century was the century of growth and development of the United States,
so the twentieth is to be the century of Canada; and the outstanding
feature of Canadian development in {432} the last decade of the
nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth is the
awakening of her national consciousness. In all her relations with
Great Britain this sense of nationality has been continuously manifest.
In the Colonial Conferences which have been held at intervals in London
since the first Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887, Canada has been
acknowledgedly first among the self-governing colonies. In 1897,
partly as a result of the enthusiasm created by enactment of the
preference for Great Britain by the Dominion Parliament, Sir Wilfrid
Laurier was the foremost figure among the colonial statesmen who were
in London for the Diamond Jubilee. Another evidence of loyalty and of
the close connection between Canada and Great Britain in the Jubilee
year was the institution of two cent postage between Great Britain and
Canada. Canada's domestic rate of letter postage from 1868 had been
three cents, a rate which was extended to the United States by a postal
convention, by which the domestic rate of Canada was made applicable to
all letters and papers entering the United States, and that of the
United States to all mail matter for Canada. This rate of three cents
remained in force until January, 1899, when the two cent rate was made
general for Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. In 1907, the
rate for newspapers and periodicals between Great Britain and Canada
was again lowered, and in August, 1908, a one cent rate for letters
within the area of a town or city was adopted by the Canadian Post
Office.
When the South African War broke out in 1899, {433} Canada was the
first of the colonies to come to the help of the mother country; and
the Canadian contingents, the first of which left Canada for South
Africa in October, 1899, rendered excellent service in the Boer War,
especially in such work as scouting and the guerilla fighting in which
the Boers were so adept.
The treaty-making power is still withheld from the Dominion; but since
the Alaskan boundary treaty Great Britain has given more and more
attention to the demands and needs of Canada when treaties have been in
negotiation, and in 1907 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Mr. W. S. Fielding,
Minister of Finance, and the Hon. Mr. L. P. Brodeur went to Paris to
negotiate directly a commercial treaty with the French Government.
During the years from 1904 to 1907 the British Government gradually
withdrew all the troops and warships which had been stationed in the
Dominion. Canada assumed control of the fortifications of Halifax and
Esquimalt in July, 1905, and the replacing of British by Canadian
soldiers was complete by February, 1906. The naval dockyard at Halifax
was handed over to the Canadian Government authorities in January,
1907; and from end to end of the Dominion Canada is now in complete and
undivided control of her own territory.
[1] The boundaries of the new provinces were finally settled by an Act
of Parliament passed in 1908--an Act which also greatly enlarged the
boundaries of Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.
{434}
XXIX.
FRENCH CANADA.
As this story commenced with a survey from the heights of Quebec of the
Dominion of Canada from ocean to ocean, so now may it fitly close with
a review of the condition of the French Canadian people who still
inhabit the valley of the St. Lawrence, and whose history is
contemporaneous with that of the ancient city whose picturesque walls
and buildings recall the designs of French ambition on this continent.
[Illustration: Quebec in 1896.]
Though the fortifications of Louisbourg and Ticonderoga, of Niagara,
Frontenac, and other historic places of the French régime in America
have been razed to the ground, and the French flag is never seen in the
valley of the St. Lawrence, except on some holiday in company with
other national colours, nevertheless on the continent where she once
thought to reign supreme, France has been able to leave a permanent
impress. But this impress is not in the valley of the Mississippi. It
is true that a number of French still live on the banks of the great
river, that many a little village where a French {436} patois is spoken
lies hidden in the sequestered bayous of the South, and that no part of
the old city of New Orleans possesses so much interest for the European
stranger as the French or Creole quarter, with its quaint balconied
houses and luxuriant gardens; but despite all this, it is generally
admitted that the time is not far distant when the French language will
disappear from Louisiana, and few evidences will be found of the days
of the French occupancy of that beautiful State of the Union. On the
banks of the St. Lawrence, however, France has left behind her what
seem likely to be more permanent memorials of her occupation. The
picturesque banks of the St. Lawrence, from the Atlantic to the great
lakes of the West, are the home of a large and rapidly increasing
population whose language and customs are so many memorials of the old
régime whose history has taken up so many pages of this story.
[Illustration: Street in a French Canadian village near Quebec.]
