La Débâcle / The Debacle

13 Sunday Jun 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Quebec, Scotland

Tags

Amerindians, Arché saves him, Débâcle, Dumais, Lahontan, Les Anciens Canadiens, the Noble Savage, the St Lawrence as highway

**The Passing Storm**, Saint-Ferréol by Cornelius Krieghoff,1854 (National Gallery of Canada)

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We are skipping material we have already covered. We therefore skip La Corriveau. Our next big event is la débâcle, or the spring break-off of the ice on the St Lawrence. You will remember that the French built their seigneuries on the shores of the St Lawrence River which they used as a road in winter and in summer. During the winter, the ice on the St Lawrence could be very thick. One could cross the river in a horse and carriage, or a sleigh, un traîneau. The St Lawrence was Nouvelle-France’s highway. It took one from Quebec City to Trois-Rivières, and then to Montreal. Lots were narrow but they went back a considerable distance. When the water was frozen, the ice could support a large weight. When the river flowed, one used a boat, often a canoe.

José, a domestic, has driven to Quebec to pick up Jules and Arché, whom Jules’ father wants to meet. However, a huge noise is heard. The ice is breaking and Dumais breaks a leg. He cannot escape unassisted. Events in Les Anciens Canadiens occur on the shores of the St Lawrence River. When the Compagnie des Cent-Associés was formed in 1627, by Richelieu, it was given a mission. The people of New France were to harvest fur, Nouvelle-France’s gold. However, those who paddled canoes had to work under a bourgeois. In other words, voyageurs were hired (engagés). If not, they were called coureurs des bois and were fined if they were caught.

In the seventeenth century, Radisson went as far as the Hudson’s Bay and returned to the shores of the St Lawrence with a hundred canoes filled with precious pelts. Radisson was an explorer, not a voyageur. When he showed his pelts, he was treated like a coureur des bois and his pelts were confiscated. Miffed, he went to England and Prince Rupert sent a ship to the Hudson’s Bay. This led to the establishment, in 1670, of the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Company owned Rupert’s Land which Canada would purchase when Confederation occurred, in 1867.

Dumais, who is caught in the ice, seems a Métis. There were métis. The French lived with Amerindians and they married Amerindians. Moreover, the notion of the noble savage originates, to a large extent, in the Jesuits’s Relations. The Jesuits realized that one could be a good person without being baptized. It was a shock for the Robes Noires and it led to the emergence of a character called the Noble Savage. Lahontan, a French aristocrat, wrote about the Noble Savage. He named him Adario. So, Dumais’s ancestors could include Amerindians. Although Amerindians would torture the whites, many were “nobles.“ But our Dumais, whatever his ancestry, is cought in the ice and would die, were it not for the skills of an athletic Scotsman, Arché. Arché saves Dumais life.

The Noble savage, in literature, an idealized concept of uncivilized man, who symbolizes the innate goodness of one not exposed to the corrupting influences of civilization.
Britannica [1]

La Débacle / the Debacle

Arché saves Dumais’ life

Dumais cannot help himself. He will die, but Arché proves a heroic Scot.

« Capitaine, je nage comme un poisson, j’ai l’haleine d’un amphibie ; le danger n’est pas pour moi, mais pour ce
malheureux, si je heurtais la glace en l’abordant. Arrêtez-moi d’abord à une douzaine de pieds de l’îlot, afin de mieux calculer la distance et d’amortir ensuite le choc : votre expérience fera le reste. Maintenant une corde forte, mais aussi
légère que possible, et un bon nœud de marin. »
Arché au capitaine Marcheterre (V: p. 97)
[“Captain, I am like a fish in the water; there is no danger for me, but for the poor fellow yonder, in case I should strike that block of ice too hard and dash it from its place. Stop me about a dozen feet above the island, that I may calculate the distance better and break the shock. Your own judgment will tell you what else to do. Now, for a strong rope, but as light as possible, and a good sailor’s knot.”]
Arché to captain Marcheterre (IV: 68-69)

Dumais, malgré son état de torpeur apparente, malgré son immobilité, n’avait pourtant rien perdu de tout ce qui se passait. Un rayon d’espoir, bien vite évanoui, avait lui au fond de son cœur déchiré par tant d’émotions sanglantes à la vue des premières tentatives de son libérateur, mais cette espérance s’était ravivée de nouveau en voyant le bond surhumain que fit de Locheill s’élançant de la cime du rocher. Celui-ci avait à peine, en effet, atteint la glace où il se cramponnait d’une seule main, pour dégager, de l’autre, le rouleau de corde qui l’enlaçait, que Dumais, lâchant le cèdre protecteur, prit un tel élan sur sa jambe unique, qu’il vint tomber dans les bras d’Arché.
(V: p. 102)
[Dumais, in spite of his apparent stupor, had lost nothing of what was passing. A ray of hope had struggled through his despair at sight of Lochiel’s tremendous leap from the summit of the rock. Scarcely had the latter, indeed, reached the edge of the ice, where he clung with one hand while loosening with the other the coil of rope, than Dumais, dropping his hold on the cedar, took such a leap upon his one uninjured leg that he fell into Archie’s very arms.]
(IV: 71-72)

Dumais is very thankful. How can Dumais repay? He will.

