Tag Archives: Maria Chapdelaine

The Exodus: Canadiens leave Canada

01 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in Bilingualism, Canada, Canadian History

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La Maison rouge par Clarence Gagnon

—ooo—

In earlier posts, I discussed Louis Hémon‘s Maria Chapdelaine (1913). Louis Hémon (12 October 1880 – 8 July 1913) was born in France but visited Quebec in 1912-1913. He went North to the small community of Péribonka. Having worked with French Canadians, he spent the winter of 1912-1913 writing Maria Chapdelaine and sent his manuscript to a publisher in France. He started walking west, but he was hit by a train.

In my discussion of Maria Chapdelaine, I also introduced the legendary Antoine Labelle (1834-1891). Antoine Labelle was a priest who encouraged Quebecers who had no land to go North, to the Lac-Saint-Jean FR or up the Ottawa River and “make land,”(faire de la terre). They were running out of land. Others, however, went to the United States.

Since the 1850s, or perhaps as early as the Rebellions or 1837-1838, Quebecers were moving to the United States.The thirty acres French colons (colonists) had farmed since the 17th century were a peau de chagrin.[1] They could no longer be divided among sons. Moreover, when the Seigneurial System was abolished in 1854, farmers could buy their ancestral land if they had money. The censitaires who could not buy their thirty acres had to pay “rente” for a lifetime.

Faire de la terre, making land, is the choice Maria’s father has made. Maria falls in love with François Paradis, but he dies in a storm, hoping to spend Christmas with Maria. An émigré to the United States, Lorenzo Surprenant, also wishes to marry Maria, but she will live and die as her mother lived and died. She marries Eutrope Gagnon who is “making land.”

My grandfather left Canada because he could not making a living in his native land. He went to the Canada d’en bas,[2] a down below Canada, or New England states. Traditionally, Quebecers had left for the pays d’en haut, north. They became voyageurs or worked as loggers (bûcherons) or river drivers (draveurs). Raftsmen drove the lumber down rivers, which was very dangerous.

Draveurs / Raftsmen (Bytown is Ottawa and the Ottawa River is l’Outaouais)

However, French Canadians left Québec for reasons other than unemployment. There were jobs in the United States, but French-speaking Canadians did not escape the spellbinding notion that, in order to be rich, one migrated to the United States. It was described as a land of plenty. My grandfather was unemployed, so he went to work in a New England factory. He saved his money and bought a large farm. Owning land was everything.

It remains true, however, that nearly one million[3] French-speaking Canadians left Canada mostly because they could not make a living in their country. Besides, although it did not happen the minute Confederation was signed, provinces legislated the exclusive, or nearly exclusive, use of French as a language of instruction. Sir Wilfrid Laurier could not accommodate immigrants and refugees. Needy French-speaking Canadians could not go west.

For instance, under Premier Sir James Whitney, Ontario was not prepared to have a dual system of education. In July 1912, Whitney’s government passed Regulation 17, which banned the teaching of French in schools beyond the first two or three years. This measure inflamed French-Canadian opinion across Canada, but more so in Quebec. French-speaking Quebecers wondered if they should accept conscription.

In 1922, Quebec nationalist, Lionel Groulx, a priest, published L’Appel de la race, (the call of…). Jules Lantagnac, a lawyer, has married Maud Fletcher, a Catholic Anglophone. They live in Ottawa. He is elected into office in Ontario, but wants his children to be educated in French. His wife opposes him and she threatens to leave him if he supports a motion by Kamouraska (Quebec) Member of Parliament, Ernest Lapointe. The marriage falls apart. A few years ago, Lionel Groulx, Quebec’s most prominent nationalist ever, was accused of racism. Although I would rather read Gabrielle Roy, I will say that race also means breed and that Lantagnac’s roots are a French and bilingual Canada. Sir James Whitney, was influenced by Ontario Orangemen. Sir John A. Macdonald, the main father of Confederation, was an Orangeman and the Orange Order was anti-French and anti-Catholic. (See James Whitney, Wikipedia.)

But French-speaking Canadians had friends.

They [French Canadians] have adopted our system, but there are two things they have clung to, their religion and their language. I believe that their national sentiment is even stronger than their religious sentiment—I really believe so. The national feeling among them is intensely strong, but I would ask you English, Irish and Scotch descendants born in this country, and brought up here, supposing a regulation similar to No. 17 were passed in the Province of Quebec, what do you think our duty towards it would be? Supposing Sir Lomer Gouin—I cannot imagine it—but supposing he did have the courage, or the nerve, so to speak, to pass a regulation of that kind. There would be a rebellion in this Province, I think. And here we have our French-Canadian brethren in the sister Province who by constitutional means are trying to obtain the repeal or the modification of the regulation, or some other settlement of the question which would be satisfactory to all concerned.)

