le Vent du Nord – Home
Love to everyone 💕
I had to modify this article. I have been suffering from mental fatigue and my memory fails me.
© Micheline Walker
11 March 2021
WordPress
09 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in French songs, Sharing
Claire Lefilliâtre
Serge Goubiod
Marco Horvat Sylvie Moquet (viola)
Françoise Enock,
Friederike Heumann (viola da gamba)
Vincent Dumestre (cittern, baroque guitar, theorbo)
—ooo—
Quand le Roi a fait battre tambour (bis) When the King had the drums beat,
Pour saluer ses dames, To greet his ladies,
La première qu’arriva The first to arrive
Lui a ravi son âme. Took his soul away.
– Marquis, dis-moi, la connais-tu ? – Marquis, tell me, do you know her?
À qui est cette dame ? Whose lady is she?
Le marquis lui a répondu : (bis) The marquis answered
– Sire roi, c’est ma femme. – Sir King, she’s my wife.
– Marquis, t’es plus heureux qu’un roi (bis) – M., you are happier than a king
D’avoir femme si belle. To have so lovely a wife.
Si tu voulais l’honneur donner, If you gave me the honour,
De coucher avec elle. Of sleeping with her.
– Sir’, vous avez tout le pouvoir – Sir, you have all the power
Tout pouvoir et puissance. All power and might.
Mais si vous n’étiez pas le roi, (bis) But if you were not the king,
J’en aurais ma vengeance. I would avenge myself.
– Marquis, ne te fâche donc pas, (bis) – M., don’t get angry,
T’auras ta récompense : You’ll have your reward:
Je te ferai dans mes armées I will make you, in my armies,
Beau maréchal de France. A fine marshall of France.
– Adieu, ma mie, adieu, mon cœur, (bis) – Farewell my love, farewell my heart,
Adieu mon espérance ! Farewell my hope!
Puisqu’il faut servir le roi, Since one must the king serve,
Séparons-nous d’ensemble. Let us part.
– Le roi l’a prise par la main, (bis) – The king took her by the hand,
L’a menée dans sa chambre ; And led her to his room;
La belle en montant les degrés While climbing the steps, the lady
A voulu se défendre. Tried to defend herself.
– Marquise, ne pleurez pas tant ! (bis) – Marquise, do not cry so much!
Je vous ferai Princesse ; I’ll make you a Princess;
De tout mon or et mon argent, Of all my gold and my silver.
Vous serez la maîtresse. You will be the mistress.
– Gardez votre or ! Et votre argent ! (bis) – Keep your gold and keep your silver!
N’appartient qu’à la Reine ; To the Queen alone it belongs;
J’aimerais mieux mon doux Marquis I’d rather have my gentle Marquis
Que toutes vos richesses ! Than all of your riches!
– La reine a fait faire un bouquet (bis) – The Queen had a bouquet
De belles fleurs de lyse Of pretty lilies made
Et la senteur de ce bouquet, And the scent of this bouquet,
Fit mourir marquise. The Marquise, it killed.
Le roi lui fit faire un tombeau The King had a coffin made
Tout en fer[1] de Venise Of iron from Venice
A fait marquer tout à l’entour And had it engraved all around
« Adieu belle marquise » “Farewell beautiful marquise”[2]
[1] “fer” (iron) could be “verre” (glass). One can barely tell the difference.
[2] This song may be otherwise told and translated (see YouTube). I used and translated the Poème Harmonique‘s lyrics. In the 18th century, le roi was le roé, moi and toi were moé and toé, and avoir and pouvoir were avoér and pouvoér.
—ooo—
A kind reader recommended Émile Gaboriau‘s “Les Cotillons célèbres” (1861). He wrote that Gaboriau “describes in a humorous style the mistresses of Louis XIV, the Regent and Louis XV, including the Marquise de Pompadour.” It’s a lovely book and Gaboriau was very prolific.
The book is also available in English.
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/les-cotillons-celebres/9780559351242
Love to everyone 💕
Young Country Girl Dancing by François Boucher, black, red and white chalk and stump on paper (Wiki2.org.)