– Comment m’acquitter envers vous, dit-il, de ce que vous avez fait pour moi, pour ma pauvre femme et pour mes pauvres enfants !
Dumais à Arché (V: p. 106)
[“How can I ever repay you,” said he, “for all you have done for me, for my poor wife, and for my children?”]
Dumais to Arché (IV: 73-74)

Our noble Arché tells Dumais that he need simply recover.

– En recouvrant promptement la santé, répondit gaiement de Locheill.
Arché à Dumais (V: p. 106)
[“By getting well again as soon as possible,” answered Lochiel gayly.]
Arché to Dumais (IV: 74)

A Night Among the Savages

Dumais saves Arché’s life

Dumais will repay Arché. He will save him from being tortured by Amerindians. To Amerindians, Arché must be tortured. First, Dumais tells la Grand’ Loutre that Arché is not an Englishman. He is Scottish.

– Que mon frère écoute, dit Dumais, et qu’il fasse attention aux paroles du visage-pâle. Le prisonnier n’est pas Anglais, mais Écossais ; et les Écossais sont les sauvages des Anglais. Que mon frère regarde le vêtement du prisonnier, et il verra qu’il est presque semblable à celui du guerrier sauvage.
Dumais à la Grand’ Loutre (XIII: p. 291)
[“Let my brother heed my words,” said Dumais. “The prisoner is not an Englishman, but a Scotchman, and the Scotch are the savages of the English. Let my brother observe the prisoner’s clothing, and see how like it is to that of a savage warrior.”]
Dumais to Grand-Loutre (XII: 185-186)

Dumais then tells Grand-Loutre that the prisoner, Arché, is the one who saved Dumais’ life.

– Eh bien ! reprit Dumais en se levant et ôtant sa casquette, ton frère déclare, en présence du Grand-Esprit, que le prisonnier est le jeune Écossais qui lui a sauvé la vie !
Dumais à la Grand’Loutre (XIII: p. 302)
[“Very well!” replied Dumais, rising and taking off his cap, “thy brother swears in the presence of the Great Spirit that the prisoner is none other than the young Scotchman who saved his life!”] (XII: 192-193)

Conclusion

The novel is binary. In Chapter V (FR), Arché has saved Dumais’s life. In Chapter XIII (FR), Dumais saves Arché’s life. It is near-perfect symmetry. Moreover, we are witnesses to a friendly, brotherly, relationship between the French and New France’s natives. The French could not arrive in North America as conquerors. They were dying of scurvy. Nor could they harvest precious pelts, without a canoe and snow-shoes. As for Scottish explorers, they needed voyageurs and Amerindians. There is considerable truth to Montesquieu‘s théorie des climats.

Dumais’s comment according to which the Scots are the savages of the English is extremely funny. But Dumais must be understood. La Grand’Loutre would not hurt a person of is considered a savage by the English. Nor would he hurt a person who saved his “brother.” But one could say that Dumais is Les Anciens Canadiens‘ voyageur or Métis.

RELATED ARTICLES

La Corriveau: a legend (1 April 2012)
The Aftermath (cont’d) Aubert de Gaspé’s Les Anciens Canadiens (3 April 2012)
The Noble Savage: Lahontan’s Adario (26 Octobre 2012)

Sources and Ressources
Les Anciens Canadiens (ebooksgratuits.com). FR
Cameron of Lochiel (Archive.org ), Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, translator. EN
Cameron of Lochiel is Gutenberg [EBook#53154], Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, translator. EN

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[1] Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Noble savage”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 Apr. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/noble-savage. Accessed 13 June 2021.

Cornelius Krieghoff (to Scottish music)

Aubert de Gaspé‘s manoir, restored (fr Wikipedia)

Jules d’Haberville & Cameron of Lochiel

12 Saturday Jun 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Quebec, Scotland

≈ Comments Off on Jules d’Haberville & Cameron of Lochiel

Tags

a Legend, an Emotional Reality, Archie is taller, Idealized tableaux, La Corriveau, The Battle of Culloden

**An incident in the rebellion of 1745**, David Morier (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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In 2012, I wrote two posts about Aubert de Gaspé’s Les Anciens Canadiens. I mentioned Sir Charles G. D. Robert‘s first translation of Aubert de Gaspé’s novel, The Canadians of Old, published in 1890. In fact, I did not discover Sir Roberts’s second translation until I prepared my last post. As a university teacher of French, I taught Les Anciens Canadiens in French.

I have not read Sir Charles G. D. Roberts’s first translation, The Canadians of Old. It was published fifteen years before the publication of Cameron of Lochiel, in 1905. As Cameron of Lochiel, a mere title, Les Anciens Canadiens focuses on the fate of a conquered nation. The novel nevertheless provides a description of the life of a seigneur, of his seigneurie‘s habitants, of feasts celebrated on the shores of the St Lawrence River, as well as other relevant tableaux of Canadian society before 1759. Dinner at the seigneurie reminds me of Acadie’s L’Ordre de Bon Temps 1606. Jules d’Haberville’s father serves copious meals, and all rejoice.

As a depiction of Nouvelle-France, Les Anciens Canadiens is a very rich novel, but Aubert de Gaspé idealizes Nouvelle-France. Sr Roberts’s title, Cameron of Lochiel, legitimizes an idealized past

In the eyes of Aubert de Gaspé, the fall of New France to England is as large a loss as the fall of Scotland to England. Objectively, the fall of Scotland is the greater loss, but how else can Aubert de Gaspé express adequately the tragedy that has befallen his land than by evoking Scotland, the larger tragedy. France has gone and will not return. That is an emotional reality, or a reality of the mind, but it is a reality.