The tourist who travels through the province of Quebec sees on all
sides the evidence that he is passing through a country of French
origin. Here and there in Quebec and Montreal, or in some quiet
village sequestered in a valley or elevated on the Laurentian Hills, he
sees houses and churches which remind him of many a hamlet or town he
has visited in Brittany or Normandy. The language is French from the
Saguenay to the Ottawa, and in some remote communities even now English
is never spoken, and is understood only by the curé or notary. Nor is
the language so impure or degenerated as many persons may naturally
suppose. On {438} the contrary, it is spoken by the educated classes
with a purity not excelled in France itself. The better class of
French Canadians take pride in studying the language of the country of
their ancestors, and are rarely guilty of Anglicisms, though these have
necessarily crept into the common parlance of mixed communities, where
people are forced to speak both French and English. In some rural
districts, isolated from large towns, the people retain the language as
it was spoken two centuries ago--though without the accent of the old
provinces of their origin--and consequently many words and phrases
which are rarely now heard in France, still exist among the peasantry
of French Canada, just as we find in New England many expressions which
are not pure Americanisms but really memorials of old English times.
In French Canada the Anglicisms are such as occur under the natural
condition of things. The native of old France has no words for
"clearing" the forest, making maple sugar, "blazing" a way through the
woods or over the ice and snow of the rivers and lakes, and
consequently the vocabulary of the French Canadian has been
considerably enlarged by local circumstances. In the summer resorts of
the lower St. Lawrence the influence of the English visitors, now very
numerous, is becoming more evident every year, and French habits are
becoming modified and the young folks commence to speak English fairly
well. Away from the St. Lawrence, however, and the path of the
tourists, the French Canadians remain, relatively speaking, untouched
by English customs.
{439}
_Nos institutions, notre langue, et nos lois_ has been the key-note of
French Canadian politics for over a century. At the present time the
records and statutes of the Dominion are always given in the two
languages, and the same is true of all motions put by the Speaker.
Though the reports of the debates appear daily in French, English
prevails in the House of Commons and in the Senate. The French
Canadians are forced to speak the language of the majority, and it is
some evidence of the culture of their leading public men, that many
among them--notably Sir Wilfrid, the eloquent leader of the Liberals,
and first French Canadian premier since 1867--are able to express
themselves in English with a freedom and elegance which no
English-speaking member can pretend to equal in French. In the
legislature of the province of Quebec, French has almost excluded
English, though the records are given in the two languages. In the
supreme court of the Dominion the arguments may be in French, and the
two Quebec judges give their decisions in their own tongue.
The people of French Canada are very devout Roman Catholics. The
numerous churches, colleges, and convents of the country attest the
power and wealth of the Church, and the desire of the French Canadians
to glorify and perpetuate it by every means in their power. The whole
land is practically parcelled out among the saints, as far as the
nomenclature of the settlements and villages is concerned. The
favourite saint appears to be Ste. Anne, whose name appears constantly
on the banks {440} of the St. Lawrence. We have Ste. Anne de la
Pérade, Ste. Anne de la Pocatière, and many others. We all remember
the verse of Moore's boat song:
"Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time,
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We 'll sing at St. Anne's our parting hymn."
This village, situated at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa
rivers, is generally known as Ste. Anne de Bellevue, and still retains
some of the characteristics of a French Canadian village,
notwithstanding its close neighbourhood to the English-speaking
settlements of Ontario. Jesuits, Sulpicians, and Recollets have done
much to mould the thought and control the political destiny of the
people under their spiritual care. The universities, colleges, and
schools are mainly directed by the religious orders. The priests, as
this story has shown, have been very active and conscientious workers
from the earliest days of Canadian history.
Canada, too, has her Notre Dame de Lourdes, to whose shrine the
faithful flock by thousands. Some twenty miles east of Quebec, on the
banks of the St. Lawrence, is the church of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, or,
as the Saint is more particularly known, La bonne Ste. Anne, who has
won fame in Canada for miraculous cures for two centuries at least.
[Illustration: Old church at Bonne Ste. Anne, where miracles were
performed.]