© Micheline Walker
9 March 2019
WordPress
26 Tuesday Feb 2019
Posted in Art, Enlightenment, France, French songs
Marquise de Pompadour by François Boucher, 1756, Neue Pinakothek (Wiki2.org.)
After France lost the Battle of Rossbach (1757), during the Seven Years’ War, and would lose New France, Madame de Pompadour, the chief mistress of Louis XV, said: “au reste, après nous, le Déluge” (“Besides, after us, the Deluge”).
For France, it was the beginning of the Deluge. After the Seven Years’ War, it was on the brink of bankruptcy, which, as we have seen, led to the meeting of the Estates General. It opened on 5 May 1789, but the French Revolution began two months later, on 14 July 1789, the day the Bastille was stormed.
For the people of New France, it was also the Deluge. New France (see map) was very large, but it had few inhabitants, about 70,000. These were the descendants of 26,000 colonists, but its population would grow.
The current population of Quebec is 8,455,402, 81% of whom are French-speaking. Many immigrants to Quebec are French-speaking North Africans: Blacks and Whites. Several are Algerians and, a large number, Muslims. (See The Population of Quebec, World Population Review.com.)
Madame de Pompadour was born Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (29 December 1721 – 15 April 1764) and she was the royal mistress from 1745 to 1751, or from the age of 24 to the age of 30. She had to retire from her role as chief mistress because of health problems. However, she remained Louis XV’s friend and mistress of his heart. She was very influential at court. On 8 February 1756, she was named lady-in-waiting to Marie Leszczyńska, Louis XVI‘s mother.
The marquise was a patroness of the arts and a student of François Boucher. He taught her how to make engravings. She also learned to engrave semi-precious stones, such as onyx. The images shown below are by François Boucher and Pompadour, after gemstone engraver Jacques Guay. (Wiki2.org.) In 1759, our marquise bought a porcelain factory, at Sèvres. (See Madame de Pompadour, Wiki2.org.)
Not only was the Marquise a patroness of the arts, but she was also a friend of the physiocrates and philosophes of the Enlightenment, Voltaire, no less, as well as its encyclopédistes: Denis Diderot, Jean le Rond d’Alembert …
When Madame de Pompadour died of tuberculosis at the age of 42, Voltaire wrote:
“I am very sad at the death of Madame de Pompadour. I was indebted to her and I mourn her out of gratitude. It seems absurd that while an ancient pen-pusher, hardly able to walk, should still be alive, a beautiful woman, in the midst of a splendid career, should die at the age of forty-two.”
(See Madame de Pompadour, Wiki2.org.)
Love to everyone 💕
Les Tendres Souhaits — Le Poème harmonique
Claire Lefilliâtre, soprano
Vincent Dumestre, lutenist and founder of the ensemble Le Poème harmonique
Head of a Woman from Behind by François Boucher (WikiArt.org)
© Micheline Walker
26 February 2019
WordPress
08 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted in French songs, Old French Songs
Charbonniers make or sell charcoal. Enfer means hell.
I hope I am not violating copyright legislation. This group, Les Charbonniers de l’enfer, was formed many years ago, and they have recorded very fine old French songs. On YouTube, one can, at times, access the words to the songs and an English translation. The lyrics have traces of old French.
The Danaé (1807)
C’était par un bon vendredi, nous avons parti de Lisbonne
C’est pour en France revenir, dans le grand navire de Bayonne
Nous n’eûmes pas dédoublé les pointes, qu’un vent de nord s’est élevé
A fallu carguer la grand voile, pour y courir au quart noroué.
Il a venté d’un si gros vent, grand Dieu, quel horrible tourmente!
La moitié de nos gens pleuraient, les autres chantaient des louanges;
Les autres chantaient des louanges; louanges, louanges à haute voix!
Que Dieu ait pitié de nos âmes, puisque la mort il faut avoir!
J’avons reçu un coup de mer sur le fond de notre navire
Les dalots ne pouvait plus fournir.
Coupez le grand mât, je vous prie!
Coupez le grand mât, je vous prie!
Et jetez les chaloupes dehors!
Garder les restes de nos voiles pour retrouver tous à bon port.
Le capitaine s’est avancé, étant le maître du navire.
Honneur dit-il, à qui vivra!
Le grand mât, c’est ma compagnie.
