Jean Talon is Happy Today

Does this count as a Mona Lisa smile?

Can you guess why Jean Talon is so happy today?  This year marks the 350th anniversary of his arrival in the colony.  Among the measures he undertook as intendant was a count of the colony's population.  Louis XIV's energetic minister Colbert had instructed him, in March of 1665, thus:

"Le Roy, considérant tous ses sujets du Canada depuis le premier jusqu'au dernier comme s'ils estoient presque ses propres enfans, et désirant satisfaire, à l'obligation où il est de leur faire ressentir la douceur et la félicité de son règne ainsy qu'à ceux qui sont au milieu de la France, le sieur Talon s'étudiera uniquement à les soulager en toutes choses et à les exciter au travail et au commerce, qui seuls peuvent attirer l'abondance dans le pays et rendre les familles accommodées. Et d'autant que rien ne peut mieux y contribuer qu'en entrant dans le détail de leurs petites affaires et de leur domestique, il ne sera pas mal à propos qu'après s'estre estably, il visite toutes les habitations les unes après les autres pour en reconnoistre le véritable estât, et ensuite pourvoir autant bien qu'il pourra aux nécessités qu'il y aura remarquées, afin qu'en faisant le devoir d'un bon père de famille, il puisse leur faciliter les moyens de faire quelques profits et d'entreprendre de labourer les terres incultes qui sont les plus prochaines de celles qu'ils ont desjà mises en culture."

In other words, Talon was to visit the settlers through the St. Lawrence Valley and ascertain their conditions in order to best meet their needs.  From January through July of 1666, he and his enumerators carried out the first census in Canadian history.  Talon, in fact, did much of the enumeration himself.  They counted 3215 (actually 3173) men, women and children.  Colbert asked for another census to be taken the following year, seeking greater accuracy and even more information on which to base colonial policy.  Intendant Talon and his people counted not only colonists this time, but also their cattle and acreage under cultivation.  These early censuses are not supremely accurate records.  According to historian Marcel Trudel, the first census missed about a quarter of the colony's population and the second a sixth.  Still, it was a valiant effort and a ground-breaking moment in the history of data-driven policy on this corner of the planet.
 
Those who follow Canadian politics will have heard that the mandatory long-form census, having been abandoned in a fit of narrow-mindedness by the late Harper government, was reinstated today as one of the first measures of the Trudeau Government.  "We need good, reliable data," announced the new Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains.  Colbert and Talon would approve.  Charlevoix does too.  Historians love censuses.

Let's hope that Statistics Canada and the new Canadian government do not allow the 350th anniversary of the first census next year to go unnoticed.  It is a moment worth commemorating.

P.-F.-X.

Jason Kenney's New France

Wouldn't you know it, in these heady weeks of federal electioneering in Canada, the history of New France is getting a tiny bit of attention in the media?

A few days ago, a video surfaced on the internet of Jason Kenney, a Conservative Party member of Parliament and candidate for reelection, is Canada's Minister of National Defence and Minister for Multiculturalism.  It shows his appearance -- in fact dating from 2012 -- on a panel on "the root of democracy" during the Meeting per l'amicizia fra i popoli, a religious festival and conference held every year in Rimini, Italy.  Kenney goes on about the roots of Canadian multiculturalism, which he takes to be a facet of British imperialism. The video and commentary can be seen on the website PressProgress and in the Journal de Montréal.

The British, says Kenney, had "a brilliant capacity at accommodating difference".  To illustrate this, he describes "when the British conquered the French in New France in the eighteenth century, they did not seek to assimilate the French Catholics into British Protestant culture, or society, but rather invited them to maintain their Catholic identity and institutions, their French language, their civil code and legal system, and this was, really, a practical impression of that, I think, brilliant British approach, a relaxed laissez faire approach towards pluralism". 

A debatable view.  It flattens a complex historical reality, and leaves an impression of benevolent British imperialism that does not mesh so neatly with the facts.  Beginning in 1755, the British deported the Acadians.  In 1763, the British conquerors abolished French law in the Province of Quebec, and made it impossible for Catholics to hold public office.  They considered shipping them out altogether, in fact.  As James Murray observed in a letter to London, "nothing will satisfy the licentious fanatics trading here but the expulsion of the Canadians".  Governor Murray, thankfully, and later Carleton, believed more strongly in conciliation and accommodation than many of their countrymen did.  Only in 1775, with the Quebec Act, was civil law (not civil code, as Kenney has it) restored, and even then only in matters of private law; only then were constraints on the practice of Catholicism relaxed.  And only in 1791 did Great Britain see fit to grant the colony a representative assembly.