Arché de Locheill n’était âgé que de douze ans, en l’année 1745, lorsque son père joignit les étendards de ce jeune et infortuné prince qui, en vrai héros de roman, vint se jeter entre les bras de ses compatriotes écossais pour revendiquer par les armes une couronne à laquelle il devait renoncer pour toujours après le désastre de Culloden. (II: p. 22)
[When Archie was but twelve years old, in the year 1745, his father joined the standard of that unhappy young prince who, after the old romantic fashion, threw himself into the arms of his Scottish countrymen, and called upon them to win him back a crown which the bloody field of Culloden forced him to renounce forever.] (II: 20)

Scotland is the larger loss and, although Jules d’Haberville is as fine looking as Cameron of Lochiel, Archie is taller and, stronger than d’Haberville:

Le second, plus âgé de deux à trois ans, est d’une taille beaucoup plus forte et plus élevée. Ses beaux yeux bleus, ses cheveux blond châtain, son teint blanc et un peu coloré, quelques rares taches de rousseur sur le visage et sur les mains, son menton tant soit peu prononcé, accusent une origine étrangère ; c’est, en effet, Archibald Cameron of Locheill, c’est, en effet, Archibald Cameron of Locheill, vulgairement Arché de Locheill, jeune montagnard écossais qui a fait
ses études au collège des Jésuites de Québec. Comment, lui, étranger, se trouve-t-il dans une colonie française ? C’est ce que la suite apprendra. (I. 15)
[His companion, who is older by two or three years, is much taller and more robust of frame. His fine blue eyes, his chestnut hair, his blonde and ruddy complexion with a few scattered freckles on face and hands, his slightly aggressive chin—all these reveal a foreign origin. This is Archibald Cameron of Lochiel, commonly known as Archie of Lochiel, a young Scotch Highlander who has been studying at the Jesuits’ College in Quebec. How is it that he, a stranger, finds himself in this remote French colony? We will let the sequel show.] (Foreword: 4)

Moreover, in 1757, France had not been defeated, so Archie is more sensitive than Jules d’Haberville:

– Oh ! Français ! légers Français ! aveugles Français ! il n’est pas surprenant que les Anglais se jouent de vous par-dessous la jambe, en politique !
– Il me semble, interrompit Jules, que les Écossais doivent en savoir quelque chose de la politique anglaise ! Le visage d’Arché prit tout à coup une expression de tristesse ; une grande pâleur se répandit sur ses nobles traits : c’était une corde bien sensible que son ami avait touchée. Jules s’en aperçut aussitôt, et lui dit :
– Pardon, mon frère, si je t’ai fait de la peine : je sais que ce sujet évoque chez toi de douloureux souvenirs. J’ai parlé, comme je le fais toujours, sans réfléchir. On blesse souvent, sans le vouloir, ceux que l’on aime le plus, par une repartie que l’on croit spirituelle. Mais, allons, vive la joie ! continue à déraisonner ; ça sera plus gai pour nous deux. (IV: p. 45)
[“Oh, you French, you frivolous French, you deluded French, no wonder the English catch you on the hip in diplomacy!”
“It would seem to me,” interrupted Jules, “that the Scotch ought to know something by this time about English diplomacy!”
Archie’s face saddened and grew pale; his friend had touched a sore spot. Jules perceived this at once and said:
“Forgive me, dear fellow, if I have hurt you. I know the subject is one that calls up painful memories. I spoke, as usual, without thinking. One often thoughtlessly wounds those one best loves by a retort which one may think very witty. But come, let us drink to a merry life! Go on with your remarkable reasoning; that will be pleasanter for both of us.”] (III: 48-49)

La Corriveau

In Chapter IV/III (EN), Jules d’Haberville tells the legend of La Corriveau, a murderess. It was one of my 2012 posts. The second post is a more general description of Les Anciens Canadiens. La Corriveau: a legend (1 April 2012)

go to → La Corriveau: a legend

RELATED ARTICLES

La Corriveau: a legend (1 April 2012)
The Aftermath (cont’d) Aubert de Gaspé’s Les Anciens Canadiens

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Love to everyone 💕

La Corriveau

Les Anciens Canadiens/Cameron of Lochiel

09 Wednesday Jun 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Quebec, Scotland, the Fur Trade, Voyageurs

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Cameron of Lochiel, La Patrie littéraire, Les Anciens Canadiens, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, Simon Fraser, Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, The Auld Alliance, the Fur Trade, the Literary Homeland, voyageurs

**Cameron of Locheil** by H. C. Edwards (EBook#53154)

**Manoir de Philippe Aubert de Gaspé** à Saint-Jean-Port-Joli (Patrimoine culturel du Québec)

Les Anciens Canadiens (ebooksgratuits.com). FR
Cameron of Lochiel (Archive.org ), Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, translator. EN
Cameron of Lochiel is Gutenberg [EBook#53154], Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, translator. EN

Last weekend, I worked on Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé‘s Anciens Canadiens. The novel can be read online. It was translated twice by Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, an excellent Canadian writer, but Mr Roberts’s second and finer translation, published in 1905, is entitled Cameron of Lochiel [EN]. I had never looked for a translation of Les Anciens Canadiens ^[1] and this English title intrigued me. Upon due reflexion, the title Sir Roberts gave Les Anciens Canadiens seemed altogether legitimate. As the events of the Anciens Canadiens unfold, Jules d’Haberville becomes Cameron of Lochiel. Scotland fell to England at the Battle of Culloden (1746), which is discussed in Les Anciens Canadiens. As for New France, it will also fall to England, but it will have a glorious past.