Courage, mes enfants courage, un vaillant homme nous gouverne!
Eh là! Tenez- vous bien de garde que le navire vienne en travers.
Ils se sont jetés à genoux priant la divine Marie.
Priant le Sauveur tout puissant qui leur ont préservé la vie.
Une grande messe nous ferons dire à notre bon rassemblement.
Dans la chapelle de Notre-Dame nous prierons Dieu dévotement.
Qu’en a composé la chanson c’est le pilote du navire.
Il l’a composé tout au long ah! c’est en traversant ces îles.
C’est à vous autres gens de France, qui naviguez dessur la mer.
Naviguez-y avec prudence, surtout dans le temps de l’hiver.
On a Friday we left Lisbon for France in the ship from Bayonne. We had not yet cleared land when the wind rose, and we had to furl sails and run before a nor’wester. /A great gale blew. Dear God, what horrifying torment. Half of our crew were crying, while the others were bellowing hymns. God take pity on our souls, we’re doomed. /A giant wave rolled over us, and the scuppers couldn’t clear the water. “Cut the main mast, l beg you! Jettison the boats! Keep the remaining scraps of sail, so we can make it to port.” /Then the ship’s master stepped forward. “We’re going to live!”he said. “I’m keeping the main mast. Courage, boys, courage. There’s a brave man in command. Keep watch well, and the ship will come through.” /We fell on our knees, praying to Mary and the all powerful Savior. “We’ll have a grand mass said, we’ll pray devoutly to God in the chapel of Notre-Dame.” /The maker of this song was the ship’s pilot, and he composed it while sailing through these isles. You, fellow sailors from France, sail prudently, especially in winter.
La Navire de Bayonne (arr. S. Bergeron)
interprète: Michel Bordeleau
album: Turlette et Reel
rédacteur: Yasutaja Nakata
http://www.atmaclassique.com/en/album…
La Nef [The Nave]: Sylvain Bergeron, Lisa Ornstein, David Greenberg, Patrick Graham, Amanda Keesmat, Pierre-Yves Martel, Seàn Dagher
Ozias Leduc‘s Boy with Bread, 1892-99, National Gallery of Canada
© Micheline Walker
7 August 2018
WordPress
06 Monday Aug 2018
Posted in French songs, The French Revolution
Tags
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Qu'est que le tiers-état, the bourgeois, The Estates-General, The Tennis-Court Oath, What is the Third Estate
Abbé Sieyès by Jacques-Louis David (1817, Fogg Museum)
On 16 June 2014, I wrote a post, entitled The Bourgeois, members of France’s very large Third Estate. I did not, however, include a discussion of l’abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (3 May 1748 – 20 June 1836). L’abbé Sieyès is the author of Qu’est-ce que le tiers-état, or What is the Third Estate, a pamphlet that reflects the ideology of the philosophes of the Age of Enlightenment in France, such as the writings of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
As the Estates-General were being convened, Genevan banker Jacques Necker, Madame de Staël‘s father, who had been Louis XVI’s finance minister during the period 1777-1781, invited a written definition of France’s Third Estate. Jacques Necker had been recalled and was in office from 16 July 1789 until 3 September 1790, when he was dismissed. Jacques Necker’s invitation yielded l’abbé Sieyès’ Qu’est-ce que le tiers-état? (What is the Third Estate?, a pamphlet, published in January 1789, that could be looked upon as the manifesto of the French Revolution,[1] had the Revolution not spiralled out of control. How could one anticipate the Reign of Terror?
L’abbé Sieyès presented a portrait of the Third Estate that described its ampleur or magnitude, especially the bourgeoisie’s. L’abbé Sieyès’ pamphlet was not a call to arms, but it stated that the Third Estate, 98% of the population, should be “something.” It was “everything,” but it had been “nothing” “in the political order.”
By becoming a priest, l’abbé Sieyès had elevated himself to the noblesse de robe, nobles of the robe. It comprised persons “whose rank came from holding certain judicial or administrative posts.” (See Nobles of the robe.) As members of the clergy, priests could sit among delegates of the First Estate, the clergy. However, l’abbé (abbott) Sieyès was not an aristocrat who had chosen the priesthood, but a bourgeois who had become a priest. He knew, in other words, that the old aristocracy resented the new aristocracy. (See the History of Nobility, acquired nobility.)
