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Tag Archives: Champlain

New France: Huguenot Roots

07 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by michelinewalker in Acadia, Colonialism, Huguenots

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Castine, Champlain, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Huguenot, Richelieu, Roberval, the founder of Acadia, the Siège of La Rochelle

Richelieu at the Siège de La Rochelle by Henri de la Motte

Not for more…

Not for more than half a century did France again show interest in these new lands.

(Britannica)


Paris vaut bien une messe. (Paris is well worth a Mass.)
Henri IV

Pierre Dugua de Mons, Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit and Samuel de Champlain did not travel to North America until 1599, and we have discovered that these men were Huguenots. Despite the Edict of Nantes, L’Édit de Nantes, an edict of toleration granted by Henri IV of France in 1598, Huguenots, French Protestants, could not escape persecution. Let us explain. Henri IV of France had been a Huguenot as King of Navarre. He converted to Catholicism to be crowned King of France. He is reported to have said that “Paris vaut bien une messe” (Paris is well worth a Mass). He was assassinated in 1610, and Huguenots were no longer safe in France.

The Siege of La Rochelle

  • 22,000 die
  • Anglo-French War

The Siège de La Rochelle, which took place in 1627-1628, is abundant proof that Huguenots were endangered. According to Wikipedia, 22,000 citizens died of starvation at La Rochelle. La Rochelle had a population of 25,000. However, some escaped. Two or three of my Bourbeau ancestors hid in the Channel Islands, Jersey and Guernsey, waiting to sail to New France. In 1627, the Catholic Company of One Hundred Associates would rule New France, but it did not persecute New France’s Huguenot population. Huguenots left New France or converted to Catholicism when the Edict of Nantes was revoked on 22 October 1685. They fled to the United States.

We have discovered that our men were Huguenots and that they could be persecuted in France, despite the Edict of Nantes. As noted above, L’Édit de Nantes was an edict of toleration signed by Henri IV. Yet, Henri IV, a beloved King, was assassinated by a victim of religious fanaticism.

Failed Settlements

It was thought that Jacques Cartier, who took possession of Canada in the name of the King of france and named it Canada, did not found a settlement. But he did. He founded Cap-Rouge near Quebec City. It was a failure, but the remains of the settlement have been rediscovered. It seems that Francis 1st did not know about this brief settlement.

In 1541, King Francis 1st commissioned Jean-François de La Rocque, sieur de Roberval, a nobleman, to establish a settlement in the land Cartier had discovered. Cartier would merely accompany Roberval to North-America. However, Cartier left in 1541 and arrived in North America on 23 August 1541, a year earlier than Roberval. He met Roberval, on 8 June 142, but did not accompany him as the King had requested.

The King had given Roberval two missions. He was to found a settlement and was also asked to convert Amerindians to Catholicism. Roberval could convert Amerindians into Catholics because he was a Protestant or had converted to Protestantism. The settlement he founded did not survive. So, Roberval returned to France. He was not chastised by the King, but he and other Huguenots were murdered leaving a meeting of Protestants.

  • François 1er Jean Clouet, c. 1630
  • Henri II par François Clouet

The Wars of Religion

So, France’s bitter Wars of Religion all but prevented settling Acadie and Canada, New France’s two provinces. A few years ago, I contacted Britannica to say that Dugua de Mons was a Protestant and that he, not Champlain, was the father of Acadie. Could its scholars investigate? Britannica modified its entry and scholars went on to determine that Quebec City was founded by Champlain, but that he was Dugua’s employee.

Acadie fell to Britain in 1713, by virtue of the Treaty of Utrecht, but Acadians had not left. In 1755, a large number of Acadians, sources vary from 1,200 to 11,500, were forced into ships that went in different directions. Family members were separated and so were young couples who were engaged to be married.

Longfellow told that story in Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, an epic poem published in 1847. Acadians have transformed Longfellow’s Évangéline into Acadia’ heroine. Évangéline is alive. According to one’s sources, the name Acadie is derived from an Amerindian word, or from Arcadia.

