Bourbeau, Verville & Suzor-Coté

02 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Canada, Music, Sharing

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Bourbeau, Bourbeau-Walker, Cardinal Richelieu, Huguenots, Joan Sutherland, Meyerbeer, Siege of La Rochelle, Suzor-Côté, United States, Verville

Still-life with Onions, 1902, by Suzor-Coté (Photo credit: the National Gallery of Art, Ottawa, Canada)

Still-life with Onions by Suzor-Coté, 1902 (Photo credit: the National Gallery of Art, Ottawa, Canada)

Many posts ago, I featured an artist by the name of Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (April 6, 1869 – January 29, 1937). Suzor-Coté was a friend of my grandfather’s family in Arthabaska, now Victoriaville, Quebec. I posted a painting of Suzor-Coté’s Pont Bourbeau, showing a bridge on my grandfather’s family farm. I may also have shown the Rivière Bourbeau. In short, the Bourbeaus were friends of Suzor-Coté and, in all likelihood, my grandfather met my grandmother at the home of Suzor-Coté. My grandmother was an artist who worked as an assistant to a well-known artist. The artist had to be Suzor-Coté. Moreover, she treasured a certain painting she had placed above a large couch.

Many posts ago, I also wrote about French-Canadians in the United States, and that post was read by a WordPress author Jon Verville. The Vervilles and the Bourbeaus are relatives. Verville is a Bourbeau name. Jon is a descendant of Élie Bourbeau who is also my ancestor. I thought Pierre and Simon were the only Bourbeaus to come to North-America, but my sister tells me there was a third Bourbeau named Élie.

So one of the benefits of blogging is that one may meet a fine relative.

Le Père Verville by Suzor-Coté, 1911 (Photo credit: Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec)

Edict of Nantes of Revocation (1598 – 1685)

The Bourbeaus were Huguenots, French Calvinist protestants. On 13 April 1598, during the reign of Henri IV, king of France and Navarre, an edict of tolerance was promulgated: the Edict of Nantes. Under the terms of the Edict of Nantes, certain cities became a safe haven for Huguenots. However, the Siege of La Rochelle (1627-1628) proved that tolerance could not last. After the assassination of Henri IV (13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), a former Huguenot, France was ruled by Cardinal Richelieu, the main architect of absolute monarchy. It was the Cardinal’s conviction that the French were to have one religion, one language, and one king. Given such a programme, the Huguenots had to be eliminated.

The Siege of La Rochelle was indeed a ruthless resurgence of hostility towards Huguenots. It was led by a pitiless Richelieu and lasted one year. At La Rochelle, approximately twenty thousand Huguenots died of starvation, but some five thousand survived, including at least one Bourbeau. He fled to the Anglo-Norman Islands and then left for New France. Many Huguenots had sought refuge in Nouvelle-France where several were merchants rather than farmers. Most Bourbeaus of Nouvelle-France left for the United States when the Edict of Nantes was revoked, in 1685.

Pierre Du Gua de Monts and Samuel de Champlain

Huguenots played a significant role in the founding of New France. Both Pierre Du Gua de Monts (c. 1564 – 1628), the founder of Acadie, and Samuel de Champlain (before 13 August 1574 – 25 December 1635), the founder of Canada and the official father of New France, were Huguenots. Champlain, however, concealed his religious preferences. Du Gua de Monts didn’t. Consequently, Champlain has long been considered the father of Acadie, which is not altogether the case. Champlain had travelled to Acadie with Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts or Pierre Du Gua de Monts, but as cartographer, rather than the organizer of an expedition. The expedition had been organized by Du Gua de Monts.

Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, the Bourbeau family of Arthabaska were friends of artist Suzor-Coté who made at least two paintings of land owned by the Bourbeaus: the “River Bourbeau” (La Rivière Bourbeau) and the “Bourbeau Bridge under the Snow” (Le Pont Bourbeau sous la neige). We also owe Suzor-Coté a magnificent drawing of Le Père Verville, in sanguine.

I am therefore posting a few artworks by Suzor-Coté, including Le Père Verville and the above-mentioned Bourbeau paintings, to celebrate an extraordinary coincidence: meeting a relative blogging.

Gallery:

Moanings of the Wind, 1917 (Photo credit: Art Gallery of Canada)

Evening Harmony (study), 1917 (Photo credit: Art Gallery of Canada)

The Bourbeau River (source lost, now called Gosselin River)

Still-life with Daisies

Pont Bourbeau sous la neige (at the bottom of this post)

I have lost information concerning the provenance of two of my Suzor-Coté pictures: the Bourbeau River and the Bourbeau Bridge under the Snow. The Bourbeau Bridge sold at an auction in 2007. Prints of Suzor-Coté’s Still-life with Daisies are available commercially. The Galerie Walter Klinkhoff sells Suzor-Coté paintings, but many works are in private collections.

Giacomo Meyerbeer (5 September 1791 – 2 May 1864)

Les Huguenots

“O beau pays”

Joan Sutherland, coloratura soprano (7 November 1926 – 10 October 2010)

suzor-cote-marc-aurele-de-foy-pont-bourbeau-sous-la-neige-1955410

Micheline Walker

2 June 2013

WordPress

Bourbeau & Suzor-Coté: a Discovery

25 Sunday Sep 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Sharing

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Bourbeau, Henri IV, Huguenot, Louis XIII, Richelieu, Siege of La Rochelle, Suzor-Côté, WordPress

Log Hauling, by Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté

There are happy and unexpected moments. For instance, a few days ago, I went in search of information on my grandfather’s family. He was a Bourbeau and he is my mother’s father. I have used his name when publishing scholarly articles: Bourbeau-Walker.

The Bourbeaus came to New France in the seventeenth century. They were Huguenots, or French Protestants. Two brothers came to New France: Pierre and Simon. They had survived the Siege of La Rochelle (1627-1628), by Richelieu and Louis XIII. The protestants had chosen La Rochelle as their refuge even though the Edict of Nantes (1598) protected them, at least officially, from persecution in other locations.

However, it is at that point in the history of France that absolute monarchy was consolidated. After King Henri IV was assassinated, in 1610, although still in effect, the Edict of Nantes, which stipulated tolerance of Huguenots, was not always respected. Henri IV, who had converted to Catholicism, had been a Huguenot, which is why he was assassinated. His son, Louis XIII, was too young to be crowned, so a regent was chosen: Richelieu. Richelieu became the chief architect of absolute monarchy in France. It was his belief that the King’s subjects should all speak French and be Catholics: one King, one language, one religion.

During the Siege of La Rochelle, some 22,000 protestants were starved to death, but two Bourbeau brothers were among the 5,000 who survived and the two later moved to New France. In 1685, when the Edict of Nantes was revoked by Louis XIV, the Bourbeaus and other French protestants living in New France moved south, to the English colonies. But a few stayed in Canada.

As I was searching Bourbeau entries, I saw a picture of the Bourbeau farm and realized that it was located in the area of Quebec where my grandmother had grown up. This picture, an oil painting, is the work of Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869-1937), now famous. I knew that my grandmother had been an artist’s assistant, so I was able to determine for certain, first, that the artist was Suzor-Côté and, second, that in all likelihood she met her husband, a Bourbeau, because the Bourbeaus were close friends of Suzor-Coté. There are several Bourbeau paintings by Suzor-Côté.

Research is an extremely interesting endeavour because of surprises and coincidences. I will now attempt to incorporate a least one of Suzor-Coté’s paintings in this blog.