Mr. JUSTICE McCORKILL, in Bilingualism by N. A. Belcourt speech given at the Canadian Club in 1916.
Gutenberg [EBook #25040]

George-Étienne Cartier (1814-1873), the Prime Minister of Canada East, signed Confederation. Quebec was part of a federated Canada. He was pleased that Quebecers would keep their language, their religion, and their Code Civil. He negotiated Manitoba’s entry into Confederation. But could he presume that a dual system of education would be opposed? He died in 1873, twelve years before Louis Riel was executed.

However, it remains difficult to say to what extent being confined to one province hurt French-speaking Canadians. Emigration to the United States was a loss. All I know is that the people living in Canada are compatible. So many French-speaking Canadians are federalists. They inherited a Constitutional Monarchy and liked that system. One could speak. As for Sir John A. Macdonald, he had a dream. Canada would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. That vision was enibriating, but…

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Resources

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[1] I am borrowing from Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) who wrote a novel entitled La Peau de chagrin. Shagreen shrinks. It may, therefore, represent life, love, and all paradis perdus (paradise lost)
[2] Pierre Anctil, « La Franco-Américanie ou le Québec d’en bas », in Maurice Poteet, responsable, Textes de l’Exode (Montréal : Guérin Littérature, collection Francophonie, 1987), pp. 91-111.
[3] Télesphore Saint-Pierre, « Les Canadiens des États-Unis : ce qu’on perd à émigrer », in Maurice Poteet, responsable, Textes de l’Exode (Montréal : Guérin Littérature, collection Francophonie, 1987), p. 47.

—ooo—

Love to everyone 💕

“Meeting of the Delegates of British North America to Settle the Terms of Confederation, Quebec, October 1864” by Robert Harris, 1883

© Micheline Walker
1st May 2021
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Posts on Quebec Regionalism, Roman de la terre, Roman du terroir…

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Regionalism

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Boy with Bread, by Ozias Leduc
— 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. 
  

General

Fiction

Resources

 
Armand Bastien
Frescoes/Fresques by Ozias Leduc

Young Student, by Ozias Leduc

Young Student, by Ozias Leduc

© Micheline Walker
15 January 2014
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Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

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Revised on 14 January 2014
Images by Clarence Gagnon

Péribonka

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’s Charles 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.

pu-logo

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.  

To view more illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté,
please click on the following link: http://www.archiv.umontreal.ca/exposition/louis_hemon/oeuvre/oeuvre_page2-3.html
 
_________________________  

[i]  1934: Maria Chapdelaine, directed by Jean Duvivier, starring Madeleine Renaud and Jean Gabin (France); 1950: The Naked Heart, directed by Marc Allégret, starring Michèle Morgan (France); 1984, Maria Chapdelaine, directed by Gilles Carle, starring Carole Laure (Québec).

[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.

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon 
 
 
thedayafterthestorm300© Micheline Walker
7 June 2012
WordPress 
 
revised
14 January 2014
 
 
 
 
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The Regionalist Novel in Quebec: Survival

27 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by in Canada, Literature

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Mild Spring by Claude A. Simard, R.C.A. (2010)

(Claude A. Simard is featured with permission from La Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal)

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‘s Survival.

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.

The finest depiction of the Exodus is Ringuet’s (Dr Philippe Panneton)  Trente Arpents or Thirty Acres.

Ideological Texts

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.  In Menaud, 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 in Menaud, maître-draveur.    

I will be writing about Laurendeau, l’Action nationale, Refus global, etc.

 —ooo—

Gilles Vigneault sings Gilles Vigneault: Mon Pays

© Micheline Walker
17 June 2012
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Regionalism in Québec Fiction: Maria Chapdelaine

07 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

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Péribonka

Maria Chapdelaine is the next step in examining regionalism in Quebec literature. I have published a short post on Maria Chapdelaine, a novel by Louis Hémon (October 12, 1880 – July 8, 1913), a Frenchman born in Brest. After studying law and oriental languages at 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. He 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 four movies.

The plot is simple, but although Maria Chapdelaine is a roman du terroir, it differs substantially from Patrice Lacombe’s Terre paternelle and Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin. Louis Hémon’s Samuel Chapdelaine does not feel dispossessed of his ancestral land and betrayed. Moreover, Louis Hémon’s novel, Maria Chapdelaine, does not feature an ethnic conflict.  

The artwork featured in this post is 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,” which was the “patriotic” choice. Leaving for the United States wasn’t.