Redeeming Myths

  • deported Acadians
  • Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow told not only Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie, but he also wrote about Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie, a Protestant, who was French and an Abenaki Chief. Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie’s story was told by Longfellow in Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). Castine, Maine was named after Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie, baron de Saint-Castin. (See Castine, Maine, wiki2.org.)

Scholars have now established that Champlain settled Quebec City under the supervision of Dugua de Mons. New France would be a Catholic colony, but it has Huguenot roots.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Slavery in New France (22 June 2020)
  • Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie, baron de Saint-Castin (11 September 2015)

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Lucie Therrien chante Au Chant de l’alouette


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5 September 2020
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Musing on Champlain & New France

09 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, History, Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on Musing on Champlain & New France

Tags

Bon-Temps, Champlain, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Henry IV of France, New France, Order of Good Cheer, Pierre Dugua Sieur de Mons, Port-Royal, Samuel, Samuel de Champlain

The Order of Good Cheer, C. W. Jefferys* historical illustrator

The Order of Good Cheer

To the left is a picture of French settlers spending their second winter in Acadia.  They are at Port-Royal, now Annapolis Royal.  In the winter of 1604-1605, Du Gua lost half his men to scurvy.  So it came that Champlain founded l’Ordre de Bon Temps.  Men died, but  “[w]e passed this winter most joyously, & fared lavishly,” wrote Champlain.[i]

*C. W. Jefferys (25 August 1869 – 8 October 1951)

Samuel de Champlain[ii] (13 August 1574 – 25 December 1635)

There were fatalities during the winter of 1605-1606 but most men survived and Champlain’s Ordre du Bon-Temps may have helped.  However, “[t]he Order’s practices were established by the first Chief Steward Marc Lescarbot.”  Lescarbot, a lawyer, also established a theater: le Théâtre de Neptune, and wrote and published a History of New France (Histoire de la Nouvelle-France), in 1609.  

However, Champlain is not the founder of Acadia.  Pierre du Gua de Monts or Mons is the person who raised the funds from various merchants to travel to North America. He organized the expedition to the current Atlantic Ocean, or more precisely, Nova Scotia.[iii]  As for Champlain, as written above, he was Du Gua de Monts‘[iv] cartographer and his lieutenant.  He, Du Gua, and their men first settled on Isle Sainte-Croix, but moved to Port-Royal, today’s Annapolis Royal, where the Order of Good Cheers was founded and where Acadie (from Acadia or algatig, MicMac) rooted itself. 

Champlain: a lack of records

We have very little information about the father of the nation.  In fact, until the early 1600s, little can be ascertained concerning Samuel Champlain or Samuel de Champlain (Wikipedia).  “As the parish registers of Brouage have been destroyed by fire, nothing is known of the date of Champlain’s birth or of his baptism; he may have been born c. 1570, perhaps in 1567.” (DCB)  According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCB), “Champlain claimed to be from Brouage in the title of his 1603 book, and to be Saintongeois in the title of his second book (1613).”  In short, because of the fire in Brouage and conflicting statements on the part of Champlain, we do not know with certainty 

  • where Champlain was born;
  • in which year he was born;
  • whether or not he was baptized a Catholic or a Protestant;
  • whether or not he was a nobleman by birth.

Samuel Champlain or Samuel de Champlain 

However, Champlain left an account of his life as explorer, settler and fur trader.  But was he or was he not a member of the nobility?  “His 1603 volume gives ‘Samuel Champlain’ and the dedication to Admiral Montmorency is signed ‘S. Champlain,’ whereas in the privilège, in the same edition, there are the words ‘Sieur de Champlain,’ just as in the marriage contract of 1610 and in the 1613, 1619, and 1632 volumes.” (DCB)  Again, as is the case with his place and date of birth and his religion, Champlain confuses posterity.

Champlain’s Marriage

In 1610, at the age of forty, Champlain travelled to France to marry 12 year-old Hélène Boullé, a Protestant.  That is on record.  However, that marriage seems to have been a mere contract.  After the wedding, Hélène remained in France because she was too young to be a wife.  But Champlain collected 4,500 out of a 6,000-livre dowry the day following the wedding. 

