We associate artist Isaac Ilyich Levitan (30 August 1860 – 4 August 1900: aged 40) with mood or lyrical landscapes, but he also left lovely paintings featuring flowers.
I am very tired and must rest, but I am thinking of you.
Jean-Marc, the somewhat timid groom below, was Jean-Pierre’s best friend. He flew to Quebec for Jean-Pierre’s funeral.
Jean-Marc married my sister Thérèse. They had lovely girls: Danielle, Anne and Dominique. We lost Dominique, but Danielle and Anne are fine. As for Thérèse, she died of septic shock ten years ago. She and Jean-Marc lived in British Columbia.
Ten years later
Last summer, Jean-Marc remarried. His bride is the widow of a friend he lost to a plane crash. Jean-Marc also had a plane, but did not use it after his friend’s fatal crash. He therefore met his new bride when they were much younger. Destiny brought then together again. Her name is Marguerite.
Jean-Marc was an excellent husband to my sister and he will be an excellent husband to his second wife. He sold the house where he and Thérèse had lived and moved to his bride’s townhouse. It’s a brand new life.
—ooo—
I met Jean-Marc before Jean-Pierre brought him to our house. I went to a figure-skating show. Jean-Marc was the fellow who came from one end of the skating rink, gained speed, and jumped over several barrels, landing gently.
If my memory serves me well, barrels were added twice. He would therefore skate back to his starting position, entertaining the crowd, and jump over the barrels again, landing gently.
He and my sister were turtledoves and I think it’s happening again. Often, the second marriage is better than the first. Jean-Marc needed a companion. In my opinion, he’s found an angel.
Russian despots, Peter I the Great and Catherine II, the Great, enlarged Russia. Peter wanted access to various seas, the Baltic Sea, to begin with. He defeated the Swedish Empire shortly after Charles XII, a despot, was killed at the Siege of Fredriksten, in 1718. In 1703, Peter I the Great founded Saint Petersburg and, in 1721, Russia became an empire as Sweden entered its Age of Liberty.
Enlightened despotism is quite the topic. For instance, Russian despots, Peter I the Great and Empress Catherine II the Great westernized Russia, which is not insignificant. Catherine befriended Denis Diderot. When Diderot tried to provide his daughter with a dowry, his only recourse was the sale of his library, a considerable collection. Catherine bought it and made him custodian of his collection. He did not have to part with his books. He travelled to Russia and spent several months at Catherine’s court. When he was dying, she rented a comfortable room for him.
In 1745, Catherine married Russian Tsar Peter III, who was assassinated. Catherine gave serfs to her lovers and a castle to at least one of her favourites, Grigory Potemkin, whom she may have married, but the ‘affair’ was over in 1776. Although I am certain Voltaire did not approve of serfdom, he entertained a long friendship, letters mainly, with Empress Catherine II the Great.
Diderot did not enter a profession. He wanted to write. At one point, Madame Geoffrin, the famous salonnière, gave him furniture and a new dressing gown. He may have spent money. In Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre, Diderot writes that he should not have parted with his old dressing gown.
Mes amis, gardez vos vieux amis. Mes amis, craignez l’atteinte de la richesse. Que mon exemple vous instruise. La pauvreté a ses franchises ; l’opulence a sa gêne.
[My friends, keep your old friends. My friends, fear the infringement of riches. Let my example be a lesson to you. Poverty has its freedoms; opulence, its constraints.]
Diderot would gladly have discarded everything, so there would again be coherence and, therefore, beauty to his lodgings. But he would not let go of a painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet. Everything matched: a lovely ensemble.
Si vous voyiez le bel ensemble de ce morceau ; comme tout y est harmonieux ; comme les effets s’y enchaînent ; …
[If you saw…]
—ooo—
My little story is barely worth telling. I tried to make a doctor’s appointment for my friend who suffers from Ménière’s Disease. He’s nearly deaf. So, I wanted to talk to my doctor to see if he could help. My friend’s doctor is an intern and my doctor supervises interns. It’s the same office, but he can do things interns cannot do. This doctor always returns my calls, but this time, he didn’t. Last evening, I wrote to my friend to inform him that I doubted my doctor would phone. But, as I was about to press “send,” tears welled up in my eyes…
This morning, I turned to music, my refuge. I love this aria by Händel. The singer is Canada’s Karina Gauvin FR / Karina Gauvin EN.
Composite Elephant, 17th century, India (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY)
It’s a day at a time.
I have been working on Despotism. Peter I (the Great & 6 ft 8 [203 cm]) wanted access to seas. He defeated the Swedish Empire and founded the Russian Empire in 1721.
—ooo—
In August 2017, my brother Jean-Pierre, nephew François and his wife, Josée, helped me move from a large apartment to a smaller one. I had too many books. After transporting something to my locker, my brother said: “I won’t sleep for three nights.”
