— Boy with Bread, by Ozias Leduc (8 October 1864 – 16 June 1955)
I believe this is the complete list of posts on regionalism, “roman de la terre,” “roman du terroir” I have written so far. They are at times repetitive because I do not know whether or not someone has read earlier posts. Maria Chapdelaine was written by Louis Hémon, a Frenchman, or an outsider. However, it is the one novel interested persons should read. Menaud, maître-draveur (a draveur is a river driver taking lumber logs to their destination) is a very poetical novel.
Louis Hémon, the author of Maria Chapdelaine, sees Quebec as eternal. Such hope is not expressed by Félix-Antoine Savard whose 1937 novel, Menaud, maître-draveur, is embedded in Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine. Foreigners have come…
As you will notice, I did try to give more descriptive titles to older posts, but failed miserably. Fortunately, my cat said: enough! He’s in charge, so what could I do. Lists were my solution.
The next step in our examination of regionalism in Quebec literature is Maria Chapdelaine. I have published a short post on Maria Chapdelaine, a novel written by Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913), a Frenchman born in Brest. After studying law and oriental languages at the Sorbonne, Hémon moved to London and, in 1911, to Quebec, Canada. In 1912, he spent several months working with cultivateurs, or farmers, in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, up the beautiful Saguenay River. He lived in a community called Péribonka and spent the winter of 1912-1913 in that community, writing his novel.
Having completed his manuscript, Hémon sent it to France and started travelling west, probably to Edmonton, where French citizens had settled at that time. Hémon was killed in a train accident on 8th July 1913, at Chapleau, Ontario. He did not live to see Maria Chapdelaine become a bestseller. It has been translated into more than 20 languages in 23 countries and it has been made into three movies.[i]
The plot is simple. But, although Maria Chapdelaine is a roman du terroir, it differs substantially from Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle and from Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’sCharles Guérin. Louis Hémon did not feel dispossessed of his ancestral land and betrayed. And he had not transformed the insurrections of 1837-1838 into an ethnic conflict, which they were not, at least initially.
The artwork featured in this post are illustrations for Maria Chapdelaine, executed by Clarence Gagnon and housed at the McMichael Museum, in Kleinburg, Ontario.
However, Hémon worked with men like Maria Chapdelaine’s father, Samuel Chapdelaine a name not coincidentally resembling that of the Father of New France, Samuel de Champlain. These otherwise unemployed men were trying to transform rebellious soil into arable land. They had gone north, as the colourful curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891) advocated, and were “making land” (faire de la terre).[ii] Father Labelle preached “colonisation.” That was the “patriotic” alternative to leaving for the New England states.
Maria’s ‘Choices:’ F. Paradis, L. Surprenant & E. Gagnon
As indicated in my post, Hémon gives Maria Chapdelaine three suitors: François Paradis, Lorenzo Surprenant and Eutrope Gagnon. François dies in a snow storm, which was to be expected. In traditional Quebec society, happiness was viewed not only as impossible, but as dangerous.Lorenzo Surprenant has come north to find a wife and take her down to the United States, but Maria turns him down. She will marry a neighbour, Eutrope Gagnon, and live as her mother lived. The names of the suitors are revealing: Paradis is paradise, Surprenant, surprizing, and Gagnon, close to the verb gagner: to win. Hémon’s novel is somewhat stylised.
Maria Chapdelaine also differs from La Terre paternelle and Charles Guérin in that, unlike Chauveau’s Charles Guérin, it does not feature an ‘ugly’ Englishman: Mr Wagnaër. As for La Terre paternelle, although the novel does not feature an explicit ‘ugly’ Englishman, Jean Chauvin fails where an Englishman would have succeeded. I believe this is the reason why Lacombe views cities as unhealthy.
—ooo—
Our next regionalistic novel is Father Félix-Antoine Savard‘s (August 31, 1896 – August 24, 1982) Menaud maître-draveur, 1937 (translated as Boss of the River, or Master of the River by Alan Sullivan (1947). It earned Savard a Medal from the French Academy.
