Tag Archives: French Canadian

French Canadians in the United States

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by in Canada, United States, Voyageurs

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Jolliet, Louis: Mississippi River exploration with Jacques Marquette, S. J.

 Photo credit: The Encyclopædia Britannica[i]

Yesterday, I went to my Gmail account and read posts written by people who are following my blog. It was an education and I am not finished. At least two of my readers are investigating their French-Canadian and French ancestry.

The story of the French in North America is a lengthy tale and although Quebec is home to the largest concentration of French-speaking North Americans, French Canadians are everywhere in North America and a large number are in the United States. Let us raise that curtain.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

The first to leave New France and find a home in the United States are the Huguenots (Reformed Church of France or Calvinist Protestants). There were many Huguenots in New France. They left when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, in October 1685.[ii] For instance, whenever the Bourbeau family, my mother’s family, has a reunion, most “relatives” comes from the United States. The Bourbeau family was a Huguenot family. Three Bourbeau families found refuge in Canada, but two left for the United States in 1685 so they could remain Huguenots. One Bourbeau family converted to Catholicism. They stayed in New France and are my ancestors.

In an early edition of his Histoire du Canada, written between 1845 and 1848,  François-Xavier Garneau expressed the view that New France was weakened when the Huguenots left. However, he had to delete these comments to avoid condemnation on the part of the Church. His Histoire would have been à l’Index, or on the List of Prohibited Books.

The Voyageurs

The Tonquin in 1811 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many Canadiens who worked as voyageurs were employed by German- and Waldensian– born John Jacob Astor (July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848).[iii] Upon retirement, they settled in Minnesota, but many moved to other parts of the United States.

Gabriel Franchère

In fact, John Jacob Astor so trusted one of his voyageurs, Gabriel Franchère (3 Nov. 1786 in Montreal – 12 April 1863 in St Paul, Minn), that he asked him to take voyageurs from New York to Fort Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River, in the Oregon Country. These voyageurs, some of whom were employees of the North West Company, based in Montreal, traveled on the Tonquin around Cape Horn. The Tonquin was purchased by American John Jacob Astor on August 23, 1810, the day John Jacob founded the Pacific Fur Company. It left New York on September 8, 1810 and reached its destination on March 22, 1811.

Gabriel Franchère returned to Montreal, married and wrote his memoirs for his family and friends. However his manuscript was edited and published by Michel Bibaud in 1820. After spending several years in Montreal, Franchère went back to the United States and died in St Paul, Minnesota.

It is possible to follow the path of Canadiens voyageurs who worked for John Jacob Astor. They gave French names to rivers, forts and other locations. For example, it has been suggested that Ozark comes from aux arcs, at the arches, because of bends in a river. I heard this on A&E.

Acadians of the Great Expulsion (1755-1763)

Other inhabitants of New France who became Americans are Acadians deported in 1755. Some boats did not sail down the Thirteen Colonies, but some did. The deportees stayed aboard until one of the colonies, Georgia, allowed them to leave their ships. A few of these Acadians found their way back to Canada’s current Atlantic provinces, but many traveled from Georgia to Louisiana, another province of New France, and are known as Cajuns.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (27 February 1807 – 24 March 1882) immortalized the Great Expulsion (le grand dérangement [the great disturbance]) by creating a fictional Évangéline whom Acadians transformed into their héroïne. The mythic Évangéline is alive in the mind of Acadians.

French Canadians and Acadians: US Migration

Moreover, close to a million French Canadians and Acadians left Quebec or Acadie because they could not find employment in Canada. This period of Canadian history, the USA Migration FR (1840-1930), is often referred to as l’Exode. I have an American grandfather. He could not find work in Canada. My grandmother stayed in Canada, but my grandfather rebuilt his life in Massachusetts. I would never have met him had my mother not decided that her children would have at least one grandfather. Her father had died.

In fact, many of the voyageurs were French Canadians or Canadiens who could not find employment on the shores of the St Lawrence. The thirty acres of land they had rented from a seigneur since the seventeenth century could no longer be divided. Some retired near the Red River in Manitoba, but the voyageurs who had been in the employ of John Jacob Astor became Americans. These could be considered exode French-Canadians.

Conclusion

The above seem the main groups of Canadiens who became Americans. But there may be others. For instance, the people of Louisiana, other than the Cajuns, were also French, but traditionally Canada and Acadie have been considered the provinces of New France. Until recently, Louisiana was not looked upon as a province of New France.