Hélène did sail to Canada in 1620 (DCB) but she spent very little time in her husband’s country of adoption and no mention is made of children born to her and Samuel.  Hélène converted to Catholicism at the age of 14 and, about ten years after Champlain’s death (25 December 1635), she entered a convent, that of the Ursuline Order in Paris, which had long been her wish. 

Protestantism 

Given his name, Samuel, a protestant name, the two years he spent at Henri IV’s court in the early 1600s, his marriage to Hélène Boullé, his friendships, it would appear Champlain was a Protestant.  However, it may have been in his best interest to call himself a Catholic.  There was no official conversion, but he did as Henri IV did. 

It had also been in Henri IV’s best interest to convert to Catholicism.  His official mistress as of 1591, Gabrielle d’Estrées, told Henri IV that converting to Catholicism may lead to his being crowned King of France.  He had been King of France since 1589, when Henri III (a Valois King) died, but had yet to be crowned.  

On July 25, 1593, Henri IV (13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), King of Navarre, is reported to have said that “Paris (being King of France) is well worth a mass,” or « Paris vaut bien une messe. »  Gabrielle was right.  He was crowned King of France on 27 February 1594.   

As for Champlain’s religion, according to Wikipedia, “he [Champlain] belonged to either a Protestant family, or a tolerant Roman Catholic one, since Brouage was most of the time a Catholic city in a Protestant region, and his Old Testament first name (Samuel) was not usually given to Catholic children.”  Moreover, why did he settle in North America?  Henri IV had converted and married a Medici, but he was nevertheless assassinated.

I will list Champlain’s functions in the New World, before the birth of the Company of One Hundred Associates.  He was lieutenant

  • to Lieutenant-General Pierre Du Gua de Monts 1608–12,
  • to Lieutenant-General Bourbon de Soissons in 1612,
  • to Viceroy Bourbon de Condé 1612–20,[v]
  • to Viceroy de Montmorency 1620–25,
  • to Viceroy de Ventadour 1625–27.

By looking at the above list, we have a list of the persons who governed New France officially, although they may not have travelle to New France, until the Seigneurial System was put into place (1727) and the Compagnie des Cent-Associés chartered, in 1628.  At this point, Richelieu took control of New France, but Champlain was one of the Cent-Associés the Company of One Hundred Associates (1628-1663).   

So let us finish the list.  Champlain was

  • commandant at Quebec in 1627 and 1628, between de [sic] Ventadour’s resignation and the creation of the Compagnie des Cent-Associés;
  • commander in New France “in the absence of my Lord the Cardinal de Richelieu” 1629–35;
  • member of the Compagnie des Cent-Associés (founded when Quebec City had been captured by the brothers Kirke and was under British rule [1628 to 1632]) ;
  • probably b. at Brouage, in Saintonge (Charente-Maritime);
  • d. 25 Dec. 1635 at Quebec.

The Kirke Brothers in Tadoussac and Quebec City

In 1628, the brothers Kirke (see also Place Royale) captured Tadoussac and then Quebec City.  From 1629 and 1632, Quebec City was under British control.  So we have just learned, however, that after a failed attempt to settle Tadoussac in 1600, Tadoussac was later settled.  Because of its location, at the confluence of the Saguenay River and the St Lawrence River, New France’s highway, Tadoussac is a beautiful place.

Conclusion

Before pausing, I will note that

  • Du Gua de Monts settled Acadie, with the assistance of Champlain;
  • that Champlain benefitted from calling himself a Catholic.  He was not persecuted and could be named “father of Canada” by the Clergy.
  • that Acadie remained, i.e. Du Gua did not fail, and that Quebec was settled by Champlain;
  • that the Company of One Hundred Associates was founded in 1628 and dissolved in 1663;
  • that a Sovereign Council governed New France from 1675 until the Battle of Sainte-Foy (28 April 1760);
  • that the Seigneurial System was in place from 1627 until 1854; 
  • that although it was abolished some SEIGNEURS continued to collect rentes from CENSITAIRES;
  • that France could not afford its North-American colony and failed to give it a self-sustaining and eventually prosperous economy;
  • that under the Quebec Act (1674), Guy Carleton, Lord Dorchester seems to have been the first person to give a voice in government to French-speaking Canadians citizens: Parliament.  However, the country he governed was the country Champlain had founded.
 