[ii]Curé Labelle, a legendary figure, is featured in Claude-Henri Grignon’s (Sainte-Adèle, 8 July 1894 – Québec, 3 April 1976) novel Un homme et son péché (1933). Grignon’s novel was transformed into a very popular serialized radio and television drama. A film adaptation, entitled Séraphin: Un homme et son péché, Séraphin: Heart of Stone, was released in 2003, but it had been filmed in 1949. Séraphin is a miser and he is cruel to his wife Donalda.
Today, I will start and perhaps finish writing about our last Regionalist Novel in Quebec: Ringuet‘s Trente Arpents. If you are interested in French-Canadian literature and use my posts as further information on both Canadian literature and history, you may wish to keep the list below. There are other romans de la terre or romans du terroir, or novels of the land (regionalism), but the works listed below are fine representatives of this school, and some are classics. The theme underlying these novels is survival, as in Margaret Atwood‘sSurvival.
Classification: The Canadien runs out of Land
I do not want to put these novels into little boxes, but a moderate degree of classification is necessary. Maria Chapdelaine,by Louis-Hémon, a Frenchman, tells the entire story. However, it does not convey the despair of those French-Canadians who had to leave Canada because they the thirty acres allotted their ancestors in the seventeenth century had shrunk. The exodus was a tragic and quasi-genocidal episode. Quebec could not afford to lose close to a million inhabitants.
1.In La Terre paternelle, French-Canadians are told that it is better to stay on the land. The same advice is given in Charles Guérin,were it not that Charles Guérin,Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau‘s novel, also brings up the thorny matter of the lack of professions available to French-Canadians living in Quebec.
2. Un Homme et son péché (Les Belles histoires des pays d’en haut), by Claude-Henri Grignon, is about a séraphin, a miser. But it features real-life who advocate colonisation:faire de la terre (making land). “Notre culture sera paysanne… ”supports that ideology.
Poetical
1. InMenaud, maître-draveur, Félix-Antoine Savard‘s novel, no explicit ideology is expressed, but Englishmen will be renting the mountain so they can harvest its riches. Menaud feels dépossédé (disowned). A French-Canadian no longer “tied” (lié) to the land, le Délié, will be pocketing the rental money. Savard’s novel is a masterpiece. It is a poetical, evocative, and “green” novel. Do not abuse nature.
2.Le Survenant (and its sequel: Marie-Didace),Germaine Guèvremont‘s novel is also very poetical. It has a bucolic and, at times, spell-binding quality. The land is rich and it still feeds French-Canadians. In The Outlander (Le Survenant), the central character, is both liked and feared.
Patrie Littéraire (after Lord Durham’s Report)
La Terre paternelle and Charles Guérin are Patrie littéraire novels. They were written in the wake of Lord Durham’s report, who described French-Canadians as having no history or literature.
Radio and Television serials
Un Homme et son péché*(Radio and TV) and Le Survenant* (TV) were serialized and extremely popular.
The “Bad” Englishman and the “Vendu” (sold)
The “bad” Englishman is Wagnaër in Charles Guérin and the “vendu,” le Délié inMenaud, maître-draveur.
The next step in our examination of regionalism in Quebec literature is Maria Chapdelaine. I have published a short post on Maria Chapdelaine, a novel written by Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913), a Frenchman born in Brest. After studying law and oriental languages in the Sorbonne, Hémon moved to London and, in 1911, to Quebec. In 1912, he spent several months working with cultivateurs, or farmers in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, up the beautiful Saguenay River. He lived in a community called Péribonka and spent the winter of 1913 in that community, writing his novel.
Having completed his manuscript, Hémon sent it to France and started travelling west, probably to Edmonton where French citizens had settled at that time. Hémon was killed in a train accident on July 8, 1913, in Chapleau, Ontario. He did not live to see Maria Chapdelaine become a bestseller. It has been translated into more than 20 languages in 23 countries and it has been made into three movies.