In Qu’est que le Tiers-État? (pdf) Sieyès writes that :
L’ancienne noblesse ne peut pas souffrir les nouveaux nobles; elle ne leur permet de siéger avec elle que lorsqu’ils peuvent prouver, comme l’on dit, quatre générations et cent ans. Ainsi, elle les repousse dans l’ordre du Tiers état, auquel évidemment ils n’appartiennent plus. (p. 10)
or
The old aristocracy detests new nobles; it allows nobles to sit as such only when they can prove, as the phrase goes, “four generations and a hundred years.” Thus it relegates the other nobles to the order of the Third Estate to which, obviously, they no longer belong. (p. 3)
(See What is the Third Estate? [pdf])
Born a bourgeois, l’abbé Sieyès chose to represent the Tiers-État, the Third Estate. It was everything. And it was growing. The sale of offices could lead the buyer, a peasant, to the bourgeoisie, which had ranks: petite, moyenne [middle] et grande). Blaise Pascal‘s (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) father was supervisor of taxes in Rouen, an office one could buy and transformed its owner into a bourgeois. Molière‘s father, Jean Poquelin, had purchased his post, “valet de chambre ordinaire et tapissier du Roi” (“valet of the King’s chamber and keeper of carpets and upholstery”), under Louis XIII.
Some bourgeois were very rich and very powerful. Jean-Baptiste Colbert (29 August 1619 – 6 September 1683), served as minister of finance to Louis XIV, from 1665 until 1683. Finally, Louis XIV could not trust aristocrats. He remembered La Fronde (1648-1652), when aristocrats opposed absolutism. They had lost their role. Louis XIV’s advisors were bourgeois who constituted the Conseil du Roi, called the Conseil d’en haut, because they met “en haut,” upstairs. Peasants had not escaped feudalism altogether, but feudalism was waning.
“Consequently, the Third Estate represented the great majority of the people, and its deputies’ transformation of themselves into a National Assembly in June 1789 marked the beginning of the French Revolution.”
(See The Third Estate,[2] the Editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica )
Therefore, it was in Sieyès and the Third Estate’s best interest to ask that “votes be taken by heads and not by orders.” An “ordre” was an Estate.
L’ abbé Sieyès stated that the people wanted genuine representatives in the Estates-General, equal representation to the other two orders taken together, and votes taken by heads and not by orders. These ideas came to have an immense influence on the course of the French Revolution.
(See The Third Estate, Wikipedia)
Among the many causes of the French Revolution, the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica write that “the bourgeoisie resented its exclusion from political power and positions of honour,” which would be the first cause of the French Revolution and which encapsulates Sieyès’ What is the Third Estate. The Third Estate was “everything,” yet “nothing.” I believe many scholars would also consider the bourgeoisie’s “exclusion from political power” a cause of the French Revolution.
Initially, the French Revolution was a meeting of the Estates-General. In Qu’est-ce que le Tiers-État?, l’abbé Sieyès stated that the vote of delegates to the Third Estate be counted by “heads,” not privilege. This request was not incendiary, nor was, in itself, the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), had delegates not started calling themselves a National Assembly. They swore “ not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established.” (See Tennis Court Oath, Wikipedia & Tennis Court Oath, Britannica.)
Meanwhile, Thomas Jefferson was helping Lafayette draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. He left France on 10 July 1789, four days before the storming of the Bastille. As for the military, in general, it no doubt remembered the Treaty of Paris, 1763, which ended the Seven Years War and had its North-American theater. France lost the battle of the Plains of Abraham, Nouvelle-France’s final battle. Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial and Montcalm had disagreements, but forces in New France were inadequately supported by Louis XV.
When Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont visited Lower Canada, Tocqueville blamed Louis XV for the loss of New France.
In a letter dated November 26th, 1831, he [Tocqueville] criticizes France’s dealings with its North American colony during the 18th century, referring to the ‘abandonment’ of loyal subjects of the French Empire. Then he adds that it was ‘one of the greatest ignominies of Louis XV’s shameful reign.’[3]
But we remember.