After our friends complete their studies, Jules joins the French army and Arché, the British army. Archie serves in North America during the Seven Years’ War, called the French and Indian War. Ironically and tragically, Arché, a soldier, is ordered to set ablaze his friends’ manoir. Nouvelle-France is conquered by the British. Therefore, the defeat of Nouvelle-France mirrors the defeat of Scotland, a more important country, and, by the same token, it puts Jules and Arché / Archie on an equal footing. They are the two sides of the same coin. So, metaphorically, Jules has become Cameron of Lochiel. His country has been defeated and, despite the role Arché / Archie plays during the war, the friends are reunited. In 1759, the French in Canada fell to England as did the Scots, in 1746.

After the “conquest,” Blanche d’Haberville will not marry Roberts’s Cameron of Lochiel, whom she loves, but Jules will marry an Englishwoman, thereby giving himself a second and redeeming identity, an instance of the collaborator’s ideology. He is the conquered and the conqueror. As for Aubert de Gaspé, the author and a Seigneur, he will use Arché’s guided tour of a Seigneurie to consign New France to a réel absolu, that of fiction, the life and customs of anciens Canadiens. Jules familiarizes Arché with the life of a Seigneur and that of the inhabitants of a seigneurie, not to mention the life of New France’s humbler subjects and its Amerindians.

Missing are New France’s voyageurs, river drivers (draveurs), and bûcherons. Their life and their songs are chronicled elsewhere. Les Anciens Canadiens nevertheless memorializes and mythologizes the presence of the French in North America. France will live forever on the shores of the St Lawrence River because it is remembered, an anamnesis.

La Patrie littéraire

When John Lambton, 1^st Earl of Durham wrote his Report on the Rebellions of 1837-1838, he described the French in Canada as a people lacking a history and a literature: un peuple sans histoire ni littérature. The French set about proving him wrong. Two literary schools were instituted, one in Montreal and one in Quebec City. The people of New France quickly built a patrie littéraire,^[2] a literary homeland.

Our colleague Derrick J. Knight was correct in suggesting a link between the Scots and the French in Canada. Matters would change when Confederation occurred. However, the spirit of the Auld Alliance would persist. Our Scottish explorers worked at an early point after the Conquest of Canada, formalized by the Treaty of Paris,1763. The Battle of Culloden took place less than two decades before the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, fought on 13 September 1759.

Canada’s bon Anglais is Scottish, he is both John Neilson and Cameron of Locheill. John Neilson stated that there could be a blend, un amalgame, of the two “races” in Canada, the French-speaking race, and the English-speaking race: the two sides of the same coin. There was an amalgame. Simon Fraser left Montreal accompanied by 19 voyageurs and 2 Amerindians. Explorers were guided by voyageurs and Amerindians whom they trusted.

Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality, a just pride of race, and a loving memory for his people’s romantic and heroic past—these are the dominant chords which are struck throughout the story. Of special significance, therefore, are the words which are put in the mouth of the old seigneur as he bids his son a last farewell. The father has been almost ruined by the conquest. The son has left the French army and taken the oath of allegiance to the English crown. “Serve thy new sovereign,” says the dying soldier, “as faithfully as I have served the King of France; and may God bless thee, my dear son!”
Sir Charles G. D. Roberts’s Cameron of Lochiel (Preface)

**Montcalm** blessé à la bataille des plaines d’Abraham et ramené à Québec (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

RELATED ARTILES

The Scots as Explorers (4 June 2021)
The Scots in Canada, cont’d (30 May 2021
Scots in Canada (26 May 2021)
The Auld Alliance & the Scots Guard in Canada (20 May 2021)
Alexis de Tocqueville & John Neilson: a Conversation, 27 August 1831 (13 May 2021)
From Coast to Coast: the Oregon Treaty (18 May 2012)
Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (Part Two) (10 June 2015)
Gabriel Franchère’s Narrative of a Voyage (Part One) (6 June 2015)
The Red River Settlement (30 May 2015)
La Corriveau: a legend (1 April 2012)
The Aftermath, cont’d: Aubert de Gaspé Les Anciens Canadiens (30 March 2012)
Voyageurs Posts (page)
Canadiana.1 (page)

Sources and Resources

Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, Britannica
Wikipedia
The Canadian Encyclopedia
The Dictionary of Canadian Biography

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^[1]There are four: The Canadians of Old, Georgina Pennée (1864); Charles G. D. Roberts (1890), and Jane Brierley (1997). There are anonymous translations.
^[2] Bourbeau-Walker, M. (2002). La patrie littéraire : errance et résistance.
Francophonies d’Amérique,(13), 47–65. https://doi.org/10.7202/1005247ar

Love to everyone 💕

**Philippe Aubert de Gaspé** (1786-1871)
(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Scots in Canada, cont’d

30 Sunday May 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Canadian History, Fur Trade, Quebec

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Denis Monière, Fur traders, Idéologie de la collaboration, James McGill, Montreal, Simon McTavish, The Beaver Club, The Château Clique, the Golden Square Mile. Assimilation, the North West Company

**Ravenscrag**, built for Sir Hugh Allan in 1863 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Saga continues…

Although France and Scotland had joined forces under the Auld Alliance, the relationship between the French in Canada and Canadians of Scottish descent could not be as cordial as the bonds uniting France and Scotland. The French in Canada were a conquered nation. They had lost the battle. But let us look at the Scots.