This historic place rests under the shelter of a lofty mountain of the
Laurentides, on a little plateau which has given it the name of the
"beautiful meadow." The village itself consists of a {442} straggling
street of wooden houses, with steep roofs and projecting eaves, nearly
all devoted to the entertainment of the large assemblage that annually
resorts to this Canadian Mecca, probably some sixty thousand in the
course of the summer. Here you will see on the fete of Ste. Anne, and
at other fixed times, a mass of people in every variety of costume,
Micmacs, Hurons, and Iroquois--representatives of the old Indian tribes
of Canada--French Canadians, men, women, and children, from the valleys
of the Ottawa, and the St. Maurice, and all parts of Quebec, as well as
tourists from the United States. The handsome grey stone church--now
dignified as a "basilica"--which has been built of late years, attests
the faith of many thousands who have offered their supplications at the
shrine of La bonne Ste. Anne for centuries.[1] Piles of crutches of
every description, of oak, of ash, of pine, are deposited in every
available corner as so many votive offerings from the countless
cripples that claim to have been cured or relieved. The relic through
which all the wonderful cures are said to be effected, consists of a
part of the finger bone of Ste. Anne, which was sent in 1668 by the
Chapter of Carcassonne to Monseigneur de Laval. The church also
possesses several pictures of merit, one of them by Le Brun, presented
by the Viceroy Tracy in 1666. The situation of many of the French
Canadian {443} villages is exceedingly picturesque, when they nestle in
some quiet nook by the side of a river or bay, or overlook from some
prominent hill a noble panorama of land and water. The spire of the
stone church rises generally from the midst of the houses, and the
priest's residence or presbytère is always the most comfortable in size
and appearance. The houses are for the most part built of wood. The
roofs are frequently curved, with projecting eaves, which afford a sort
of verandah under which the family sit in summer evenings. Some of the
most pretentious structures, especially the inns, have balconies
running directly across the upper story. Many of the barns and
outhouses have thatched roofs, which are never seen in any other part
of Canada. The interiors are very plainly furnished, in many cases
with chairs and tables of native manufacture. A high iron stove is the
most important feature of every dwelling in a country where the cold of
winter is so extreme. Whitewash is freely used inside and outside, and
there is on the whole an air of cleanliness and comfort in the humblest
cottage.
The loom is still kept busy in some villages, and a coarse, warm
homespun is even yet made for everyday use. The _habitant_ also wears
in winter moccasins and a _tuque bleue_, or woollen cap, in which he is
always depicted by the painter of Canadian scenes. But with the growth
of towns and the development of the railway system a steady change is
occurring year by year in the dress of the inhabitants, and it is only
in the very remote settlements that we can find the homely stuffs of
former times. Old dresses {444} and old customs are gradually
disappearing with the old-fashioned caleche, in which tourists once
struggled to admire French Canadian scenes. As a rule, however, the
people live very economically, and extravagance in dress is rather the
exception. On gala days the young wear many ribbons and colours,
though arranged with little of the taste characteristic of the French
people. Both old and young are very sociable in their habits, and love
music and dancing. The violin is constantly played in the smallest
village, and the young people dance old-fashioned cotillons or _danses
rondos_. The priests, however, do not encourage reckless gaieties or
extravagance in dress. Now and then the bishop issues a Pastoral in
which the waltz and other fast dances, and certain fashionable modes of
dress, are expressly forbidden, and though his mandates are no doubt
soon forgotten in the cities and towns, they are, on the whole,
religiously observed in the rural communities. The feasts of the
Church are kept with great zeal,--especially the _fêtes
d'obligation_--and consequently the French Canadian has holidays
without number.
[Illustration: A Canadian calèche of old times.]
No class of the population of Canada is more orderly or less disposed
to crime than the French Canadians. The standard of the morality of
the people is high. Early marriages have been always encouraged by the
priests, and large families--fifteen children being very common--are
the rule in the villages. The _habitant_ is naturally litigious, and
the amount in dispute is, in his opinion, trifling compared with the
honour of having a case in court, {446} which demands the attendance of
the whole village. The temperate habits of the French Canadian make
them necessarily valuable employés in mills and manufactories of all
kinds. Indeed, they prefer this life to that of the farm, and until
very recently there was a steady exodus of this class to the
manufacturing towns of Lowell, Holyoke, and other places in New
England. A large proportion of the men employed in the lumbering
industry of Canada is drawn from the province of Quebec. As their
forefathers were _coureurs de bois_ in the days of the French régime,
and hunted the beaver in the wilderness, even venturing into the
illimitable Northwest region, so in these modern times the French
Canadians seek the vast pine woods which, despite axe and fire, still
stretch over a large area watered by the Ottawa and other rivers.