What had I heard? I told François that his father could not help me anymore. He needed to be treated.
In the meantime, my brother’s urine grew into a mixture of urine, blood and an unidentified white substance. He saw a doctor who prescribed antibiotics. Antibiotics! We are now in the spring of 2018 (not August 2017). My brother saw a second doctor who diagnosed cancer.
I pity men who are treated for a cancer of the bladder. Jean-Pierre’s urethra was so damaged that he nearly went into shock and died, when a tube was inserted through the urethra, to fill his bladder with a chemical and then remove the chemical. The pain was excruciating, and they said they could not give him an anaesthetic or freeze the affected area. I nearly jumped out of my skin. More of these treatments had been scheduled.
Between treatments, my brother was not prescribed a painkiller. I tried to help by offering a few tablets of codeine that had been prescribed for stubborn migraines several years ago. I doubted these tablets could still relieve pain. Besides, medication should be prescribed by one’s own doctor. My brother did not take the codeine.
A few years ago, Mr MacEachen invited me to share a lunch with him in Ottawa. We were joined by Pearl, Mr MacEachen’s finest secretary, and Craig, who helped Mr MacEachen. Allan J. asked me about medicine in Quebec. I told him that I had not been able to find a doctor, so a secretary at the Medical School had referred me to an intern and that I now had a good doctor. He worked in a public clinic supervising interns.
In other words, I told Mr MacEachen that, in Quebec, one could not find a doctor. He answered that the system would break down. He was right. Allan J. MacEachean built Canada’s first social programmes, under Lester B. Pearson, and had studied economics in an ivy league university.
I have since learned that those who despair seek the services of a private doctor, which is extremely expensive. These doctors have rich patients and treat celebrities.
Painting attributed to Bichitr (active ca. 1610–60)
The Syndicates
the priest-ridden province
the syndicate-ridden province
It appears that, in Quebec, doctors are protected by powerful syndicates. Before the Révolution tranquille, Quebec was considered a ‘priest-ridden’ province. Many priests had been sent to the Seminary in Quebec City because England did not know what to do with the French priests who had emigrated to Britain during the French Revolution. They then remembered that they had a French, and Catholic, colony. A second wave of priests and religious orders emigrated to Quebec in 1905, when the French passed the Law on the Separation of the Churches and the State: la loi du 9 décembre 1905.
Quebec may have been a priest-ridden province but it would appear it is now run by syndicates. (See Révolution tranquille, Wiki2.org.) A cousin of mine could not believe that my pension did not allow me to spend part of the winter, if not all, in Florida. “You didn’t have a very good syndicate,” she said. Truth be told, we did not have a syndicate.
An Emergency
I just read my email. A friend who lives close to Sherbrooke and suffers from Ménière’s disease (vertigo and deafness) wrote to say that he had been on a waiting-list to see his specialist for two years. He asked that his appointment be moved up but he was told to wait. My hearing is normal, so it’s easy for me to make phone calls. I called.
Conclusion
If a province chases away good taxpayers, a welfare state is a white elephant, particularly when doctors, university teachers, lawyers, and everyone else, are syndicated. I dare not say more.
We lowly creatures…
Love to everyone 💕
Camille Saint-Saëns “The Elephant” from the Carnival of Animals,
played by Zoltán Bíró
Budapest, 29 November 2008
Last night, the hospital provided little beds so his wife and my niece Marie-France could be with him.
I have now lost 16 siblings. Most died in infancy or early childhood of a congenital blood disease. Yet, we had a happy childhood. My mother was very proud of us. She entered Jean-Pierre in a contest. He won the most beautiful baby of the year award.
Our Belgian friend, Mariette Proumen, and my mother designed and sewed beautiful clothes for us. Mariette had been the wardrobe mistress of the Brussels Opera. Her husband, Henri Proumen, a jeweller, and my father invented a perpetual clock. They were as close as brothers. We learned Belgian French, but we were also students of madame Leclair, the best diction and drama teacher in the province of Quebec.
Life in the red-brick house was the best. We could see forever.
Raphael is the healer among Archangels. He rescued my brother whose death was truly merciful.
I thank all of you for being with me and with Jean-Pierre as he entered eternity.
Colour Sketch for the Decoration of the Chapel of the Bishop’s Palace, Sherbrooke: “The Annunciation,” Ozias Leduc, 1922. (Musée des beaux-arts du Canada/National Galery of Canada)
Yesterday, my nephew François took me to see my brother Jean-Pierre. He is hospitalized in the very large building I showed in an earlier post.
When we arrived, a priest was giving him the Last Rites. The priest invited all of us to kiss him and leave him a message. No one knows how long he will live, but he is in a room for the dying.
