FR A N CO IS XAVI ER G A R N E AU F rom the p ainting by A lbert F er/a nd FR E N C H - C A NA D IA N L IT E R A TU R E C AWH L L E R O Y P R OFESSOR I N LA VA L UNI VE R SITY Q UE B EC T O R O NT O G LAS G W B R K C MPAN O , O O , O Y 1 9 1 3 o i This Volume c ns sts of a Reprint , for private circulation only , of the Seventieth Signed Contribution contained in CANADA AND ITS PRO N E VI C S , a History of the Canadian People and their Institutions by n O e Hundred Associates . S r G . D Adam hortt and A thur oughty , General Editors C O N T E N TS PA GE - 1 . LITE RARY ORIGIN 1 60 1 8 0 S, 7 4 LITERA RY DE ELO ME NT 1 8 0- 1 1 2 1 1. V P , 4 9 FRE NCH- CANAD IAN L ITE RATU RE G N 1 - 1 8 L ITE RARY ORI I S, 760 40 HE literary history of the French Canadians may be 1 60 said to date from the year 7 , or, if one prefers , T from the cession of Canada to England . Before had e manifasta ns that time , indeed , there be n certain tio of literary life in New France : there had been accounts i C of travel , l ke those of hamplain interesting narratives , like the Relations of the Jesuits ; histories like that of Charlevoix ; studies of manners like those of the Pére Lafitau ; and instructive letters, full of shrewd observa ’ M M l In rn n B u tions, like those of the ere arie de ca atio . t these works were , for the most part, written in France, and all were published there . Their authors , moreover , Ca and belong to France much more than to nada , France , rather than Canada , is entitled to claim their works as her patrimony . During the hundred and fifty years of French domina tion in Canada the colonists were unable to devote much attention to intellectual pursuits . All the living forces of the nascent people were engrossed by the ruder labours i m of colonizat on , com erce and war . Nor was it even on the morrow of I 76O— the morrow of the treaty that delivered New France to England— that the first books were printed and the first notable works . h e written There was other work to be done , and t French un der their new rulers betook themselves to action . While i repairing the d sasters to their material fortunes , they e numbered themselves , consolidated thems lves, and set 435 436 FRENCH - CANADIAN LITERATURE themselves to preserve as intact as possible their ancient institutions and the traditions of their national life . ‘ From this e flort to preserve their nationali ty the first manifestations of their literary life were soon to spring ; and it was through the newspaper— the most convenient — vehicle of popular thought that the French - Canadian i mind first found expression . Only colonial l terature could begin in the newspaper article . The older literatures were a r : born on the lips of the edes , the bards or the t oubadours it was the human voice , the living song of a soul , that carried B u to attentive ears these fi rst untutored accents . t in i Canada , in Amer ca , where machinery is at the beginning P - of all progress , the ress is naturally the all important n instrument for the spread of literary ideas . I the years immediately following the Cession there were es tablished M ri in Quebec and ontreal several pe odicals , in which the unpretentious works of the earliest writers may be found . The following are some of th e journals that appeared at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of e the ninete nth , and that mark the true origin of French Canadian literature La Gazette de Quebec La Gazette da Commerce ' et littérazre M La , of ontreal , named almost immediately ’ Gazette littéraz re La Gazette de M ontreal ' L e M agasz n de Quebec Le Cows da temps ( 1 794) Le Canad'ien our ie de uebec , of Quebec Le C r r Q L e V ai Canadien L e S ectateur r , of Quebec p , ’ ' M r L Aurore M 1 8 1 L Abeille of ont eal , of ontreal ( 5) 3 canadienne M , of ontreal These j ournals were not equally fortunate . M ost of ' ’ — La Ga ette littérazre L Abeille canadienne Le M a asin them z , , g ' de uébec Le Coun te de uébec Le V az Canadien— Q , r Q , r struggled for life for a few months or a few years, and disappeared one after the other . Wi th the exception of La Gazette de uébec La Ga ette de M ontreal Le Canadien Le S ecta Q , z , , and p teur fi , the rst newspapers succumbed after a valiant struggle for existence . To reach the greatest possible number of —La Ga ette de uébec La readers , several of these journals z Q , L O G S 1 60- 1 8 0 ITERARY RI I N , 7 4 437 Ga ette de M ontreal Le M a asin de uébec Le Cours da z , g Q and — temps were written in both English and French . The French newspapers may be divided into two distinct i categories . There were those that were mainly polit cal , d La Ga ette de uébec or containe political news , like z Q and La Gazette de M ontreal ; and the periodicals that were i c La Ga ette littéraire M d stinctly literary, su h as z of ontreal ' z uébec - n and L e M agas n de Q . This last named journal co in i l ta ed little but reproduct ons from foreign iterat ure . ’ a a ett litteraire M L G z e of ontreal , published by Fleury ‘ l tafi a tard M esp et , on whose s Valentin J u , a native of France , was an active collaborator under the pseudonym of Le S ’ pectateur tranquille , is noteworthy as having given the French Canadians their first opport uni ty of writing on ri literary and philosophical subjects . M uch literary c ti cism o , s metimes of a decidedly puerile nat ure , also appeared In n e the fi i in it . this paper, too , are encou ter d rst man festations of the Voltai rian spirit that had permeated many minds in Canada during the latter part of the eightee nth century . The first political journals were literary in but a small l degree , and it was seldom that they pub ished French i art cles of any value . Apart from a few occasional poems —o f — La little merit, however the French contents of Ga ette de uébec z Q were , for the most part , merely trans lati n l o s of its English articles . The po itical literature of i . i B n th s journal is dull and unimportant Will am row , t n i who, wi h Thomas Gilmour, was its fou der, character zed 8 1 6 his journal only too well when he wrote (August , 77 ) that it ‘ j ustly merited the title of the most innocent gazette B ’ in the ritish dominions . t 1 6 Never heless it was Quebec that became , in 7 4 , the cradle of Canadian journalism . Before the end of the French régime Quebec was already the centre of a civilization that — refined — was polished , elegant even and often very fashion K — . P S o i able eter alm , the wedish b tan st who visited New in 1 France 749 , and left such a curious, instructive and faithful record of his journey— observed that Quebec then i contained the elements of a distingu shed society , in which 438 FRENC H - CANADIAN LITERATURE good taste was preserved , and in which the people delighted to make it govern their manners , their language and their dress . Quebec , moreover, prided herself not only on gather ing within her walls the most important personages of the political and the ecclesiastical world , but also on being the chief seat of intellectual life in the new country . From 1 1 Bougainville we learn that in 757 , towards the end of the é b . B French r gime , there was a literary club in Que ec esides ' C S this , the Jesuits ollege and the eminary had for more than a century drawn to Quebec the studious youth of Bi aud t the entire colony . Michel b , who visited the ci y ‘ 1 1 ff in 84 , noted there the agreeable , a able manners of her leading citizens , and their French urbanity and courtesy . ‘ ’ For this reason he called her the Paris of America . 1 1 r It was at Quebec , too , after 79 , when parliamenta y t government was accorded Lower Canada , that poli ical — m fi — oratory ti id at rst , and modest in expression was fi born . There the rst groupings of intellectual forces were after wards organized : the Club constitutionnel ( 1 792) the ’ Société litteraire the Société historique et littéraire a S - founded at the Ch teau aint Louis , under the ' presidency of Lord Dalhousie and the Société pour l eneau ragemcnt des Sciences et des Arts which soon amal ’ ’ ed 1 8 2 Société lzistori ue et litterazre.