Buddy’s Point, etching by Anna Syperek, 2011
Ode à l’Acadie – Lina Boudreau
(please click on the title to hear the music)
 
Related Posts:  
 
  • New France: Once Upon a Time…
  • Pierre Du Gua de Monts: a Mostly Forgotten Founder of Canada
  • Richelieu & Nouvelle-France (Filles du Roy)
  • Une éminence grise: Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac (Huguenots)
  • Dumas, père & Marguerite de Valois fictionalized  (Huguenots)
  • Poisson d’avril, pesce d’aprile, April’s Fools Day & the Edict of Roussillon, 1574 (Huguenots)
© Micheline Walker 
9 May 2012
WordPress
_________________________

[i] James Marsh “Ordre de Bon Temps,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/ordre-de-bon-temps

[ii] “Samuel de Champlain,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_de_Champlain

[iii] Micheline Walker, Pierre Du Gua de Monts: a Mostly Forgotten Founder of Canada https://michelinewalker.com/2012/05/05/pierre-du-gua-de-monts-a-mostly-forgotten-founder-of-canada/

[iv] Marcel Trudel ,“Samuel de Champlain,” DCB Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online,   http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=115

[v] “In 1620 the king [Louis XIII] reaffirmed Champlain’s authority over Quebec but forbade his personal exploration, directing him instead to employ his talents in administrative tasks.” In C. T. Ritchie, “Samuel de Champlain,” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 09 May. 2012
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/105187/Samuel-de-Champlain>.

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Pierre Du Gua de Monts: a Mostly Forgotten Founder of Canada

05 Saturday May 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, History

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Canada, Champlain, François Gravé Du Pont, France, Henry IV of France, New France, Nicolas Aubry, Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France

Pierre du Gua de Mons

Pierre Du Gua de Monts

Pierre Du Gua de Monts was a French merchant, explorer and colonizer. A Protestant, he was born  in c. 1558 in Saintonge, (or more precisely Le Gua) France and played a major role as colonizer in the early decades of the 17th century.  He is, with Champlain‘s assistance, the father of Acadie.  He died in France in the Ardennes in 1627.

Tadoussac

Du Gua had sailed to New France on numerous occasions in the 16th century. In fact, Du Gua de Monts, or Mons, was a member of Chauvin de Tonnetuit‘s and François  Gravé Du Pont‘s expedition to Tadoussac in 1600, a settlement located on the north shore of the St Lawrence River, at the mouth of the Saguenay River.

Du Gua was not mentioned in the history of Canada courses I took as a child. Nor were they mentioned when I was assigned a course on French-Canadian literature and read the Relations des Jésuites.

Pierre Du Gua de Monts  in Acadie

We are not dealing with an adventurer but with a man of vision who could tell that the land he had visited before the seventeenth century held promise.  It could be settled and it could be exploited.  The word “exploited” is unsavoury to me, but facts are facts.

Monopolies

During his reign (1589-1610), Henri IV of France could not afford to colonize France’s North-American lands.

Because of the depleted state of the country’s treasury, this work was being left to individual under an arrangement whereby they would establish settlement in New France in exchange for the exclusive right to trade with the Indians [Amerindians].[i]

However, he could grant monopolies, but merchants had to sponsor the expeditions.  Such merchants were found in Rouen, Saint-Malo, La Rochelle and Saint-Jean de Luz.  At the time, La Rochelle, was an officially “safe town” or lieu de sûreté for Huguenots.[ii]

In 1603, Henri IV of France, granted an unusually broad monopoly to Pierre du Gua de Mons, a friend of Champlain.  In 1604, Du Gua and Champlain travelled to what would become the eastern half of the Colony of New France: Acadie.  Members of the expedition were:

“74 settlers including Royal cartographer Samuel de Champlain, the Baron de Poutrincourt, a priest Nicolas Aubry, Louis Hébert, Mathieu de Costa: a legendary multilingualist and the first registered black man to set foot in North America, and a Protestant member of the clergy.”[iii] 

The expedition was also composed of “men of varying skills such as artisans, architects, and carpenters, masons and stone cutters, soldiers and vagabonds, several noblemen…” 

Greed, Disease & Piracy

Investors were found.  The main investor was Dutchman Cornelis de Bellois, a merchant in Rouen, Normandy.  The Company had a capital of 90,000 livres to go into operation and the goals of the expedition, or the Company, were twofold: colonization and exploitation.