Therefore, the French-speaking inhabitants of Louisiana are the descendants of the French who settled in Louisiana and did not return to France after the Louisiana Purchase (1803). They are not descendants of French-Canadians. Acadiens, called Cajuns, are the descendants of Acadiens who were deported and settled in or near Baton Rouge when Louisiana was still a French colony. Other French-Canadians are descendants of voyageurs, or French-speaking Canadians who left New France to avoid religious persecutions or migrated south because they could no longer earn a living in Canada.

I will conclude by saying that French Canada and the United States are inextricably linked because of migrations from New France and Canada to the United States. Many, if not most, Americans of French-Canadian descent do not speak French, but we share cultural affinities and a collective memory. Historical events have linked Americans and French-Canadians. There is a brotherhood among us, a brotherhood I celebrate.

_________________________

[i] Jolliet, Louis: Mississippi River exploration with Marquette. Photograph.
Britannica Online for Kids. Web. 13 Nov. 2012.  <http://kids.britannica.com/comptons/art-101193>.

[ii] The Edict of Nantes, an edict of tolerance, was issued on 13 April 1598, by Henri IV, king of France and Navarre.  Henri IV had been a Huguenot.  He is famous for have said that “Paris (being King) was well worth a mass” (Paris vaut bien une messe). The first expeditions to Canada, Acadie to be precise, were undertaken during his reign by Pierre Du Gua de Monts (c. 1558 – 1628) a Huguenot, and Champlain, also a Huguenot but less visibly.

[iii]John Jacob Astor founded the American Fur Company (1808) and the Pacific Fur Company (June 23, 1810).

Pierre Du Gua de Monts
 © Micheline Walker
 November 13, 2012
 WordPress

“Un Canadien errant,” sung by Paul Robeson

14 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Art, Canada, Music

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

Façade of the Church at Saint-Eustache, by Lord Charles Beauclerk, 1840
Vue de la façade de l’église Saint-Eustache occupée par les insurgés Lord Charles Beauclerk (1813-1842) (above)
Vue arrière de l’église Saint-Eustache et dispersion des insurgés
Lord Charles Beauclerk (1813-1842) (below)
Photo Credit: Musée McCord, for both illustrations
Both paintings are ink and watercolours and are available as lithographs at the McCord Museum. 
The Battle of Saint-Eustache (information)
 

Un Canadian errant

We do not know who wrote the music to which the text of Un Canadien errant (“A Wandering Canadian”) was set.  However, we know that the words were written in 1842 by Antoine Gérin-Lajoie after the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1836–38 and Lord Durham’s Report.  The “patriotes” lost their Bas-Canada.  It was their country.

Gérin-Lajoie wrote the words to this song while taking his classical exams at the Séminaire de Nicolet.  Successful candidates could enter a “Grand Séminaire” and become priests.  With this diploma,  it was also possible to study law and medicine.

Un Canadien errant  has become an unofficial patriotic anthem for French Canadians.  It has been appropriated, in a perfectly legitimate manner, by the Acadians who were exiled in 1755.  Their deportation is often called, the Great Upheaval, le Grand Dérangement. The Acadian version of Un Canadien errant is Un Acadien errant.

Un Canadien errant is also the unofficial anthem of all those of have been sent into exile, including African-Americans who were taken away from their country, never to return.

History has given the citizens of the world many reasons to bemoan cruelty, man’s cruelty to man (here the word man includes women and children).  These are events we bemoan, but one does not seek revenge.  In fact, even retaliation is dangerous because it may fuel a conflict.

Acadians have a more powerful “literary homeland” because  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882), an American, was motivated to write  Évangéline (1847).  Évangéline is a real person in the mind of Acadians, which seems perfectly acceptable.  There were many Évangélines who were separated from the man they loved.  People were put in different boats, separating not only couples but entire families.

Related posts: 
The Voyageur Mythified
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland (cont’d)
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland
La Corriveau: A Legend
The Aftermath: Krieghoff’s Quintessential Quebec
The Aftermath:  Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens ←
 