In commercial and financial enterprise, the French Canadians cannot
compete with their fellow-citizens of British origin, who practically
control the great commercial undertakings and banking institutions of
Lower Canada, especially in Montreal. Generally speaking, the French
Canadians cannot compare with the English population as agriculturists,
Their province is less favoured than Ontario with respect to climate
and soil. The French system of sub-dividing farms among the members of
a family has tended to cut up the land unprofitably, and it is a
curious sight to see the number of extremely narrow lots throughout the
French settlements. It must be admitted, too, that the French
population has less enterprise, and less disposition to adopt new {447}
machines and improved agricultural implements, than the people of the
other provinces.
As a rule, the _habitant_ lives contentedly on very little. Give him a
pipe of native tobacco, a chance of discussing politics, a gossip with
his fellows at the church door after service, a visit now and then to
the county town, and he will be happy. It does not take much to amuse
him, while he is quite satisfied that his spiritual safety is secured
as long as he is within sound of the church bells, goes regularly to
confession, and observes all the _fêtes d'obligation_. If he or one of
his family can only get a little office in the municipality, or in the
"government," then his happiness is nearly perfect. Indeed, if he were
not a bureaucrat, he would very much belie his French origin. Take him
all in all, however, Jean-Baptiste, as he is familiarly known, from the
patron saint of French Canada, has many excellent qualities. He is
naturally polite, steady in his habits, and conservative in his
instincts. He is excitable and troublesome only when his political
passions are thoroughly aroused, or his religious principles are at
stake; and then it is impossible to say to what extreme he will go.
Like the people from whom he is descended--many of whose
characteristics he has never lost since his residence of centuries on
the American continent--he is greatly influenced by matters of feeling
and sentiment, and the skilful master of rhetoric has it constantly in
his power to sway him to an extent which is not possible in the case of
the stronger, less impulsive Saxon race, with whom reason and argument
prevail to a large degree.
{448}
In the present, as in the past, the Church makes every effort to
supervise with a zealous care the mental food that is offered for the
nourishment of the people in the rural districts, where it exercises
the greatest influence. Agnosticism is a word practically unknown in
the vocabulary of the French Canadian _habitant_, who is quite ready to
adhere without wavering to the old belief which his forefathers
professed. Whilst the French Canadians doubtless lose little by
refusing to listen to the teachings which would destroy all
old-established and venerable institutions, and lead them into an
unknown country of useless speculation, they do not, as a rule, allow
their minds sufficient scope and expansion. It is true that a new
generation is growing up with a larger desire for philosophic inquiry
and speculation. But whilst the priests continue to control the public
school system of the province, they have a powerful means of
maintaining the current of popular thought in that conservative and too
often narrow groove, in which they have always laboured to keep it
since the days of Laval.
[Illustration: Louis Fréchette.]
It is obvious, however, to a careful observer of the recent history of
the country that there is more independence of thought and action
showing itself in the large centres of population--even in the rural
communities--and that the people are beginning to understand that they
should be left free to exercise their political rights without direct
or undue interference on the part of their spiritual advisers. English
ideas in this respect seem certainly to be gaining ground.
{450}
In the days of the French régime there was necessarily no native
literature, and little general culture except in small select circles
at Quebec and Montreal. But during the past half century, with the
increase of wealth, the dissemination of liberal education, and the
development of self-government, the French Canadians have created for
themselves a literature which shows that they inherit much of the
spirituality and brilliancy of their race. Their histories and poems
have attracted much attention in literary circles in France, and one
poet, Mr. Louis Fréchette, has won the highest prize of the French
Institute for the best poem of the year. In history we have the names
of Garneau, Ferland, Sulte, Tassé, Casgrain; in poetry, Crémazie,
Chauveau, Fréchette, Poisson, Lemay; in science, Hamel, Laflamme, De
Foville; besides many others famed as savants and littérateurs. In art
some progress has been made, and several young men go to the Paris
schools from time to time. The only sculptor of original merit that
Canada has yet produced is Hébert, a French Canadian, whose monuments
of eminent Canadians stand in several public places. Science has not
made so much progress as belles-lettres and history, though Laval
University--the principal educational institution of the highest
class--has among its professors men who show some creditable work in
mathematics, geology, and physics. In romance, however, very little
has been done.