My brother is very weak. He can barely lift his head from the pillow and he cannot sit in bed without the help of three persons, one for each arm and a person who rearranges his pillow.
We stayed with him the entire afternoon and the little group returned to the hospital in the evening. I stayed home. I don’t want to know how much we paid in parking fees, but if members of his family did not help my brother, he would require the services of at least one professional twenty-four hours a day. A nurse came in to give him morphine and she obviously kept an eye on us, but he wasn’t alone.
Good News
I have good news. Quebec doctors were becoming an aristocracy:
However, here is what doctors themselves did in late February 2018.
We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be cancelled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the healthcare workers and to provide health services worthy to the people of Quebec, the letter posted on 26 February states
Chasse aux canards par un matin brumeux(Hunting for Ducks on a Foggy Morning), Ozias Leduc (Galerie Michel Bigué)
I added a paragraph to my last post, after it was published. By and large, posts are not read twice. I am therefore publishing what you haven’t read.
One paragraph in Wiki2.org’s entry entitled Official Language Act (Quebec) seems reassuring. Quebec’s Language Laws, Bills 22 and 101, do not take rights away from English-speaking Canadians. Their children may attend an English-language school. But the children of immigrants, are required to attend a French-language school. All signs, such as traffic signs, must be predominantly, if not entirely, in French. I remember mentioning in a post that a Quebec café or restaurant owner was required to remove the letters WC from the door to a public toilet room. WC (water closet) may be used in France, but not in Quebec. Stop signs are called arrêts in Quebec. In short, Quebec insists on looking French. Traffic monitors and advertising displays are in French.
Section 1, which provides that French is ‘the official language of the province of Quebec,’ is misleading in that it suggests that English is not also an official language in Quebec, which it is by virtue of Section 133 of the BNA Act and the federal Official Languages Act. … No legislation in the National Assembly proclaiming French the sole official language in the province can affect these bilingual areas protected by the BNA Act.
Although this paragraph is reassuring, to my knowledge, when Premier Robert Bourassa said that the province of Quebec would be unilingual (French), he meant ‘officially’ unilingual. Given that Canada’s official languages are French and English, why would Premier Bourassa say that Quebec would, henceforth, be a unilingual province, i. e. ‘officially’?
In other words, the rights of English-speaking Canadians are respected under the Official Languages Act of 1969, as per the paragraph I quoted. One difficulty arises for French-speaking Quebecers. After the age of 11, children are unlikely to acquire native fluency in a second language, but there are exceptions. Some individuals speak eighteen languages by the age of 18. They may make mistakes and they may have an accent, but… However, a large number of French-speaking Quebecers find ways of teaching English to their children. English is a North-American reality.
I have two students who mastered French. My star student is Gillian Pink, from Antigonish. Gillian is working at Oxford University.
Candlelight Study, Ozias Leduc, 1893 (Google)
Language Bills, Referendums, and Sovereignty
Let us return to Bill 22 and Bill 101. I have noted that there was an exodus from Quebec when Bill 22 was passed. In my opinion, Bill 22 was seen as a step in the direction of sovereignty. So have Bill 101 and the two referendums (1980 and 1995).
Quebec’s new Premier, François Legault, has stated that there would not be another referendum, but he and members of Coalition avenir Quebec will be seeking greater autonomy for Quebec. What does he mean? Quebec Premier René Lévesque did not sign the Constitution Act of 1982, and none of his successors have done so. The fact remains that I’ve been in the midst of an identity crisis for sixteen years, or since I left Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
My Quebec Health Insurance Card does not cover the cost of appointments with a doctor in provinces other than Canada. Yet, I am a Canadian, but a French-speaking Canadian living in Québec, whose mother tongue is French, who loves French literature, but who speaks English fluently and feels Quebec is safer as a province of Canada, than a country.
However, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires all provinces to provide primary and secondary education to their official-language minorities at public expense.
Would that Quebecers had not elected a party advocating greater autonomy for Quebec. Quebecers have to protect their language, but greater autonomy for Quebec suggests distancing Quebec from other Canadian provinces.
May all Canadians live in peace and harmony. Culturally, I am French. But home is also Antigonish, Nova Scotia, where I owned a lovely blue house, across the street from the campus of St Francis Xavier University and St Ninian’s Cathedral.
Ozias Leduc
Ozias Leduc (8 October 1864 – 16 June 1955) is my featured artist. His subject matter is often religious. But his art is nevertheless diverse and still lifes seem a favourite subject. Well-known artist Paul-Émile Borduas was one of his students. I am embedding a video. It is a French-language video with a lyrical ambiance. A couple is getting on a raft that will take them to Ozias Leduc’s house. It may be the smaller house.