Related Article:
The Tragedy of Politics Overcomes Two Lovers, PRWeb
 
Un Canadian errant 
(N. B.  Paul Robeson sings a bilingual arrangement of Un Canadian errant)
1)
Un Canadien errant,
Banni de ses foyers,
Parcourait en pleurant
Des pays étrangers.
A wandering Canadian,
Banished from his hearths,
Traveled through[,] while weeping[,]
foreign countries. 
2)
Un jour, triste et pensif,
Assis au bord des flots,
Au courant fugitif
Il adressa ces mots:
One day, sad and pensive,
Seated at the edge of the floods,
To the fugitive current,
He addressed these words: 
3)
“Si tu vois mon pays,
Mon pays malheureux,
Va, dis / dire à mes amis
Que je me souviens d’eux.
“If you see my country,
My unhappy country,
Go say to my friends
That I remember them. 
4)  
“Ô jours si pleins d’appas
Vous êtes disparus,
Et ma patrie, hélas!
Je ne la verrai plus!
“O days so full of charm[s]
You have disappeared,
And my fatherland, alas!
I will see it no longer! 
5)
“Non, mais en expirant,
Ô mon cher Canada!
Mon regard languissant
Vers toi se portera…”
“No, but while expiring,
O my dear Canada!
My longing look
toward you will go…”
 

5169

Nana Mouskouri has also recorded this song.  It’s a very beautiful interpretation.  To hear her version, just click on her name.

Back View of the Church at Saint-Eustache
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

 

800px-Flag_of_the_Patriote_movement_(Lower_Canada)_svg
© Micheline Walker
August 14th, 2012
WordPress
 

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau & Happiness Unattainable

09 Saturday Jun 2012

Posted by in Art, Canada, Literature

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Pavane pour une infante défunte, Jean Paul Lemieux (1924) NGC
 

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (1912 -1943)

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau (June 13, 1912 – October 24, 1943) is a revered French-Canadien poet, a place he shares with Émile Nelligan (December 24, 1879 – November 18, 1941).  He is also an older cousin to acclaimed poet and novelist Anne Hébert (1916-2000).  Both are descendants of historian François-Xavier Garneau (1809-1866) and Hector’s father, Alfred Garneau (1836-1904), was also a writer.

Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau was found dead, apparently of a heart attack, while canoeing alone near the family manoir at Sainte-Catherine-de-Fossambault.  Garneau suffered from a rheumatic heart condition that had forced him to interrupt his studies.  At the age of 31, he was too young to die, but he left for posterity a large number of poems as well as a Journal he did not intend to publish.  Yet the Journal is in print and it constitutes an exceptionally revealing document.

Two Comments

In this blog I will make only two comments.  First, I would like to point out that, in Garneau’s writings, we have an example of a widely spread feeling, among French-speaking Canadian authors.  For these writers, happiness is unattainable.  Happiness is in fact dangerous.  Moreover, I would also like to draw attention to the pictorial quality of the poems of Saint-Denys Garneau who had studied painting under the tutelage of Jean Paul Lemieux.

happiness is Dangerous

You may remember that in my blog on Maria Chapdelaine (1914) a regionalistic novel, I wrote that Maria could not be expected to marry François Paradis, the man she loves, as this would have brought her happiness, which is deemed a forbidden destination.  This very sentiment is echoed in Saint-Denys Garneau’s posthumously published Journal, prefaced by Gilles Marcotte and including comments by Robert Élie, a friend of Saint-Denys Garneau, and Roger Le Moyne.

The Journal (1954)

Both Saint-Denys Garneau’s Journal and Poésies complètes have been translated into English by John Glassco.[i] I do not own a copy of John Glassco‘s translation of Garneau’s Journal and must therefore play translator.  In his Journal, Saint-Denys Garneau wrote:

Que le bonheur est dangereux, et toute puissance, et toute ivresse ! Il faut par une longue discipline de soumission et d’amour avoir été rendu maître de soi pour résister au danger du bonheur.

“How dangerous are happiness, and all power, and all pleasure!  In order to resist the danger of happiness, one must have become master of oneself by practicing at long length submissiveness and love.” Journal, February 12, 1935.  (p. 54)

The Poésies complètes (1949)

Regards et jeux dans l’espace is a collection of poems published in 1937 by the author himself.  However, Saint-Denys Garneau’s Poésies complètes (1949) contains a second collection of poems entitled Solitudes.   The Complete Poems of Saint-Denys Garneau reveal similar if not more pessimistic sentiments than the Journal.

Regards et jeux dans l’espace[iii]

« Accompagnement » (p. 101)

In « Accompagnement », Saint-Denys Garneau writes that he is walking beside a joy, which suggests that there can be no convergence of the poet and joy.