The French Canadians have a natural love for poetry and music. Indeed
it is a French Canadian by birth and early education--Madame
Albani--who {451} not long ago won a high distinction on the operatic
stage. No writer of this nationality, however, has yet produced an
opera or a drama which has won fame for its author. The priesthood,
indeed, has been a persistent enemy of the theatre, which consequently
has never attained a successful foothold in French Canada. Sacred
music, so essential a feature of a Roman Catholic service, has been
always cultivated with success.
The _chansons populaires_, which have been so long in vogue among the
people of all classes in the province of Quebec are the same in spirit,
and very frequently in words, as those which their ancestors brought
over with them from Brittany, Normandy, Saintonge, and Franche-Comté.
Some have been adapted to Canadian scenery and associations, but most
of them are essentially European in allusion and spirit. The Canadian
lumberer among the pines of the Ottawa and its tributaries, the _Métis_
or half-breeds of what was once the great Lone Land, still sing
snatches of the songs which the _coureurs de bois_, who followed Duluth
and other French explorers, were wont to sing as they paddled over the
rivers of the West or camped beneath the pines and the maples of the
great forests. It is impossible to set the words of all of them to the
music of the drawing-room, where they seem tame and meaningless; but
when they mingle with "the solemn sough of the forest," or with the
roar of rushing waters, the air seems imbued with the spirit of the
surroundings. It has been well observed by M. Gagnon, a French
Canadian, that "many of them have no beauty {452} except on the lips of
the peasantry." There is "something sad and soft in the voices that
imparts a peculiar charm to these monotonous airs, in which their whole
existence seems to be reflected."
I give below the most popular and poetical of all the Canadian ballads,
and at the same time a translation by a Canadian writer:[2]
À LA CLAIRE FONTAINE. TRANSLATION.
À la claire fontaine Down to the crystal streamlet
M'en allant promener, I strayed at close of day;
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle Into its limpid waters
Que je m'y suis baigne. I plunged without delay.
Lui ya longtemps que je t'aime, I 've loved thee long and dearly,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai. I 'll love thee, sweet, for aye.
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle Into its limpid waters
Que je m'y suis baigné, I plunged without delay;
Et c'est au pied d'un chêne Then 'mid the flowers springing
Que je m'suis reposé. At the oak-tree's foot I lay.
Et c'est au pied d'un chêne Then 'mid the flowers springing
Que je m'suis reposé; At the oak-tree's foot I lay;
Sur la plus haute branche Sweet the nightingale was singing
Le rossignol chantait. High on the topmost spray.
Sur la plus haute branche Sweet the nightingale was singing
Le rossignol chantait; High on the topmost spray;
Chante, rossignol, chante, Sweet bird! keep ever singing
Toi qui as le coeur gai. Thy song with heart so gay.
Chante, rossignol, chante, Sweet bird! keep ever singing
Toi qui as le coeur gai; Thy song with heart so gay;
Tu as le coeur à rire, Thy heart was made for laughter,
Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer. My heart 's in tears to-day.
{453}
Tu as le coeur à rire, Thy heart was made for laughter,
Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer; My heart 's in tears to-day;
J'ai perdu ma maîtresse Tears for a fickle mistress,
Sans pouvoir la trouver. Flown from its love away.
J'ai perdu ma maîtresse Tears for a fickle mistress,
Sans pouvoir la trouver; Flown from its love away,
Pour un bouquet de roses All for these faded roses
Que je lui refusai; Which I refused in play.
Pour un bouquet de roses All for these faded roses
Que je lui refusai; Which I refused in play--
Je voudrais que la rose Would that each rose were growing
Fut encore au rosier. Still on the rose-tree gay.