The Fur Trade

Scots as Fur Traders
the North West Company
Montreal as centre of the fur trade in Canada

It is as fur traders that the Scots in Canada gained prominence.

The North West Company, founded in 1779, was a Montreal-based Company that competed with the Hudson’s Bay Company, chartered in 1670. Most partners, or shareholders, were Scots. They had mansions built in Montreal’s Golden Square Mile. Sir Hugh Allan, a shipping magnate, whose mansion is shown at the top of this post, was not associated with the North West Company. He brought immigrants to Canada and lived at Ravenscrag, located in Montreal’s Golden Square Mile. Ravenscrag was donated to McGill University in 1940. In fact, James McGill endowed McGill University in his will. Nor’Westers later moved to Westmount, in Montreal. They socialized at the Beaver Club, a Gentleman’s Club, founded in 1785. French-Canadians who had remained in the fur trade after New France fell to England were senior members at the Beaver Club (see Beaver Club, Wikipedia).

The most prosperous shareholders of the North West Company were not French-speaking Canadians. In the first half of the 19^th century, very few, if any, French-speaking Canadians lived in the Golden Square Mile or Westmount, except the French-Canadian wives of fur traders. James McGill (1744-1813) married Charlotte Trottier Desrivières, née Guillimin, a widow, and Simon McTavish (1750-1804) married Marguerite Chaboillez, but these marriages did not reflect a political choice. Partners were Englishmen and English Canadians. Benjamin Frobisher (1742-1787) was English and Joseph Frobisher (1748-1810) was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He was an English Canadian. The main shareholders of the North West Company (la Compagnie du Nord-Ouest), were Scots.

The Château Clique

James McGill & the Quebec Act
Guy Carleton’s Quebec Act revisited
the assimilation of the French through Union Acts
the abolition of Seigneuries, achieved in 1854
responsible government
idéologie de la collaboration

Several North West Company shareholders or partners were members of Lower Canada’s Château Clique. La Clique du Château was un Parti bureaucrate, a bureaucracy, also known as the British Party or the Tory Party. The Château Clique had its counterpart in Upper Canada, called the Family Compact. A few Seigneurs and French-speaking Canadians were members of the Château Clique. Denis Monière refers to an idéologie de la collaboration. The French who were not returning to France were cutting their personal losses. So was the Clergy.

Il faut dire aussi que les rapports entre ces deux groupes sont facilités par une origine de classe identique.
Denis Monière [1]

[One must also say that the relationship between these two groups is made easier because they originate from identical classes.]

So, how could these threatened classes oppose strongly and visibly a group promoting the assimilation of French-speaking Canadians (union acts) and frowned upon a responsible government. One suspects that many saw clear and present danger, and went into hiding. In fact, James McGill (1744-1813) opposed the Quebec Act of 1774. (See James McGill, Dictionary of Canadian Biography.) The Quebec Act can be viewed as a wish to protect the British in Canada from an alliance between the defeated French and the rebellious colonies to the south. But it may also have earned Guy Carleton and the British in Canada decades of peaceful coexistence in the country Guy Carleton had governed. The Quebec Act was conciliatory. French-speaking Canadians were allowed to keep their language, their religion, their Seigneuries and their Code civil. Although the dreaded Act of Union was passed in 1840, it failed to assimilate French Canadians. There was compatibility between French-speaking and English-speaking Canadians.

The North West Company consisted of a few privileged Englishmen and several privileged Scots. Benjamin Frobisher, Joseph Frobisher, James McGill, Simon McTavish, Robert Grant, Nicholas Montour, Patrick Small, William Holmes, George McBeath. Alexander Ross, would join North West Company and so would David Thompson, who was not a Scot and would not be a fur trader. David Thomson is one of the finest cartographers in history.

Other Scots, the landless crofters, found homes in Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk‘s Red River Settlement. Crofters also settled in Nova Scotia and elsewhere in Canada. The Red River Settlement is inextricably linked to the fur trade. The competition between the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company led to the Seven Oaks Massacre (1816) and to the merger of the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company (1821).

Unknown Artist, **Indien et Habitant avec Traîneau** [Indian and Inhabitant with a Tobogan] (Quebec City) around 1840. (The Exodus: railroads, land, and factories, Related Articles, below)

Conclusion

successful Scots
Montreal as fur-trade capital in Canada
a conquered people
the Seigneurial system is abolished

In short, after the Conquest, Montreal became the centre of the fur trade in Canada. Scots were the main shareholders of the North West Company, but the fur trade declined for lack of beavers. Canada’s voyageurs and Amerindians would then become the explorers’ guides. These were mostly Scots. and all wanted to find a passage to the Pacific, by land.