The plot is simple, but, although Maria Chapdelaine is a roman du terroir, it differs substantiallyfrom Patrice Lacombe’sTerre paternelle and Pierre-Joseph-OlivierChauveau’s Charles Guérin. Louis Hémon did not feel dispossessed of his ancestral lang and betrayed. And he had not transformed Maria Chapdelaine into an ethnic conflict, which it was not, at least initially.
The artwork featured in this post are illustrations for Maria Chapdelaine, executed by Clarence Gagnon and housed at the McMichael Museum, in Kleinburg, Ontario.
However, Hémon worked with men like Maria Chapdelaine’s father, Samuel Chapdelaine a name not coincidentally resembling that of the Father of New France, Samuel de Champlain. These otherwise unemployed men were trying to transform rebellious soil into arable land. They had gone north, as the colourful curé Labelle (November 24, 1833 – January 4, 1891) advocated, and were “making land” (faire de la terre).[i] Father Labelle preached “colonisation.” That was the “patriotic” alternative to leaving for the New England states.
Maria’s ‘Choices:’ F. Paradis, L. Surprenant & E. Gagnon
As indicated in my post, Hémon gives Maria Chapdelaine three suitors: François Paradis, Lorenzo Surprenant and Eutrope Gagnon. François dies in a snow storm, which was to be expected. In traditional Quebec society, happiness was viewed not only as impossible, but as dangerous.Lorenzo Surprenant has come north to find a wife and take her down to the United States, but Maria turns him down. She will marry a neighbour, Eutrope Gagnon, and live as her mother lived. The names of the suitors are revealing: Paradis is paradise, Surprenant, surprizing, and Gagnon, close to the verb gagner: to win.
Maria Chapdelaine also differs from La Terre paternelle and Charles Guérin in that, unlike Chauveau’s Charles Guérin, it does not feature an ‘ugly’ Englishman: Mr Wagnaër. As for La Terre paternelle, although the novel does not feature an explicit ‘ugly’ Englishman, Jean Chauvin fails where an Englishman would have succeeded. I believe this is the reason why Lacombe views cities as unhealthy.
—ooo—
Our next regionalistic novel is Father Félix-Antoine Savard‘s (August 31, 1896 – August 24, 1982) Menaud maître-draveur, 1937 (translated as Boss of the River, or Master of the River by Alan Sullivan (1947). It earned Savard a Medal from the French Academy.
[i]Curé Labelle, a legendary figure, is featured in Claude-Henri Grignon’s (Sainte-Adèle, 8 July 1894 – Québec, 3 April 1976) novel Un homme et son péché(1933). Grignon’s novel was transformed into a very popular serialized radio and television drama and was also made into a movie twice. The second movie is entitled Séraphin:Heart of Stone (2003). Séraphin is a miser and he is cruel to his wife Donalda.
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, UnPèlerinage 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: “Vaisseaud’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.
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.
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.
French author Louis Hémon(12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913) moved to Canada in 1911. By then he had already published several books. As for hisMaria Chapdelaine, he wrote it during the winter of 1912-1913, sent his manuscript to France and started travelling west.
Hémon died in a train accident at Chapleau, Ontario. Had he travelled a little further he would have met the descendants of voyageurs, Métis, and aristocrats referred to as “The French Counts.”[ii] They had settled in the Assiniboia region: Count Henri de Soras, the Marquis de Jumilhac, Viscount Joseph de Langle, Count de Beaulincourt and others.
Church at Peribonka by Clarence Gagnon
Historical Background: two choices
L’Exode or Exodus
Louis Hémon came to Quebec during a period of its history when there was very little work for French-speaking Canadians inhabiting Quebec and Acadia. This period of Canadian history is called the Exode. Nearly a million French Canadians and Acadians moved to the United States where they could work in factories.
The Curé Labelle: colonisation
This could not be the Church’s best choice. One priest, the famed Curé Labelle (24 November 1833 – 4 January 1891), was the chief proponent of colonisation. He urged French-Canadians to settle north and “make land,” faire de la terre, faire du pays, as their ancestors had done. This was their mission.