Love to everyone ♥
RELATED ARTICLES
Sources and Resources
L’Abbé Sieyès
Montesquieu
Voltaire & Rousseau
Voltaire’s Letters on England is Gutenberg’s [EBook #2445]
Les Lettres philosophiques de Voltaire is a Wikisource publication FR
Rousseau’s Discours sur l’inégalité is Gutenberg’s [EBook #11136]
Le Discours sur l’inégalité de Rousseau is a Wikisource publication FR
____________________
[1] “The French Revolution,” Encyclopædia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/event/French-Revolution
[2] “The Third Estate,” Encyclopædia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Third-Estate
[3] Claude Corbo, in the Encyclopedia of French Cultural Heritage in North America.
Drawing by Jacques-Louis David of the Tennis Court Oath. David later became a deputy in the National Convention in 1793
© Micheline Walker
06 August 2018
WordPress
30 Monday Apr 2018
Posted in Art, French Literature, French songs, Love
Tags
a Song, Alcools, Calligrammes, Guillaume Apollinaire, le Tout-Paris, Marie Laurencin, Sous le pont Mirabeau, Visual Poetry
Marie Laurencin, 1909, Réunion à la campagne (Apollinaire et ses amis), oil on canvas, 130 x 194 cm, Musée Picasso, Paris. Reproduced in The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations (1913)
de Guillaume Apollinaire (1912)
Under Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine and our love. Need I remember ? Joy always came after the pain.
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Let night come and the hour ring. Days go away, I remain.
Hand in hand, let us stay face to face. While, beneath (sous) the bridge of our arms, Tired of being stared at eternally, flow waves, so weary.
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Let night come and the hour ring. Days go away, I remain.
Love goes away as this water runs. Love goes away. How slow life is, and Hope, so pressing (violent).
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Let night come and the hour ring. Days go away, I remain.
Days pass and weeks pass. Neither the past Nor love returns Under Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine.
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Let night come and the hour ring. Days go away, I remain.
My translation is mostly literal. The following is more poetical:
Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away And lovers Must I be reminded Joy came always after pain The night is a clock chiming The days go by not I We’re face to face and hand in hand While under the bridges Of embrace expire Eternal tired tidal eyes The night is a clock chiming The days go by not I Love elapses like the river Love goes by Poor life is indolent And expectation always violent The night is a clock chiming The days go by not I The days and equally the weeks elapse The past remains the past Love remains lost Under Mirabeau Bridge the river slips away The night is a clock chiming The days go by not I…
https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/36210
Guillaume Apollinaire (Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki), 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918, is a French writer, born in Rome. He is of Polish descent on his mother’s side. His father is unknown, but he may have been Francesco Costantino Camillo Flugi d’Aspermont (born 1835). Apollinaire learned French as a child, in Rome. His grandfather served in the Russian army and was killed during the Crimean War.
There is an eternal aspect to Apollinaire’s poetry. He writes as did Villon, Ronsard, Du Bellay… But he is associated with Cubism, Surrealism and Orphism. He may have coined all three terms. (See Guillaume Apollinaire, Wikipedia.) Moreover, the apparent simplicity of his poems foreshadows Jacques Prévert‘s Paroles, 1946) Apollinaire’s Calligrammes could be viewed as his contribution to modernisme. Baudelaire would have called it « du nouveau » (something new, Le Voyage, final line). It mixes words and pictures. It is visual poetry. (See La Tour Eiffel, Apollinaire, Calligrammes, Paris à Nu, Gérard, WordPress.com.) It is also a hint of literary nonsense.
Apollinaire knew everyone, le Tout-Paris, including Gertrude Stein, a patron of the arts. She is pictured to his right in the painting featured at the top of this post. (See The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations, Wikipedia.) Apollinaire wrote poetry, plays, short stories, and he was an art critic. His poem, in the shape of a cat, is a collection of French expressions referring to cats, such as « La nuit tous les chats sont gris. » (At night, all cats are grey.) « Avoir d’autres chats à fouetter [to whip] » means: to have other fish to fry.
Apollinaire was in love with artist Marie Laurencin (« Marie » and, I believe, his amour in « Le pont Mirabeau »). He sustained a brain injury during World War I, and died, two year later, in 1918, of the Spanish Flu, a pandemic.