The story of the fur trade chronicles an early chapter in Canadian history, the years following the defeat of France. Nouvelle-France was ceded to Britain in 1763. English-speaking immigrants were brought to Canada and United Empire Loyalists were given land in the Eastern Townships. Yet, in 1854, when the Seigneurial System was abolished, habitants who could not afford their thirty acres had to pay rente perpetually. The French had been conquered.

On 26 August 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville visited a tribunal and said afterwards:

Je n’ai jamais été plus convaincu qu’en sortant [de ce tribunal] que le plus grand et le plus irrémédiable malheur pour un peuple c’est d’être conquis.
See Alexis de Tocqueville on Lower Canada (1 January 2014 )

“I have never been more convinced than after I left the courthouse that the greatest and most irreversible tragedy for a people is to be conquered.” (See Alexis de Tocqueville on Lower Canada, 1 January 2014)

RELATED ARTICLES

Alexis de Tocqueville and John Neilson: a Conversation, 27 August 1831 (13 May 2021)
Alexis de Tocqueville & John Neilson (13 May 2021)
L’Exode told: Trente Arpents (10 May 2021)
The Exodus: railroads, land, and factories (6 May 2021)
Alexis de Tocqueville on Lower Canada (1 January 2014)
Canadiana, 1 (Page)

______________________________
[1] Denis Monière, Le Développement des idéologies au Québec (Montréal: Québec / Amérique, 1977), p. 91.

—ooo—

Love to everyone 💕

Celtic Music from Brittany by Arany Zoltán

**Alexis de Tocqueville**, Portrait by Théodore Chassériau (1850), at the Palace of Versailles

La Question des écoles / The Schools Question. 2

28 Wednesday Apr 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Bilingualism, Confederation, Quebec

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Canadian Parents for French, Clandestine Schools, French Immersion schools, Gabrielle Roy, Hugh MacLennan, Laurier-Greenway Agreement, The Commissioner of Official Languages, The Thornton Act, The Tin Flute, Two Solitudes

**Maison d’enfance** (Childhood House) de Gabrielle Roy, à Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba

—ooo—

I cannot accomplish much at this moment, but I am sending you a photograph of Gabrielle Roy’s childhood home in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba. I mentioned short stories written by Gabrielle Roy, the author of Bonheur d’occasion, a novel published in 1945 and translated as The Tin Flute. The novel tells the story of a family living in Saint-Henri, Montreal, the poorest area of Montreal in 1945. The novel’s central irony is that World War II will “save” the family. Rose-Anna will receive a few hundred dollars a month.

Bonheur d’occasion (second-hand happiness) and Hugh MacLennan‘s Two Solitudes (1945) have been considered mirror narratives expressing the tragic repercussions of the separation of Canada’s two founding nations, after the First Nations.

Résistance: Clandestine Schools outside Quebec

There was resistance to the uniform school system created by Sir John A. Macdonald in provinces other than Quebec. As humble as it was, the Laurier-Greenway Compromise of 1989 made it possible to use French as the language of instruction in several Manitoba schools. But the Laurier-Greenway Compromise was short-lived. In 1915, the Thornton Act abolished the bilingual school system in Manitoba. However, in many schools, French continued to be the language of instruction, but in a clandestine manner. The teacher spoke French, but switched to English when the Inspector visited the school. Certain immigrants also took in hand the education of their children. But it could not last.

Quebec

As for French-speaking Canadians, the Official Languages Act of 1969 was passed one hundred and two years after Confederation (1867). It was too late. Canada is officially bilingual and bicultural, but the people of Canada do not necessarily speak both French and English. In practice, Canada is a mostly English-language country, which it may remain. The Federal Government has put into place French Immersion Schools and Canada has an Office of the Commissioner of the Official Languages. (See Canada’s “Founding Mothers” of French Immersion | The Canadian Encyclopedia and Canadian Parents for French.) These schools cannot transform English-speaking Canadians into French-speaking Canadians, but gifted and motivated students do learn French. These schools also constitute a validation of the French language. Moreover, such groups as Canadian Parents for French look kindly on publically-funded separate schools in various communities, if these communities qualify.

However, it would be my opinion that one cannot expect coast to coast bilingualism. Not after 102 years. Canada is a mostly English-language country where each linguistic group should respect one another and also respect immigrants to this country. When they arrive in Canada, they are fellow Canadians.

Whether laws should enforce the use of French in Quebec is questionable. By virtue of Quebec’s Bill 22 (July 1972), French is the official language of Quebec. Bill 101 (La Charte de la langue française),1977, reinforced Bill 22. There are “sunnier” ways of preserving a language. I am borrowing the term “sunnier” from Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

But I will pause here. The concept of nationhood is complex. I have met people in whose eyes Britain won the battle, i.e. the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (13 September 1759), which means that the French have no rights, nor do Amerindians. They too were conquered. This ideology has fallen into disrepute, but it has done so… very slowly.

Conclusion

If one reads the above, one may be tempted to revisit separatism. Confederation separated Quebec. It would not be on an equal footing with other provinces. But it also separated French-speaking Canadians from English-speaking Canadians.

The people of Canada must never stop respecting one another: English speaking, French speaking, immigrants to this country, and refugees. When immigrants arrive in Canada, it becomes their country. Not that they will forget their native land. Gabrielle Roy’s Sam Lee Wong is lost in the Canadian prairies. Canadian Japanese were Canadians. But they were interned after the attack on Pearl Harbour.