—ooo—
Making Land: Samuel’s Choice
So making land had been Samuel Chapdelaine’s choice. He had taken his family to the Lac-Saint-Jean area where he and his sons were turning inhospitable land into arable soil. I should think Hémon named Samuel Chapdelaine after Samuel de Champlain, whom we could call the founder of New France.
Louis Hémon in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean
When Louis Hémon arrived in Canada, 1910, he lived in Montreal. But two years later he travelled north and stopped at Peribonka, in the Lac Saint-Jean area. At first, he worked as a farmhand, helping “settlers,” but, as noted above, he spent the winter of 1912-1913 writing Maria Chapdelaine.
Hémon had sent his manuscript to France but he never savored the success of his novel. It was serialized in France in 1914 and published by J. A. Lefebvre in Quebec in 1916, with black and white illustrations by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. It was an international bestseller. An English translation, by W. H. Blake, was published in 1921.
Maria Chapdelaine
There is summary of Maria Chapdelaine (just click on the title) on the website of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, housed in Kleinburg, a village just north of Toronto. Clarence Gagnon‘s (8 November 1881 – 5 January 1942) 1933 illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine are part of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
Napoléon Laliberté by Clarence Gagnon
A Summary of the Plot
However, I will summarize the summary.
Maria is the daughter of a “settler.” She is a little plump, but beautiful. One Sunday, the day on which parishioners get together and chat, Maria meets François Paradis. François is a sort of coureur des bois, voyageur, canoeman, lumberjack: the mythic fearless pioneer.
When François meets Maria, he is attracted to her and tells her that he will stop by her family’s farm before escorting Belgian travelers who are looking for fur. Maria and François fall in love. They will be married when he returns from the logging camp. However, he dies in a blinding snowstorm attempting to visit with Maria on New Year’s Eve.
Eutrope Gagnon and Lorenzo Surprenant: the other suitors
Maria has two other suitors: Eutrope Gagnon, a settler and neighbour, and Lorenzo Surprenant, who has travelled from the United States to find a bride. What Lorenzo has to offer is an easier life: no blackflies, no back-breaking labour, milder weather, nearness to a Church and to stores. She is genuinely tempted to marry him, despite the fact that she is not in love with him. For Maria, love died the day François died.
However, she rejects Lorenzo. She will marry Eutrope Gagnon, a settler, and will live as her mother lived. When she is making her decision, she hears voices telling her that in Quebec, nothing must die and nothing must change: « Au pays de Québec rien ne doit mourir et rien ne doit changer… »
The names are all symbolic: Paradis for paradise; Surprenant; for surprising or amazing; and Gagnon for winning.
Beaver Coin
My summary of Maria Chapdelaine may have diminished Maria’s suitors. But Hémon makes them very real and anxious to live their lives, which means taking a wife. Although it is a simple novel, finding a more focused, but somewhat stylized, account of life as it was in 1912 would be difficult. This novel is a jewel.
— Boy with Bread, by Ozias Leduc (8 October 1864 – 16 June 1955)
I believe this is the complete list of posts on regionalism, “roman de la terre,” “roman du terroir” I have written so far. They are at times repetitive because I do not know whether or not someone has read earlier posts. Maria Chapdelaine was written by Louis Hémon, a Frenchman, or an outsider. However, it is the one novel interested persons should read. Menaud, maître-draveur (a draveur is a river driver taking lumber logs to their destination) is a very poetical novel.
Louis Hémon, the author of Maria Chapdelaine, sees Quebec as eternal. Such hope is not expressed by Félix-Antoine Savard whose 1937 novel, Menaud, maître-draveur, is embedded in Hémon’s Maria Chapdelaine. Foreigners have come…
As you will notice, I did try to give more descriptive titles to older posts, but failed miserably. Fortunately, my cat said: enough! He’s in charge, so what could I do. Lists were my solution.
© Micheline Walker
7 June 2012
WordPress
revised
14 January 2014
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