As is usually the case, greed was greater than creed.  Members of the expedition had barely set foot on North-American soil than Du Gua caught at least one man, Rossignol, engaged in illegal trading.  But the men of Rouen, Rossignol, had a licence to fish off the coast of Florida.  So Du Gua was sued and lost.  In 1608 he had to compensate Rossignol.  Moreover, in 1606, Hendrick Lonck, the Dutch West India Company sea-captain, boarded two of Du Gua’s boats and pillaged them for furs and munitions.

But let’s return to the summer of 1604.  Du Gua and Champlain nevertheless continued to search for an appropriate place to settle.  Île-Sainte-Croix (Dochet) Island was chosen.  However, the expedition had arrived too late for wheat to be grown.  Also, winter came prematurely and proved long and harsh.  It snowed on October 6, 1604.

Scurvy developed and it killed half the men.  Only Amerindians could have saved the life of the men who, unfortunately, were on Île-Saint-Croix. Amerindians had saved the life of many of Cartier’s men in 1735, by giving them annedda: an infusion of white cedar or thuja occidentalis.  But, as I wrote above, Du Gua’s men were on an island and Amerindians were to be feared.

—ooo—

When spring came, the colonists moved to Port-Royal, the warmest area of the current Nova Scotia, where it was possible to grow wheat, but, during that same summer, the summer of 1605, a few men travelled to France where Du Gua learned that fur-trading merchants (in Rouen first and then Saint-Malo), who were not associated with the Company, were attempting to have Du Gua’s monopoly revoked.[iv]

As for the men who had remained in Acadie, during the summer of 1605, reinforcements had arrived and later, in 1606, funds were raised so another expedition could be sent across the Atlantic.  It left from La Rochelle, under the command of Jean de Poutrincourt.  Winter came and twelve men died of scurvy.  This time, a surgeon, Guillaume des Champs, was part of the expedition to North America.  After performing autopsies he failed to find the cause of scurvy, a lack of vitamin C.

In 1807, Du Gua lost his monopoly but ended up being given a one-year reprieve (1607-1608) during which he explored the St Lawrence and determined, with Champlain, that both colonization and exploitation could be successful in Canada. Quebec City was founded in 1608.

—ooo—

In 1612, after Henri IV’s death, Champlain and de Monts organized an expedition to New France but Du Gua sent Champlain in his place.  Before his untimely death, Henry IV had appointed Du Gua, who had served him well, Governor of the Protestant city of Pons, Charente-Maritime.  He was in Pons from 1610 to 1617 and then retired.  Du Gua died in 1628, in his castle in Fleac-Sur-Seugne, in the Ardennes.

Du Gua continued to be a shareholder in future companies as late as 1622, when he and the above-named Dutchman Cornellis de Bellois became a member of [the company] of Montmorency.  He and Champlain never ceased to see a future for France on the North-American continent.

As for Du Gua’s monopoly on the fur trade, it was given to the Marquise de Guercheville (FR), a close friend of the Jesuits (see Pierre Biard [1576-1622]). Henri IV of France had been a Huguenot and was assassinated by François Ravaillac in 1610.

Du Gua’s Monopoly

Yes, Du Gua was given extraordinary privileges by the King of France, Henri IV, but he did perform the duties he was assigned in exchange for these privileges.  He honoured what could be called a contract.  Coureurs des bois did not have duties.[v]  The money they obtained for their pelts was clear profit.  In modern terms, it would be as though they received an income on which no taxes were levied.  There came a time when their furs were confiscated, but in Du Gua’s days, the earliest days of New France, there was no law enforcement agency.  In fact, there were no laws.  We know that Du Gua was the victim of greedy merchants, but also the victim of pirates.  Moreover, the privileges he had received generated jealousy.  Why him and not others?