RELATED ARTICLES
Sources and Resources
Marie Laurencin, Le Pont, 1940 (Artnet)
Marc Lavoine chante Sous le pont Mirabeau
Léo Ferré chante Sous le pont Mirabeau (a classic)
Marie Laurencin (Modern Art Consulting)
© Micheline Walker
30 April 2018
Revised 1st May 2018
WordPress
23 Friday Mar 2018
Posted in Aboriginals, Canadian History, French songs, Fur Trade, Voyageurs
Signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The leading British delegate Baron Gambier is shaking hands with the American leader John Quincy Adams. The British Undersecretary of State for War and the Colonies, Henry Goulburn, is carrying a red folder. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My post entitled Louis Riel, hero or rebel (20 March 2018) was very long, too long. I will mention the settlement of the Red River Colony by the Earl of Selkirk, but the details will constitute a separate post.
I had researched material concerning the voyageurs in a series of six posts published in 2012. I had also written posts mentioning the Treaty of Ghent, In 1814, a border between the future Canada and the United States was drawn. The Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812. As for the Pemmican War, they opposed voyageurs from the Hudson’s Bay Company (established in 1670) and voyageurs North West Company, established in 1789, with headquarters in Montreal. Two voyageurs posts feature Gabriel Franchère and the men he took from New York to Fort Astoria, located in present-day Oregon. Franchère was in the employ of John Jacob Astor‘s Pacific Fur Company and the earlier American Fur Company, incorporated in 1808. John Jacob was allowed to hire Canadiens voyageurs despite the Embargo Act of 1807. Moreover, following the Treaty of Ghent, fur trading posts that had been British became American fur trading posts. Gabriel Franchère, a clerk and trusted employee of John Jacob Astor’s lived in Minnesota.
However, earlier posts do not refer to certain events that followed Louis Riel’s death. For instance, the population of Canada West had been Catholic and Anglican. Matters changed as Canada moved westward. The purchase of Rupert’s Land gave Canada the territory it needed and the Orange Order opposed the arrival of French Canadians in Ontario. At this point, we have the “School Questions:” the Ontario Schools Questions; the Manitoba Schools Question, and the New Brunswick Schools Question. I wonder if, and to what extent, French-Canadian habitants tried to move to Ontario and provinces west of Ontario.
Nearly a million French-speaking Canadians moved to the United States, including my paternal grandfather and other relatives, when the thirty acres granted habitants by La Compagnie des Cent-Associés (see The Canadian Encyclopedia) could no longer be divided and French-speaking Canadians had yet to acquire skills one needed in the business world.
Nearly a million French Canadians moved to the United States. That episode of Canada’s history is called the exodus. Protestants in New France had also fled to the Thirteen Colonies after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. New France was a province of France.
RELATED ARTICLES
Sources and Resources
The Minnesota Heritage Song Book (lyrics and translation)
Reign of Louis XIV of France. French Huguenots arriving in Dover (England) after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In 1685. Coloured engraving.
January 01, 1900 (Photo credit: Getty Images)
Thirteen Colonies (dark pink). Louisiana is situated on the left side. It belonged to Spain in 1775, but was mostly a French colony. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
M’en revenant de la jolie Rochelle
and
La Bonne Chanson (l’abbé Gadbois)
© Micheline Walker
22 March 2018
WordPress
26 Friday Jun 2015
Posted in Art, French songs, Sharing
Marie Laurencin, August 1923 (Photo credit: Etsy.com)
the house
the vilain
the expert
Various circumstances, illness and a dysfunctional computer mostly, but also memories of the days, better days, when I lived in a blue house, have kept me away for a few days. My blue house is on the market and on my mind and in my hearth.
I cannot afford it at its current price but will try to buy it back. I lost it because an insurance company employee did not tell me that my application for permanent disability benefits had not been approved. Selling the house was conditional upon my application for permanent disability benefits being approved. One does not relocate if granted a temporary leave.