Je marche à côté d’une joie
D’une joie qui n’est pas à moi
D’une joie à moi que je ne puis prendre [literally: to take]
 
(I walk beside a joy
A joy that is not mine
A joy of mine that is not mine to enjoy) (Glassco, p. 75)
 

« Un mort demande à boire » (p. 63)

In the same collection, Garneau also writes that  “A dead man calls for a drink”  (Glassco, p. 45).  A man cannot be both dead and alive, except, of course, in French-Canadian or Québécois Literature.  So Saint-Denys Garneau paints un mort-vivant, a dead man alive, as if he inhabited a middle-earth or purgatory.  « Un mort demande à boire » is one of two landscapes: Deux paysages.  Saint-Denys Garneau organizes his poems into groups.

Solitudes

« Après les plus vieux vertiges » (p. 139) 

Embedded in a group of six poems collectively entitled La Parole de la Chair (The Word of the Flesh), Saint-Denys Garneau expresses his inability to engage in sexual intercourse (“After the oldest of the vertigoes,” [Glassco, p. 107]).  It brings death, not la petite mort (an orgasm), nor death as in the cycle of birth and rebirth, i.e. l’amour, la mort, but death: Ton lit certain comme la tombe (“Your bed as certain as the tomb,” [Glassco, p. 107]).

La Pointe de l’Islet, 1964
Jean Paul Lemieux, R.C.A. (1904-1990)
La Galerie Walter Klinckhoff (with permission)
 

Ut pictura poesis

After reading Sub Rosa’s Ut pictura poesis[iv], I thought of Saint-Denys Garneau who viewed poetry as pictorial.  As I have already written, Saint-Denys Garneau was a trained artist, a student and friend of Jean Paul Lemieux and Paul-Émile Borduas.  For instance, as noted above, he uses the word paysage, or landscape, to denote poems.  Moreover, in Regards et jeux dans l’espace, the poet looks at (regards) and plays with (jeux) space (l’espace).  He is therefore giving shape to space: As is painting, so is poetry.  Sub Rosa’s literal translation sits well with me.  All poetry is pictorial and good portraits are more than a record of physical features.

« Le Jeu » (p. 35)

In « Le Jeu » (The Game), one of five poems constituting Les Jeux, Garneau writes:

Ne me dérangez pas je suis profondément occupé
 
Un enfant est en train de bâtir un village
C’est une ville, un comté
Et qui sait
Tantôt l’univers
 
(Don’t bother me I’m terribly busy
 
A child is busy building a village
It’s a town, a county
And who knows
By and by the universe) (Glassco, p. 21)
 

Musicologists have investigated the relationship between music and poetry.  For instance, there is a great deal of musicality in the poetry of Verlaine, musicality achieved by traditional devices: the number of pieds, or syllables, in a line of poetry; alliteration: the repetition of similar consonants (b, c, d, f, etc.) and assonance, the repetition of the same vowel  (a, e, i, o, u).

In French poetry, a comparison with pictures is not a frequent conscious occurrence, but Rimbaud wrote « Voyelles », a poem in which letters are given a colour and Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918 [Spanish flu]) gives a shape to some of his poems.[v]  And let us not forget synesthesia, all senses compelled.

Breakfast, 1965     
Jean Paul Lemieux, R.C.A. (1904-1990)
La Galerie Walter Klinckhoff (with permission)

______________________________

[i] John Glassco started to translate Garneau’s Journal in 1958, perhaps a little earlier.  Glassco’s translation of the Journal was published in 1962 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart), but he did not publish his outstanding translation of the Complete Poems of Saint-Denys Garneau until 1975 (Ottawa: Oberon Press).

[ii] Saint-Denys Garneau, Journal (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1963 [1954]), p. 54.

[iii] Saint-Denys Garneau, Introduction de Robert Élie, Poésies complètes, Regards et Jeux dans l’espace et Les Solitudes (Montréal: Fides, 1970[1949]).

[iv] Sub Rosa, Ut pictura poesis, (WordPress, June 7, 2012)http://theme.wordpress.com/credits/omstreifer.wordpress.com/

[v] See the Wikipedia entry on Guillaume Apollinaire.

* * *

Micheline Walker©
June 9, 2012
WordPress
 
 

A Painting by Suzor-Coté

16 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Art

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté
(1869-1937)

 

This is a painting I simply love.  When he made this painting, I believe Suzor-Coté was thinking about every little girl.  I therefore wish to share it with you.

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté is a French-Canadian artist whose assistant was my grandmother.  She loved the fine arts.  She loved beauty.

Writing the story of the indépendantistes tired me out, so today I cannot post a long blog.  Yet, I feel that someone had to tell the story of the indépendantistes just so people can understand what is going on.  