We might go on about how Great Britain did not do such a great job accommodating Aboriginal peoples in the Thirteen Colonies, or in British North America through the nineteenth century.  And we might mention Lord Durham and other prominent assimilationists.  But we won't.  Let's stick to New France and its end.  Kenney demonstrates not only the superficiality of his historical understanding, but a lack of sensitivity to a historical chapter, la Conquête, that remains for better or worse quite sensitive.  He should know better.

Next up: Romeo Saganash, member of parliament and candidate for the New Democratic Party, on Champlain and the niqab.

P.-F.-X.

Couillard

Dans un très bref billet sur les récentes élections québécoises, le quotidien breton Le Télégramme rappelle que l'aïeul du nouveau premier ministre Philippe Couillard était un matelot et charpentier originaire de Saint-Servan, commune aujourd'hui rattachée à Saint-Malo.  C'est en 1613 que ce Guillaume Couillard s'installe en Nouvelle-France.

L'article du Télégramme, "Un Breton d'origine aux commandes", est autrement fort médiocre.  On y confond les détails et les enjeux, laissant entendre que ces lointaines origines ont donné au nouveau premier ministre le droit de détenir un passeport français.  Or, s'il détient un passeport français (en plus du canadien), c'est que sa mère est elle-même née en France!  Quoi qu'il en soit, ceux qui voudraient en apprendre plus long sur l'ancêtre des Couillard d'Amérique, soit dit en passant premier colon anobli par le roi, trouveront une courte mais solide biographie dans le bon vieux Dictionnaire biographique du Canada.  Ceux qui voudraient ensuite s'amuser à remonter les dix générations qui séparent Philippe et Guillaume pourront le faire commodément via le site Nos Origines.

P.-F.-X.

La Galissonière and Harper?

The current Canadian Government's cavalier attitude towards researchers in general, and those who toil in the public service in particular, has been a topic of great frustration for many of my cohorts.  A review of Chris Turner's new book, The War on Science : Muzzled Scientists and Willful Blindness in Stephen Harper's Canada, just published by Ivan Semeniuk in the Globe and Mail, interestingly enough opens with... who might have guessed?  A governor of New France!

"It’s fair to say that the bewigged visage of Roland-Michel Barrin de La Galissonière does not loom large in the Canadian psyche.  A naval commander and governor of New France in the mid-18th century, La Galissonière brought the spirit of the French Enlightenment to the new world and a passion for science to his colonial duties. For two short years, from 1747 to 1749, he was a whirlwind of inquisitiveness, directing his officers to observe, collect, chart, record and otherwise thoroughly document the natural history of the interior."

"Then La Galissonière was recalled to Europe and the administration of what would eventually become British North America was left to those of a less empirical bent. Not until Sanford Fleming arrived from Scotland a century later was there as strong a push in Canada to be at the leading edge of scientific discovery."

Those are Semeniuk's words.  A quick leafing through Turner's book, portions of which are available via Google Books, shows him beginning with Champlain and going on to state that La Galissonière's brief tenure the French colony was "a centre of Enlightenment scholarship" and "at the Enlightenment's vanguard" (a bit of an overstatement?).  But these seventeenth and eighteenth-century origins of what he calls the "Scientific Tradition in Canadian Government", as well as those of the nineteenth, are dispensed with in a mere two pages in a book whose focus is squarely contemporary.

Those interested in the subject matter should really keep an eye out for Chris Parsons' forthcoming book, Cultivating a New France: Knowledge, Empire and Environment in the French Atlantic World, 1600 – 1760.

P.-F.-X.

New France in Speech From the Throne

As my Canadian readers will know, the Speech From the Throne dropped today.  For non-Canadian readers: this is the moment when the monarch or, usually, her representative the governor general, reads a prepared speech to members of Parliament, outlining the government's agenda for the coming session.  Would you believe that New France was mentioned?

As we look confidently to the future, we draw great strength from our past. Beginning with our Aboriginal peoples, Canada’s story is one of risk, sacrifice, and rugged determination. From the founding of New France, to the fight for Canada in the War of 1812; from the visionary achievement of Confederation, to our victory at Vimy Ridge, Canadians have repeatedly triumphed over long odds to forge a great country, united and free.

It is a story we recall with wonder and recount with pride. A story of how different provinces founded a federation in which our distinct strengths advance our unity. A federation in which Canada's two national languages position us uniquely in the world; where francophones thrive and celebrate a unique culture, in solidarity with fellow Canadians.