The Independent Medical Examiner to whom she referred me, asked her, in writing, to tell me not to relocate as he believed I would be able to resume my career after an indefinite leave of absence. He wrote that I should not make any important decision for six months. Adjustments would have to be made to my programme-load. But, on the basis of past accomplishments, he was certain I would be able to return to work. He was right.
Photo credit: Page Marie Laurencin
no sabbatical leave
new courses
When requested to prepare two new courses, I had to abandon a sabbatical leave I was devoting to my long-awaited book on Molière in order to prepare two new courses, one of which was Animals in Literature. I could not refuse assignments because the Chair of my department was prone to anger. I once fainted in his office and landed on the back of my head. No, I would not have survived Chernobyl!
What is very strange is that I still like him, but he will no longer serve as Chair of a department, which is a blessing for everyone. There is no advantage to being Chair, financial or otherwise, at least not where I worked.
I was also the person who had to create a multi-media lab component for a language course. It was not upgraded during my sabbatical and I was not told. I upgraded it when I returned to work, which is why I fell ill. Every lecture of my course on Animals in Literature was prepared, but it had been a huge effort. I had no energy left for extra work. I should have asked for that component of the course to be cancelled until the following academic year and assigned to someone else.
the illness
the ‘arrangement’
At any rate, when suddenly I lost the ability to look after myself properly, the biggest challenge is brushing one’s teeth, my doctors requested I leave the classroom immediately. I phoned the Dean, who was at a complete loss, and I presented a doctor’s note to the effect that I was sick. My doctor’s note was not taken seriously. As a result, my students no longer had a teacher. The secretary of the Department remarked that I could still walk and that I should “negotiate an arrangement” with the Chair.
I therefore “negotiated an arrangement” with the Chair. For two weeks I would continue to teach Animals in Literature. During that time, he would teach my two other courses, provided I graded the students’ last quiz and all their assignments. He also asked me to return to work in time to prepare the students for their final examination, which I would also have to grade, etc.
Under the circumstances, I did not have to “negotiate an arrangement.” However, my Chair is not entirely to blame because the Dean would not let him hire a replacement.
Fille au chapeau bleu et noir, vers 1950
When my case manager learned I had finished my teaching assignment for the year, she rushed to judgment. I had been on a sabbatical, which she probably viewed as a holiday, and could not prepare a new course! My application was fraudulent. She didn’t know that I was granted a sabbatical to write my book, at long last. Sabbaticals are seldom granted for the preparation of new courses.
To punish me, she did not relay the doctor’s message to me. As I wrote above, the IME had specified that I was too sick to make serious decisions for at least six months. The sale of the house was conditional upon my application for permanent disability benefits being approved. When it sold, my blue house was not for sale.
I am unlikely ever to recover fully from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. My fatigue is due to a cerebral blood flow problem triggered by a flu I caught in 1976. But I have worked despite this problem. It meant reorganizing my life and eliminating outings in the evening.
At any rate, I lost my house and now, several years later, my share, one ninth of the small building I live in, is for sale. My co-owners will not create a reserve fund for the upkeep of the building, which is a major problem and a deterrent for persons who would otherwise be interested in buying. One never knows when the next bill will land at one’s door. Others may enjoy this form of gambling, but I would not have survived Chernobyl.
I chose the apartment, but my family bought it on my behalf. The notary they hired did not tell me there was no reserve fund. Moreover, I had requested, in writing, that the apartment and building be examined by a certified inspector. I am not blaming anyone. It would not help.
The rest I will not tell. The above, however, happens in several teaching institutions. One simply works a person out of his or her position. In fact, I told this story in an earlier post, but differently.
I do not think I will be returning to blue house, but I will have tried. If I can’t purchase my blue house back, it may be easier to forget.
There is more to say about Gabriel Franchère. When the Astorians travelled away from Fort Astoria, they named Mount St Helens. It was then an active volcano, but no one ever suspected the tragic events of 18 May 1980. At 8 hours 32, it exploded and then “imploded,” sort of. The mountain folded in.
I apologize for my tardiness and send my kindest regards. ♥
—ooo—
I will try to find the words to “Marie.”
Léo Ferré sings “Marie,” a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire (26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918)
© Micheline Walker
26 June 2015
WordPress
Vase de fleurs, Marie Laurencin,
vers 1950
Page Marie Laurencin