The indépendantistes wish to have their own territory, which is understandable, but they cannot do so not at the cost of severe social unrest.  We are a privileged people.  By the way, I made slight corrections to my text and added links.  

My best to everyone.

Micheline
WordPress
 
32 Track 32 Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte, Barenboim (piano)
 

Events in Quebec

12 Saturday May 2012

Posted by in Canada

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Habitants, by Cornelius Krieghoof                                      

The Quebec government wishes to increase tuition fees for university students.  At first, students protested in a manner that did not cause a public disturbance.  But matters have changed.  On Thursday, May 10, 2012, students released fumes into the Montreal subway system, thereby all but paralyzing the city. 

I must tell you how disappointed I am.

The “suspects” have been identified.  They are students.  But I believe they are being used by a group of Quebec citizens, once called séparatistes but renamed indépendantistes, who seem to have made it their duty to blame anglophones for whatever they perceive as a societal ill.   They peddle ill-conceived hatred.

The Tuition Fees

For reasons I cannot understand, university tuition fees in Quebec have long been the lowest in Canada.  No government can support its universities unless there is proper funding, part of which comes from tuition fees.

If indeed Monsieur Charest, the premier, and his government impose an increase in tuition fees, Quebec students will be paying what students pay in other provinces, except that Quebec has yet to sign the constitution and, unlike other provinces, is tied to Britain. 

History

For the last few weeks, we have been exploring the history of New France and have examined the fate of French-speaking colonists after Nouvelle-France was ceded to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Paris.  In 1763,  France chose to  keep Guadeloupe rather than New France.

The Quebec Act (1744)

It could be that it was in the best interest of England to ensure the loyalty of its French-speaking Quebec subjects.  The Thirteen Colonies were threatening to declare their independence from Britain.  But, whatever the motivation, the fact remains that, in 1774, French-speaking Canadians were made into full-fledged British subjects and were given a voice in Parliament. 

The Quebec Act of 1774

It would be my view that, once again, congenital malcontents who love finding fault with anglophones so they can play martyrs are in the background fuelling the fire.  If this is not the case, I apologize.  Canadians respect Québec and French-Canadians and the decision to increase tuition fees does not justify malfeasance.  This cannot be about raising tuition fees. 

Micheline’s Life 

As a French-Canadian, born in Quebec, but who lived in English-speaking milieux for most of her life, I never experienced enmity on the basis of my ethnic origins.  I was loved and, until recently, given every opportunity to succeed. 

scapegoats

So, will all due respect, it would be my view that the anglophones are being made into scapegoats.  Besides, the current problem is the students dissatisfaction over an increase in tuition fees.  It is not a linguistic issue.  This is a blatant case of misdirected anger: anger at anglophones. 

French-speaking Québécois are not facing threats.  There is no enemy.  Quebec has duly elected representatives in Parliament which gives Québécois a voice in the public place.  Releasing fumes into the Montreal subway was an immature, irresponsible, and criminal act.  Just in case the students do not know, the world is watching and it does not like what it is seeing.

The thought that students may find themselves in jail and may never be able to enter into a profession or find employment saddens me.  But I believe they were guided into breaking the law. 

Good citizens abide by the law of the land, especially when there is nothing wrong with the law of the land. 

Micheline Walker©
May 12, 2012
 

 
 
 
 

La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s Old Soldier

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Canada, History, Literature, New France

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

ship

I would like to tell you about French-Canadian poet Octave Crémazie (1827-1879).  Crémazie wrote « Le Vieux Soldat canadien, » a poem featuring an old Canadien soldier watching the harbour and asking his son whether or not the French can be seen.  France returned, but the arrival of « La Capricieuse », in 1855, did not signal a rebirth of New France.

La Capricieuse

As unbelievable as it may seem, it had been ninety-two years since France had visited its former colony.  From 1763 to 1855, no French ship had come from France to what was, in 1855, the Province of Canada.

The ship, a Corvette, arrived at Quebec city on the 14 July 1855, Bastille Day, a day which meant very little to French-speaking Canadians.  In fact, as devout Catholics, many of them looked upon the French Revolution (1789-c. 1794) as the moment when the French clergy had been imperiled to such an extent that many priests had to flee their native land.