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. In traditional Quebec society, happiness was viewed not only as impossible but as dangerous. François dies in a snowstorm, which was to be expected. Lorenzo Surprenant has come north to find a wife and take her 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 is surprising, and Gagnon’s name is close to the French verb gagner: to win.

Maria Chapdelaine also differs from Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle and Chauveau’s 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 succeed. I believe this is the reason why Lacombe views cities as unhealthy.  

—ooo—

Our next regionalist 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.  

To view more illustrations of Maria Chapdelaine, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, 
please click on the link below: http://www.archiv.umontreal.ca/exposition/louis_hemon/oeuvre/oeuvre_page2-3.html 
_________________________      

[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 popular serialised radio and television drama and made into a movie three times. The second movie is entitled Séraphin: Heart of Stone (2003). Séraphin is a miser, and he is cruel to his wife Donalda.

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon 
 
 
 
thedayafterthestorm300© Micheline Walker
7 June 2012
WordPress 
 
Related Posts:
Maria Chapdelaine 
Patrice Lacombe’s La Terre paternelle
Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau’s Charles Guérin
 
 

Canadiana Updated, May 30, 2012

30 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

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The Beaver

THE VOYAGEURS
 
The Singing Voyageurs
The Voyageur Mythified 
The Voyageur from Sea to Sea           
The Voyageur & his Canoe
The Voyageurs & their Employers
The Voyageurs: hommes engagés
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY AND LITERATURE 
Canada’s Honourable Allan J. MacEachen: Nationhood and Leadership
Gabrielle Roy’s Tin Flute*
 
The Canadian & his Terroir
Maria Chapdelaine*
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland (cont’d)*
Évangéline & the Literary Homeland*
La Capricieuse & Crémazie’s Old Soldier*
La Corriveau: A Legend*
The Aftermath cont’d: Aubert de Gaspé’s Anciens Canadiens*
The Aftermath: Krieghoff’s Quintessential Quebec
Parliament to the Rescue: the Hidden Resource
The Act of Union: the Aftermath
The Act of Union 1840-41
The Rebellion in Upper Canada: Wikipedia’s Gallery
Upper & Lower Canada ←
 
NEW FRANCE 
More on the Jesuit Relations
The Jesuit Relations: an invaluable legacy
Nouvelle-France’s Seigneurial System
Cartier, Champlain & Missionaries: a Chronology
Jacques Cartier, the Mariner
Pierre du Gua: a mostly Forgotten Founder of Canada
Richelieu & Nouvelle-France ←
Une Éminence grise: Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fonsac
 
THE BATTLES
Nouvelle-France’s Last and Lost Battle: The Battle of the Plains of Abraham
The Battle of Fort William Henry & Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans
Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Gozon, Marquis de Saint-Veran ←
 
RELATED FICTION =*
 
© Micheline Walker
May 30, 2012
WordPress
   

The Fathers of Confederation

The Canadien’s Terroir

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Art, French-Canadian Literature

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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.

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
WordPress

Maria Chapdelaine

26 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in Art, French-Canadian Literature, Quebec, Regionalism

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The Chapdelaine Farm, by Clarence Gagnon

The Chapdelaine Farm by Clarence Gagnon

Louis Hémon[i]

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 his Maria 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. 

Film Adaptations

The novel was an instant, international success. In 1934, Julien Duvivier directed a film adaptation of Maria Chapdelaine starring Madeleine Renaud and Jean Gabin. A second film, entitled Naked Heart, was produced in 1950 by Marc Allégret, starring Michèle Morgan. In 1983, a third adaptation, entitled Maria Chapdelaine, was produced by Quebec filmmaker Gilles Carle, starring Carole Laure.

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Folklore: À la claire fontaine, Université de Moncton, Male Choir

Maria Chapdelaine can be read online. It is a Gutenberg Project e-book.
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, FR) [EBook #13585]
Maria Chapdelaine (Project Gutenberg, EN) [EBook #4383]
Maria Chapdelaine PDF
Canadian literature: The Montreal School, 1895–1935
First serialized in Le Temps (1914) (Paris)
Published in book form in 1916
Translated into English in 1921 (W. H. Blake)
Translated in all the major languages
 
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[i] “Louis Hémon.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 13 Jan. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261010/Louis-Hemon>. 
 
[ii] Ruth Humphrys, “Dr Rudolph Meyer and the French Nobility of Assiniboia,” The Beaver (The Hudson’s Bay Company: Outfit 309:1, Summer 1978), pp. 16-23.
 
Johannes Brahms: Drei Intermezzi, Op 117 No 2

The White Horse, by Clarence Gagnon

The White Horse by Clarence Gagnon

© Micheline Walker
26 January 2012
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