RELATED ARTICLES

Maps of Canada (15 October 2020) 🚗
La Question des écoles/The Schools Question (24 April 2021)
About Confederation, cont’d (6 October 2020)
About Confederation (15 September 2020)
Sir Wilfrid Laurier: the Conciliator (15 July 2020)
Canadiana.1 (page)

Sources and Resources

Two Solitudes and Bonheur d’occasion: Mirror Images of Quebec | Bibliography on English-speaking Quebec (concordia.ca)
See Office of the Commissioner of the Official Languages to view a timeline of the history of bilingualism in Canada. There were noble gestures in provinces where the language of instruction could not be French.

Love to everyone 💕

Les Charbonniers de l’enfer: La Traversée miraculeuse

Covid-19: Vaccination in Quebec

19 Friday Mar 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Covid-19, Epidemic, Quebec

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

A Story, Covid-19, Long Covid, Vaccination

**L’Hiver**, illustration (George Barbier (illustrator) – Wikipedia)

I apologize for the delay.

An Incident

It all started when my telephone rang in the middle of the night. Someone was at the main door to the building asking me to unlock the door. He said he was delivering groceries. I let him in. It then occurred to me that he could be an intruder and that he could harm one of my neighbours. If so, it would be my fault. I dialed 9-1-1. Two police officers, a man, and a woman came to my door. I told them that I had foolishly let someone into the building and asked them to check the corridors. They didn’t check the corridors. I also told them that persons did ring the door to my apartment occasionally and then disappeared. But matters were different. This time, I had let a person enter the building.

They asked several questions, reassured me, and left. The building was quiet. The next morning, I realized that one of my neighbours had played a joke on me. Who else would know that my groceries are delivered and by whom? Later in the day, I phoned the police and spoke with a person who knew about this incident. I said that, in my opinion, a neighbour had played a joke on me. The gentleman wanted to know how I felt. I was fine. My neighbours were not the target, I was the target.

I have since wondered whether this incident is related to Covid-19. I have been inside my apartment, alone, for a year. However, someone delivers groceries once a week.

The Covid-19 Vaccine

I did leave the apartment two days ago. On Tuesday I received a letter from the government informing me personally that the vaccination programme had begun and that all I had to do was telephone the number I was given or go online to make an appointment. I dialed the telephone number and was vaccinated the following day. Covid-19 is so aggressive that all Canadians will be vaccinated before June 24, the first injection, if AstraZeneca is used. That goal is realistic for Quebec. The team is working so efficiently that several hundred persons are vaccinated in a matter of hours. The government hired a small army.

After the injection, one sits for 15 minutes and, if all goes well, one disinfects one’s hands and goes home. A gentleman called a cab for me. He made me sit comfortably while I waited and he helped me get into the cab safely.

The AstraZeneca vaccine was used. My mouth was very dry after the injection, but there were bottles of water. I was given water. I was not otherwise affected.

Long Covid

The Washington Post reports that many victims of Covid-19 who have been cured are not able to return to a normal life. I suspected this would happen. I caught the H1N1 virus in early February 1976. It triggered Myalgic Encephalomyelitis which did not relent, except for very brief periods, for forty-four years. ME ended when Covid-19 began. Long-Covid patients are vaccinated and it is reported that many patients start feeling better. Do not look upon them as malingerers.

Some long-haul covid-19 patients say their symptoms are subsiding after getting vaccines – The Washington Post

Would that awareness of complications had been present in 1976! I could handle a normal workload by going to bed early and living cautiously. But my workload grew to include too many areas of literature, and the creation of language lab components. I fell to exhaustion and was not replaced, which shouldn’t have happened. I was then maneuvered into selling my house and leaving Nova Scotia. Two years later, I was fooled into accepting an arrangement that ended my tenure without my realizing it. I still ache.

Conclusion

Let’s just say that Covid-19 has been a curse, but that the government vaccination programme is very rapid. I have not experienced adverse effects. As for my neighbours, I sent management a letter they will never forget.

Love to everyone 💕

Leonard Bernstein plays George Gershwin

**La Belle aux moineaux**, illustration (George Barbier (illustrator) – Wikipedia)

C’est dans Paris …

14 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Quebec, Traditional Music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

C'est dans Paris, Les Voix du Vent, Traditional Music

Les Voix du Vent perform C’est dans Paris

I have been looking for French Canadian folklore and traditional music. These sites do not appear immediately. Moreover, I was far from Quebec for forty years and I had been trained to be a concert pianist, which means I was learning Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. There was very little time left for learning folklore and I wasn’t hearing any music from Quebec on the radio. In 1960, the French-language CBC, Radio-Canada or Ici Radio Canada, had yet to reach the West coast.

Les Voix du Vent are also known as Le Vent du Nord. Le Vent du Nord plays Celtic music. However, I am featuring a French song that tells a story.