French-speaking Canadians who witnessed the arrival of « La Capricieuse » were overwhelmed.  They may have known that, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), France had chosen Guadeloupe over New France.  But it may have been comforting for the former citizens of New France to think that they had simply lost a battle, the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham

The Battle of the Plains of Abraham was a fifteen-minute battle fought on 13 September 1759.  Yet, the short battle claimed the life of its two commanding officers: 32 year-old Major-General James P. Wolfe and 47 year-old Louis-Joseph de Montcalm. French-speaking Canadians look upon that defeat as the catastrophe that caused New France to become a British colony. The defeat is a major factor in this narrative, but it doesn’t tell the full story. It is better for French-speaking Canadians to think they were defeated, than ceded to England. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), France chose to cede New France in order to keep Guadeloupe.

The Literary Movement of Quebec: Octave Crémazie

Octave Crémazie, baptized Claude-Joseph-Olivier,[i] (1827-1879) was the leading member of a literary school created in the wake of Lord Durham’s remark to the effect that French-speaking Canadians did not have a history and lacked a literature.  That remark had been offensive to French-speaking Canadians and the decision to assimilate them was also unacceptable.  They had been living in on North-American soil since the 1600s, tilling their thirty acres of land.

François-Xavier Garneau (1827-1879)

When he was appointed Prime Minister in 1842, (1827-1879) addressed the assembly in French and French-speaking Canadians set about to prove Lord Durham wrong.  François-Xavier Garneau (1809-1866) wrote a three-volume Histoire du Canada,  published between 1845 and 1848.  Moreover, a literary movement was created in Quebec city, called Le Mouvement littéraire de Québec (the Literary Movement of Quebec or the Patriotic School of Quebec.) 

Octave Crémazie was the leader of that particular school and was one of the founders of l’Institut Canadien. Although he declared bankruptcy and had to seek refuge in France, in 1862, never to return to Canada, these circumstances did not tarnish his reputation as a poet.  He is considered the father of French-Canadian poetry.  During his years of exile in France, he kept in touch with members of group.  He and Henri-Raymond Casgrain wrote to one another. But he had become Jules Fontaine and died in poverty.

The Encyclopædia Britannica on Crémazie

In The Encyclopædia Britannica, the “national bard,” is described as “[a]n extraordinarily learned man, educated at the Seminary of Quebec [who] started a bookshop in 1844 that became the centre of an influential literary circle later referred to as the Patriotic School of Quebec (or the Literary Movement of Quebec).”  Writers and historians met in “la boutique à Crémazie,” Crémazie’s shop.

Britannica also tells us that “[i]n 1861 Crémazie and his friends began issuing a monthly magazine of literature and history, Les Soirées Canadiennes, to preserve the folklore of French Canada” and that among Crémazie’s most “famous patriotic poems are ‘Le Vieux Soldat canadien ’(1855; ‘The Old Canadian Soldier’), celebrating the first French naval ship to visit Quebec in almost a century, and ‘Le Drapeau de Carillon’ (1858; ‘The Flag of Carillon’).”[ii]  At Carillon, New France won the battle.

Le Vieux Soldat canadien

However, the poem we are looking at is “Le Vieux Soldat canadien.”  The old soldier is certain France will return and keeps asking his son whether or not the ships can be seen on the horizon.  Each eight-line decasyllabic (10 syllables) stanza ends with a haunting:  Dis-moi mon fils ne paraissent-ils pas?  (Tell me, my son, are they not within sight?).  As he was dying, (« mais en mourant ») the old soldier was still telling his crying son ( « il redisait encore » ) that he, the son, would see the dawn (« l’aurore ») of that great day, when they would return (« Ils reviendront ! »), but that he [the father] would no longer be alive (the full text is online).

Mais en mourant, il redisait encore
À son enfant qui pleurait dans ses bras: 
« De ce grand jour tes yeux verront l’aurore, 
« Ils reviendront ! et je n’y serai pas ! »
  
(But as he was dying, he kept saying
To his child who was crying in his arms:
“Of that great day your eyes will see the dawn
They will come back! but I will not be there!”)
 

The people of Quebec city were delighted to see “La Capricieuse.”  The French had sent a gift of books for the Institut Canadien, its Montreal branch, I should think.  But the French were in Canada to conduct business.

La Patrie Littéraire or The Literary Homeland

Crémazie’s poem is an example of literary homeland (patrie littéraire) literature as is Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé Anciens Canadiens.[iii]  (For the Wikipedia, entry click on Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé.)  French-speaking Canadians had lost their Lower Canada and built a “literary homeland.”  They created the history and literature which, Lord Durham had reported, they did not have.  Writing became their salvation.