Colonization and Exploitation

Du Gua de Monts

Colonization might have been a more successful endeavour had there been better stewardship of the colony, which, at the time Du Gua was active  but less so.  France could not afford to govern its North-American colonies.  It therefore granted monopolies in exchange for a form of government.  In Du Gua, Henri IV, King of France, had found a person he could trust with a monopoly.  But King Henri IV could not enforce Du Gua’s monopoly.  Henri IV was a good king, so I believe he would have protected Du Gua.  However, Du Gua had been a Huguenot, and Champlain was, There was a Huguenot « temple » in Port-Royal, the main town in Acadie, and Henri IV had been a Huguenot.  In the Relations des Jésuites, Pierre Biard, S. J. wrote that, between a Huguenot and an Amerindian, the Huguenot was the greater devil.

Therefore, let my final words be first that Du Gua de Monts is, with Champlain, his cartographer, the founder of Acadie. There is still an Acadie. Second, what of monopolies? Du Gua was an honest man and, as I mentioned above, a man of Vision, But such individuals are difficult to find and others get jealous. Third, beginnings have a way of repeating themselves…  As of 1627, New France would be governed by the Company of One Hundred Associates and the first shareholder was Cardinal Richelieu.

But the time has come to pause and reflect. 

 
Related Posts
The Treaty of Paris (1763) & the Fate of the Canadiens
Richelieu & la Nouvelle-France
 
____________________
 
 [i] “Du Gua de Monts,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography online, http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=198
[ii] See: William Shergold Browning The History of the Huguenots during the Sixteenth Century, Volume 2. (online, please click on the title to read)
[iii] “Pierre du Gua de Mons,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Dugua,_Sieur_de_Mons            
[iv] Here is the text of a letter Du Gua wrote to Jean Ralluau, his secretary, in 1607, quoted from George MacBeath, “Du Gua de Monts,” the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online  (University of Toronto and Université Laval):
 
De Monts reported in a letter sent out with Jean Ralluau in 1607 that the opposition of the merchants of Saint-Malo not included in the monopoly and of the Duc de Sully, and the intrigues of the Paris hatters’ corporation had caused the king to revoke his privileges. Champlain, Poutrincourt, and the others were to return to France. That fall, the affairs of de Monts’s company were wound up. The final accounting showed that during its three years of activity revenues had been high but costs even higher. De Monts’s loss alone was said to be 10,000 livres. The chief reason for the failure was the volume of the illicit trade in furs. In 1604 alone, for example, at least eight vessels had been seized for trading with the Indians without licence, and many times that number had not been apprehended. It must be remembered that those who traded illegally did not bear the burden imposed on the de Monts company to supply colonists and their necessities.
[v]  A coureur de(s) bois had no licence to buy and sell pelts.  If he got caught, his pelts were confiscated and there were reprimands.  A voyageur was employed: un homme engagé.  He had a boss (un bourgeois) or he worked for a fur-trading company: The Hudson’s Bay Company, the Northwest Company, or the American Fur Company (John Jacob Astor).  Nouvelle-France grew into an agrarian society, but, at first, its “gold” were beaver and other precious pelts.  “The Hudson’s Bay Company is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world.” (Wikipedia) 
I also used information on Du Gua from: John G. Reid, “Pierre Du Gua de Monts,” The Canadian Encyclopedia.  
 
 
Schubert Piano Trio n.2 in E Flat (Fournier, Grumiaux, Magaloff)
(Please on the title to hear the music.)
 

Habitation de Port-Royal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Habitation de Port-Royal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
5 May 2012
WordPress
 
 
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The Canadien’s Terroir

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French-Canadian Literature

≈ 318 Comments

Tags

Battle of the Plains of Abraham, Champlain, classification, Curé Labelle, farming, French-Canadian literature, Henri-Raymond Casgrain, Maria Chapdelaine, roman du terroir

La Rivière Magog by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté*

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869 – 1937)
NB. The terroir is the Canadien‘s land. 

Classification of Canadian Literature in French

Until recently, Canadian Literature in French was divided into four periods.  This has changed.