Ozias Leduc’s house (Google)
Ozias Leduc’s house (Google)
St Ninians’ Cathedral, Antigonish, Nova Scotia
Closer to me, is St Ninian’s Cathedral, in Antigonish. Paintings in our Cathedral were the work of Ozias Leduc. I was in Antigonish when they were restored.
Love to everyone 💕
St. Ninian’s Cathedral, Antigonish, Nova Scotia
Leduc’s Boy with Bread, 1892-99, National Gallery of Canada (Wiki2.org.)
I told you that my brother Jean-Pierre was about to undergo another course of chemotherapy. He will not. Nothing can be done to save his life. It would have to be a miracle.
Jean-Pierre, lower right
In the background, left to right, we have Thérèse (who may be stroking one of our black cats), my great grandmother Philomène, mémère Pomerleau, in her nineties, and my sister Diane. In the foreground, sitting next to me, is my brother Jean-Pierre, blue-eyed, blond, and wearing glasses. We lived in an old and very large brick house. We did not have hot water. Grand-maman Philomène, my father’s maternal grandmother, would take us into the forest to gather herbs she used to make medications. She was of French descent. We never met my father’s Irish grandmother, but Jean-Pierre was with me when we went to Massachusetts to meet my father’s father and Nanny, the woman whose house and farm he had bought and where he invited her to stay for the rest of her life. My grandmother would not move to the United States. I believe she divorced my grandfather. My father, his brother, and two sisters were brought up by their mother and Philomène, who earned their living as a midwife and pharmacist. She was an assistant to the village doctor. Their house sat between a railway and a river. The train left a supply of wood and coal, that my father would pick up. I never asked where the family got their water. The house is still there, but I don’t think a train runs by, just the river.
I can’t believe that nothing can be done to save my brother. He’s lost about sixty pounds (27.2 kilos) and he is still losing weight. A few months ago, he was prescribed antibiotics. My brother has a beautiful rich voice: bass-baritone.
The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci, about 1491/2-9 and 1506-8 (The National Gallery, UK)
I’ve tried to work, but unsuccessfully. I therefore apologize.
My brother, Jean-Pierre, was operated on. They removed his bladder and parts of the body located near the bladder. He must now undergo chemotherapy because no one knows if the cancer has been fully removed. The cancer has metastasized.
In the meantime, he has to learn a new way of life. He has a loving wife who will be helping him.
He also has three devoted children, two of whom live nearby. They are very fine human beings.
Persons who have children often love life more those who have not had children. My brother’s bungalow is like grand central station. The children are always dropping in and discuss what problem they may be experiencing with their father.
My brother is non judgemental and he is forgiving. He is also very generous.
No, he is not an intellectual. He is in the clean energy business and has many customers in Africa. He has therefore travelled to Africa several times where he has many friends. But he started out in the Air Force. He was interested in the military.
At that time, he was in a car accident. There were five persons in the car. Four died, but he thought he was fine. He did not realize that a piece of glass had penetrated his forehead. When symptoms appeared, the piece of glass was removed at the Montreal Neurological Institute. He recovered fully, but the accident may have ended his career in the military.
What has united my brother and me more than anything else is the death of several siblings. There is a congenital blood disease in my family. So we lost fourteen brothers and sisters. An Armenian doctor, whose family settled in Sherbrooke, found a cure. My brother and I could not understand why our family was not like other families.
I don’t think I will see my brother until he returns home. We will speak on the phone. He has asked to be left alone. He has to learn how to function without a bladder and needs rest before his second round of chemotherapy. A few months ago, my brother saw a specialist who did not diagnose cancer.
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, La Dernière Cène (Google)
I’m still working on the French Revolution. There is a problem. On the day of the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), one person, Joseph Martin-Dauch, out of 577, would not take the collective vote. Why?
Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, 1489–90, National Museum, Kraków, Poland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have been working on the French Revolution, but slowly. I have a brother who was diagnosed with cancer, a few months ago and underwent treatment, a horrible experience. He collapsed about ten days ago and he has since been in intensive care. The cancer has metastasized.
He is twice my size and very strong, so none of this seems possible. The poor fellow.
My first memory of him is the two of us playing in the train that took us down to Athol, Massachusetts. My father had not seen his father in twenty years, so we went to meet him. After this initial visit, we were travelling back and forth between Quebec and the farm in Massachusetts.
My grandfather was different. He had seven cats, two of whom were blind, but Freddy the Great, the largest cat, took care of the whole group. Nanny, his wife I believe, and my mother just loved one another. They went shopping together.
It was a strange situation. My grandfather bought the farm from Nanny, but he asked where she would live. She didn’t know. So he invited her to stay in her house and keep her furniture and belongings. He was alone and he didn’t have anything, but he was a gardener, hence the farm.
My brother loved his grandfather. We will talk about him often.
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