Sailing Ships in Art

The Fleet off Shore (art.com)

© Micheline Walker
25 April 2012
WordPress
 
 
 
_________________________

[i]  Odette Condemine, “Octave Crémazie.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/octave-cremazie 

[ii] “Octave Crémazie.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 25 Apr. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/142505/Octave-Cremazie>.

[iii] Dale Miquelon, “La Capricieuse,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/la-capricieuse

The entry “La Capricieuse” reads as follows:

“Commander Paul-Henry de Belvèze proceeded by steamer and train to Montréal, Toronto and Ottawa before leaving Québec for France on August 25. His mission was to report on the prospects of trade with Canada, made possible by Britain’s proclamation of free trade and by the Anglo-French alliance of 1854. The result was the opening of a French consulate at Québec in 1859, followed by mutual, short-lived tariff concessions and the development of a modest trade. However, the visit is remembered chiefly as the official endorsement of the Franco-Canadian cultural rapprochement that had been gathering impetus since the 1830s.”

Links to related blogs

“The Aftermath (cont’d) Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens” https://michelinewalker.com/2012/03/30/the-aftermath-contd-aubert-de-gaspes-anciens-canadiens/

“The Aftermath & Krieghoff’s Quintessential Quebec” https://michelinewalker.com/2012/03/29/the-aftermath-krieghoffs-quintessential-quebec/

“The Battle of Fort William-Henry and Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans http://michelinewalker.com/2012/03/26/the-battle-of-fort-william-henry-coopers-last-of-the-mohicans/

“Louis-Joseph de Montcalm Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran” https://michelinewalker.com/2012/03/25/louis-joseph-de-montcalm-gozon-marquis-de-saint-veran/

“Nouvelle-France’s Last and Lost Battle: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham” https://michelinewalker.com/2012/03/24/nouvelle-frances-last-and-lost-battle-the-battle-of-the-plains-of-abraham/

—ooo—

The Aftermath (cont’d): Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens

30 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Canada, Literature

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

The Ice Bridge at Longue-Pointe, by Cornelius Krieghoof, 1847-1848

I did not write a conclusion to my last blog because Cornelius Krieghoof’s paintings were my conclusion.  In Krieghoof’s paintings, Quebec was mythified.  And it was also mythified in Philippe Aubert de Gaspé‘s (October 30, 1786 – Habyart 29, 1871) Les Anciens Canadiens (1863).  Les Anciens Canadiens, a novel, was first serialized in Les Soirées canadiennes, a magazine founded in 1861 by H. R. Casgrain, A. Gérin-Lajoie, the author of Un Canadien errant (the words only),  F. A. H. La Rue and J. C. Taché.

Aubert de Gaspé’s family manoir, 1900

A Literary Homeland Novel & an historical novel

Aubert de Gaspé wrote his Anciens Canadiens, Quebec (1863) when he was in his mid-seventies and did so in response to the Report of John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham GCB, PC (12 April 1792 – 28 July 1840), in which Durham stated that the Canadiens did not have a history or a literature.  Les Anciens Canadiens therefore constitutes a Patrie Littéraire achievement.  Charles G. D. Roberts‘s KCMG, FRSC (January 10, 1860 – November 26, 1943) 1890 translation of Gaspé’s novel entitled The Canadians of Old, remains a favourite, but there is at least one other translation.

Given that it was written one hundred years after the Treaty of Paris (1763), one may think this novel has little to do with the aftermath, except that it is a historical novel in which events take place as the Province of Québec replaces Nouvelle-France, which Aubert de Gaspé memorialized and idealized.

Its main protagonists are Jules d’Haberville, the son of a seigneur, and Archibald Cameron of Locheill, an exiled Highlander, both of whom are students at the Jesuit seminary in Quebec City and both of whom are fated to fight on opposite sides during  the Seven Years’ War or French and Indian War.

Moreover, while visiting Jules’s father manoir, Archibald meets Blanche, Jules’s sister, and the two fall in love, which almost takes us back to Krieghoof’s two major themes: the habitant and the Amerindian.  Krieghoof was fond of genre themes and, among these themes, a “typical scene” was one where “a British soldier flirts with a young francophone woman, the intimate moment interrupted by her husband or a parent.”[i]

Archibald, renamed Arché, is not “a British soldier flirting with a young francophone woman.”[ii]  However, like a “parent,” the parents of a French-Canadian girl, Blanche herself does not think she should marry Arché.  She is the daughter of a seigneur and she rejects Arché who is not just “un bon Anglais,” but Scottish and extremely handsome.  Blanche is simply too pure.  It is at times possible to correct the accidents of history.