  • The Literary Homeland (1837-1865): Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline, 1855

A few years ago, the period of French-Canadian literature during which l’abbé Casgrain’s books were published was called  la “Patrie littéraire” or the “Literary Homeland” and it took us from 1760 (the battle of the Plains of Abraham)[i] to 1895.

That period is still called the “Literary Homeland,” but it begins in 1837 and ends in 1865.  It has been shortened by seventy-seven (77) years now labelled “Canadian Origins” (1760-1836).

  • The “Messianic Survival” (1866-1895)

Henri-Raymond Casgrain‘s Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline was published in 1855.  It was therefore written eleven years before the start of the next period currentled called: “Messianic Survival” (1866-1895).  However, Un Pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline does underline the importance of the priest as leader in the organisation of a territory, in our case, Acadie under l’abbé Sigogne and other French émigrés priests sent by England to the seminary in Quebec city (Lower Canana).

  • Exile and the Establishment of Roots (1896-1938): Maria Chapdelaine, 1914

As for Maria Chapdelaine, it is now classified in a period of French-Canadian literature called “Exile and the Establishment of Roots (1896-1938).” Where Maria Chapdelaine (1916) is concerned this classification is accurate, but only to the extent that classifications can be correct.  Formerly it was included in a period called: “Vaisseau d’or [the title of a poem] et Croix du chemin [road side crosses]” (1895-1938)

What may be good to remember about Maria Chapdelaine is

  • that Maria’s choice is the choice of a patriot, and
  • that her choice is also the choice the Church advocates.

Not that Maria is a nationalist.  The poor girl would not know anything about nationalism or any “ism,” but she nevertheless makes the patriotic choice in deciding to marry a settler.  Colonisation was a way of keeping French Canadians in their province, in their parish, and farming.

Curé Labelle

Priests feared that once a French Canadian settled in the United States, he and members of his family would cease to be good Catholics and would no longer speak French.  In all likelihood, this is what motivated the colourful Curé Labelle (November 24, 1833 – January 4, 1891) to urge people to go north and to create land: faire de la terre, faire du pays.

—ooo—

New France: farming as a priority

I should note moreover that even in the earliest days of New France, France saw its colony as a colony of farmers.  Pierre Dugua de Mons or Champlain had managed to convince Henri IV, le bon roi Henri, to move the colony from Port-Royal in Acadie (in the current Nova Scotia) to what is now the province of Quebec.  As well, Champlain explored the great lakes.  Moreover, he engaged in fur trading, but Louis XIII, no doubt acting on the advice of Richelieu and Marie de Médicis, Henri IV’s widow, ordered Champlain to stop exploring and to govern instead.  So Champlain was Governor of New France and New France was a nation of farmers.

In short, Maria Chapdelaine, 1916, is a “roman du terroir,” a regionalist novel, extolling the virtues of farming.  There would be other such novels, the last of which was published in 1938:  Ringuet’s Trente Arpents.

Conclusion

So far, we have examined works belonging to two periods of Canadian Literature in French:

1. The Literary Homeland or Patrie Littéraire (1837-1865): Un pèlerinage au pays d’Évangéline (1855) and

2. Exile and the Establishment of Roots (1896-1938): Maria Chapdelaine, 1913.  During this period French-speaking Canadians were either leaving Canada or settling in new areas, the North mainly.  For instance some sons became voyageurs. The family farm could no longer be divided, so they had to find other means of making a living.  Yet farming remained the mission of French-speaking Canadians and his only means of earning a living.

3. But, I have also touched on a third period: The Messianic Survival (1866-1895).  Priests are organizing a new Acadie.

But, for the time being, our plate is full.  We pause.  I am including an Ave Maria because as Maria Chapdelaine senses her François is in danger, she recites a thousand Ave Marias.

This is not a new post, but it is a clearer one. I cannot presume you already knew about the mythic, yet very real Évangéline, or Maria Chapdelaine.

________________________

[i] The Battle of the Plains of Abraham, 1759, opposed the French, under the Marquis de Montcalm and the English, under General Wolfe.  The English won and four years later, in 1763, Nouvelle-France became a British colony.

© Micheline Walker
27 January 2012
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