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Micheline's Blog

~ Art, music, books, history & current events

Micheline's Blog

Tag Archives: Le Vieux Soldat canadien

The Last Few Days: Details

12 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Québec Songs, Quebec Art, Sharing

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Claude Léveillée, Gilles Vigneault, Jean Paul Lemieux, Jean-Pierre Ferland, La Capricieuse, Le Vieux Soldat canadien, les Ursulines, Mon Pays, Raymond Lévesque, Robert Charlebois

les-ursulines

Les Ursulines, Jean-Paul Lemieux, Wikiart

It’s Sunday, which remains a sacred day for me. Other days serve different purposes and have an origin. Saturday is Saturn as in Saturnalia, a Roman festival taking place on the day of the longest night: Christmas. Humanity has always cherished symbols, but these change from culture to culture. They attach a story to things otherwise “ordinary.”

Jean-Paul Lemieux

To decorate my post, I chose Jean-Paul Lemieux (18 November 1904 – 7 December 1990) who lived in Berkeley, California for several years. His family may have wished to escape cold winters. He and Leclerc were born the same year and were good persons. Lemieux returned to Québec, despite the cold, the snow, various ice storms and numerous heat waves.

Félix Leclerc

Félix Leclerc (2 August 1914 – 8 August 1988), was born in La Tuque, Quebec and studied at the University of Ottawa until the Great Depression. There was no money. He then found work in radio stations, as speaker or writer. In 1939, he was employed by Ici Radio-Canada, the French counterpart of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC. He may have written radio dramas, which my father did, at approximately the same time in the history of Quebec.

After the war, Félix Leclerc, and his guitar, went to France where he took courses. He met kindred spirits, such as Boris Vian. In 1950, at the age of 36, he was discovered by French impresario Jacques Canetti. His daughter says that he divided his life between l’île d’Orléans, where he owned a house, and Paris.

In Le Tour de l’île, Leclerc also mentions a blue-eyed grandfather standing guard, which reminds me of Octave Crémazie‘s poem, entitled « Le Vieux Soldat canadien » . The first French ship to sail down the Saint Lawrence after the “Conquest” was La Capricieuse, in 1855.[1]

Other Quebec Singer-Songwriters

Félix Leclerc was the first of a group of Quebec singer-songwriters. These include Raymond Lévesque who wrote “Quand les hommes vivront d’amour,” Claude Léveillée  who wrote songs for Édith Piaf, and also wrote Frédéric (1961), is also a major singer-songwriter. So are Jean-Pierre Ferland, the composer of Fais du feu dans la cheminée, Robert Charlebois, the author of Ordinaire, and Diane Dufresne. The best performers were Monique Leyrac and Pauline Julien. (Please click on the title of songs I have chosen to hear it.)

However, the most celebrated Québecois singer-songwriter is Gilles Vigneault. Vigneault wrote: “Mon Pays.”

Independence

You will have noticed that Leclerc mentions independence. As paradoxical as this may seem, I believe Québécois have their own country, albeit informally. But, their country is in Canada, where it is probably a safer and more stable place than outside Canada. Québec has yet to sign the Patriated Constitution (1982).

Lemieux’ Ursulines

Les Ursulines are a teaching order founded by Marie de l’Incarnation (née Marie Guyart), in 1639. The Ursulines’ main monastery, built in Quebec City, is the oldest institution of learning for women in North America. As a religious order, the Ursulines were founded in Italy.

—ooo—

I have worked on the Battle of Quebec and grouped the lines differently. Folklore has its rules, but the “Battle of Quebec” is a challenge. Lines vary in length.  The French lines would be called “octaves.” The words “La Danaé” would be at the end of each octave.The English lines (4 stanzas containing 4 lines) seem a response.

La Récréation (playtime)

Before the Révolution tranquille, teachers were nuns and school girls wore a navy blue pinafore dress over a white blouse.

Related image

Jean-Paul Lemieux, 1957 (Galerie d’Art Michel Bigué)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Le peintre Jean-Paul Lemieux. Le musicien Philippe Lauters.

RELATED ARTICLE

  • La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s “Old Soldier” (25 April 2012) ♥

Sources and Resources

  • Le Vieux Soldat canadien is a Wikisource publication

_________________________

[1] Jacques Portes, “Visite de la Capricieuse en 1855: point tournant des relations France-Canada,” l’Encyclopédie du Patrimoine culturel de l’Amérique française

 

 

 

 

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La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s Old Soldier

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Canada, History, Literature, New France

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

France, French Canadian, French Revolution, Institut canadien, La Capricieuse, Le Vieux Soldat canadien, Octave Crémazie, Province of Canada

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—

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