Un Ancien Canadien

Dumais’s gratitude & the habitant as voyageur

However, being Scottish does save Archibald’s life.  The novel contains two perilous and related events.  Early in the novel, Dumais, an habitant, crosses the Rivière-du-Sud when the ice is too thin and breaks.  The Canadiens made ice bridges, as depicted in Krieghoff’s painting above.  In fact, Dumais is the victim of a genuine débâcle.  He breaks a leg and is hanging from to a tree hoping to be rescued. Archibald turns into a formidable athlete and saves Dumais’s life.

Later in the novel, Dumais will save Archibald’s life.  The British have attacked New France and Archibald is ordered to burn properties, including the d’Haberville’s manoir, which he doesn’t want to do.  However, as he is destroying properties, Archibald is captured by Amerindians and is about to be tortured and burned when Dumais surfaces, looking like an Amerindian, and tells the Amerindians that their captive is not an Englishman, but Scottish and that  “les Écossais sont les sauvages des Anglais[,]”[iii] or “the Scots are the Englishmen’s savages [Amerindians].”  Dumais then goes on to tell that Archie is the young man who saved his life on the day the ice broke.

Dumais even reveals that is not altogether the Amerindian he appears to be, but a sort of “voyageur,” the often métissé French-Canadian who manned the birch-bark canoes, first for fur-traders and later for Scottish explorers who crossed the continent, the voyageur who spoke the Amerindian languages and married Amerindians.

Reference to Cooper and Chateaubriand 

Interestingly, Les Anciens Canadiens, contains a reference to James Fenimore Cooper and, indeed, written by a Cooper the tragic events at the Rivière-du-Sud may have been better told.  “Only a Cooper or a Chateaubriand could have done justice to a depiction of the tragic events taking place on the shore of the Rivière-du-Sud.” « La plume d’un Cooper, d’un Chateaubriand, pourrait seule peindre dignement le spectacle qui frappe leurs regards sur la berge de la Rivière-du-Sud. »[iv]  Given Chateaubriand’s masterful style and Cooper’s quickly penned realism, this comparison is not altogether felicitous or convincing.

A Flaw, but not too tragic

Yes, there is the flaw.  Like Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans, Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens is a page-turner, but Aubert de Gaspé so idealizes New France that a comparison with Cooper is again rather inappropriate.  The seigneur is too cordial and life at the manoir, too perfect:  the meal, the May Fest, the Saint-Jean-Baptiste, the spontaneous singing, the good gentleman who has been imprisoned because others spent his fortune, the priest (le curé), the gentle treatment of the seigneur’s black slave, the friendship between Jules and Arché: frères (brothers), the much too “noble” Blanche.  In fact, even Archibald’s heroism is also a little too heroic.

But although it is understandable, the element that is most difficult to accept, in my opinion, is Blanche’s rejection of Archibald.  Although he has fought with the British against New France, as an enlisted soldier what choice did he have?  Blanche does seem too pure, pure to a fault.  To what extent is it necessary to use the misfortunes of history to one’s own detriment and to the detriment of the finest and most handsome of suitors?  Even the enemy is too much of an enemy.

Yet, Les Anciens Canadiens  is a good novel.  The portrayal of the d’Haberville family and of life at the manoir may be idealized, but this flaw is redeemed by the novel’s fine structure (the two near-death experiences, etc.), by discreet digressions or stories within the story: the Corriveau legend (next blog) and other legends.  It is also redeemed by the role played by Dumais, the habitant-voyageur, and Marie, the sorceress, not to mention the unexpectedly unflattering but relieving comments about the motherland.  However, more than any other factor, Aubert de Gaspé’s skills as a storyteller all but override his idealization of New France. 

Britannica labels The Last of the Mohicans  an “imperfect masterpiece.” We just may be looking not at a “great imperfect masterpiece,” but at a smaller “imperfect masterpiece.”[v]

* * *

Alouette folksong (Université de Moncton 21-voice male choir)[vi]
(please click on the title to hear the music)

__________________

[i] Arlene Gehmacher, “Cornelius Krieghoof,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/cornelius-david-krieghoff

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, Les Anciens Canadiens (Éditions Fides, collection Bibliothèque québécoise, 1988[1864]), p. 239.

[iv] Les Anciens Canadiens, p. 79.

[v] Arlene Gehmacher, “Cornelius Krieghoof,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/cornelius-david-krieghoff

[vi] Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageurs (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1998[1966]), p. 46.