The Story

The story is about a servant girl who wanted to be as beautiful as her mistress (as in master). She went to the pharmacist, l’apothicaire, to purchase makeup, du fard. He prepared a powder and told her not to look at herself in a mirror after applying the fard. The next day, le lendemain, she met her cavalier, a boyfriend, or a man she wished to attract. He told her that her face was black, black as a chimney. She was barbouillée (smeared). She returned to the apothecary who explained that he sold her coal. Servants should not try to look like their mistress.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY ❤

Tom Thomson's Pine Island — **Tom Thomson**, *Pine Island* (National Art Gallery of Canada)

Louis-Claude Daquin’s “Le Coucou”

02 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Baroque, France, Quebec, Traditional Music

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Books of Hours, Candlemas, Le Coucou, Louis-Claude Daquin, Phillip Sear, Solstices and Equinoxes

Phillip Sear plays Louis-Claude Daquin‘s “Le Coucou”

Above is Louis-Claude Daquin’s “Le Coucou” (The Cuckoo). Les Grands Hurleurs’ “Coucou” is an arrangement of Louis-Claude Daquin‘s “Coucou.” Daquin’s “Coucou” is not folklore, but it borders on traditional music and music we call “classical.” Daquin composed several Noëls, Christmas Carols. Christmas Carols are not looked upon as “folklore,” but they are traditional music. Christians sing Carols on Christmas Day and during the Christmas period. For Christians, Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, but it is also on or near the Winter solstice, the day of the longest night. Today is Candlemas (La Chandeleur), a festival of lights and currently Groundhog Day (le Jour de la Marmotte).

Calendar page from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves for June 1–15. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

FEASTS …

Feasts are celebrated according to a natural calendar. This begins with the degree of light and darkness: two solstices, and in the middle of the two solstices (Christmas and la Saint-Jean) are the Vernal equinox of Spring and the Autumnal equinox (Michaelmas). And to return to traditional music, it is associated with feasts that are celebrated according to the above-mentioned natural calendar. Noëls are performed during the Christmas season.

Antonio Vivaldi‘s Four Seasons is an ode to the four seasons. We also have Books of Hours. Les Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry records the labours of the month. The January page is exceptional. The enluminures were the work of les frères Limbourg (the Limbourg Brothers). Illuminated Books of Hours are consummate art, but we should not underestimate our calendars and agendas.

However, Books of Hours are not pieces of music. Noëls are, and they probably constitute traditional music. Then come Liturgical music and the Canonical Hours.

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Love to everyone 💕

**Les Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry** (January)

Les Grands Hurleurs’ “Le Coucou”

01 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, Quebec, Traditional Music

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Le Coucou, Les Grands Hurleurs, Louis-Claude d'Aquin, podorythmie

Les Grands Hurleurs play an arrangement of “Le Coucou,” composed by Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772)[1]

This is a very short post. It features Nicolas Pellerin‘s Grands Hurleurs (howlers). We heard the Grands Hurleurs in Quebec Folklore: Celtic Roots. In Le Coucou, Nicolas uses podorythmie.

I started researching podorythmie. It may have Acadian origins, which surprises me. I lived in Nova Scotia for 22 years. The Scots and Acadians are very close.

I noticed that WordPress put Would that Robert Baldwin and Sir Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine… as a related article to Quebec Ensembles. Looking at the photograph of members of La Nef, I saw Canada as it could have been. The inhabitants of Louis Riel‘s Red River Colony were Scottish crofters, disbanded members of the Régiment de Meuron and De Watteville Régiment, French-speaking and English-speaking Métis, retired Voyageurs and their descendants, former explorers (Scottish and others).

RELATED ARTICLES

Quebec Ensembles (29 January 2021)
Quebec Folklore: Celtic Roots (24 October 2020)
Canadiana.1

____________________
[1] Louis-Claude Daquin was a “French composer of Jewish ancestry, writing in the Baroque and Galant styles. He was a virtuoso organist and harpsichordist.” (See Louis-Claude Daquin, Wikipedia.)

Love to everyone 💕

**Amanda Keesmaat**, cello | **Pierre-Alexandre Saint-Yves**, voice, flutes, chalumeau | **Patrick Graham**, percussions| **Seán Dagher,** Musical Direction, voice, cittern | **Alex Kehler**, nickelharpa, violin
la Nef.com (fr/en)

Micheline Walker
1^st February 2021
WordPress

Quebec Ensembles

29 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by michelinewalker in Quebec, Traditional Music

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

folklore, La Nef, Les Charbonniers de l'enfer, Traditional Music

*Portrait of Several Musicians and Artists* by François Puget. Traditionally the two main figures have been identified as Lully and the librettist Philippe Quinault. (Louvre) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

La Nef & Les Charbonniers de l’enfer

In earlier posts, I wrote about the Celtic influence on Quebec music. For instance, Quebecers play reels. I also featured legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin playing with the late Jean Carignan, Quebec’s most prominent fiddler, in his days. We also heard an old French song, Le Navire de Bayonne, interpreted by La Nef and Les Charbonniers de l’enfer. A characteristic of La Nef and Les Charbonniers de l’enfer is enhanced rhythm. Groups may use podorythmie, a form of step dancing.

La Nef is a Montreal ensemble founded in 1991. The Charbonniers de l’enfer was founded in 1994. My last post featured soprano Meredith Hall and La Nef, interpreting Robert Burns‘ My Love is a Red, Red Rose. Robert Burns drew his inspiration from traditional music. The current répertoire of Quebec ensembles includes not only the traditional music of Quebec but also that of other cultures. Under la Nef.com (fr) or lanefeng.com (en), you will find a list of the music La Nef has recorded and possibly the music itself.

The music embedded below features both La Nef and Les Charbonniers de l’enfer. Meredith Hall is the group’s soprano.

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