No comment.

Update (10 Oct.): Christopher Moore gives a more thorough overview of history in the Throne Speech over on his blog.

P.-F.-X. 

Thinking about Harper, Talon, Louis XIV, and Acadian Peasants

I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but last month Toronto Star publisher John Cruickshank, in an opinion piece criticical of Prime Minister Steven Harper for his willingness to allow the sale of a portion of the country's telecommunications spectrum to the Americans, writes: "What is the Prime Minister trying to achieve with this degree of market manipulation not seen since Intendant Jean Talon ran New France for Louis XIV more than four centuries ago? He says he is trying to make the free market more effective."  What a dubious and bizarre comparison.

In a more expansive but equally provocative vein, Greg Kennedy published a piece entitled "Lessons from the past: 'So What is Government for Anyway?'" over at Active History.  In it Greg, who teaches at the Université de Moncton and has accordingly the great merit of being one of the very rare Anglos to teach French colonial history en français, muses about the difference between the role of government and the burden of taxation in the French colonial context and in our own day.  He does not take the current PM to task, but rather the system writ large.  His assessment is rather pessimistic:

Obviously, I am not arguing that we should return to this bloody and bloody-minded period of our history.  [...]  But Louis XIV’s answer to what government is for would have been very straightforward.  The sovereign (in this case, the king) was the protector and chief magistrate of the realm.  The sovereign defended the country from foreign invaders and preserved civil order.  The sovereign made laws that regulated trade, business, and industry.  The sovereign even protected the realm’s forests and waterways.  The sovereign ensured that everyone had access to justice.  And that was about it.  Local communities largely administered themselves and the inhabitants looked after each other.

 

How much have we really evolved since Louis XIV?  In getting rid of the bad of the Old Regime, what good things have we lost?  Today’s Canadian state has become so ponderous that it seems both to decide everything for us and to never be there when we need it.  A modern Canadian prime minister in a majority government enjoys legislative and executive power of which Louis XIV could only have dreamed.

 He concludes:

As an historian of the early-modern period, I think we should re-evaluate what government is for because an illiterate peasant (at least, a male, Catholic, French one) at the height of Louis XIV’s absolutist regime enjoyed a lighter and more transparent tax regime, better access to justice, and more autonomy at the community level than Canadians today.  Because modern liberal democracy has made us helplessly, hopelessly, horribly free.  And as incapable as infants.

Oh, those were simpler times!  I don't know what to make of this -- and, judging by the lack of response on the usually comment-rich Active History, other readers have had the same difficulty.  Greg, surely you must be pulling our collective leg?  Sure, people back in the day were more self-reliant.  But if you really want to go down that radically critical road, it seems to me that we should seek our inspiration not among Acadian peasants, but rather in small-scale societies of hunter-gatherers like the Mbuti of the Congo : in a not so distant past, they had no government, or social differentiation for that matter, and no taxes.  Now, they were capable folks!

I'm reminded of Hobbes' famous passage on what he saw as the natural condition of mankind: "In such condition there is [...] no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."  One doesn't have to endorse all of Hobbes' oeuvre to see that there's something here.  I'll take a ponderous government over the limited possibilities of your Early Modern Acadians any day, thank you very much.  And, since jumping across centuries is the name of our game, I might as well pull Churchill into the mix: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." 

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go chop down a tree and shoot a deer to remind myself that I'm still somewhat more self-reliant than my infant child.  Somewhat.  I'll be sure to have an ambulance -- paid for by Greg's taxes, of course -- on standby in case I chop or shoot myself in the foot.

P.-F.-X.

Une héroïne de la Nouvelle-France en campagne électorale

Demain, le 4 septembre, les Québécois iront aux urnes. La lutte s'annonce serrée entre le Parti libéral sortant, le Parti québécois et le petit dernier sur la scène politique, la Coalition Avenir Québec. Les chefs de parti redoublent d'efforts pour séduire les électeurs. La semaine passée, François Legault, fondateur de la CAQ, donnait une conférence de presse aux côtés d'une douzaine de candidates dans le but de courtiser l'électorat féminin. Qu'est-ce que tout cela peut bien avoir à voir avec la Nouvelle-France, vous me demandez? Croyez donc que c'est au pied de la statue de Madeleine de Verchères, à Verchères, qu'on a cru bon tenir l'événement. 
 


Pour ceux qui ne connaisseraient pas ce fascinant personnage, rappelons quelques faits. Marie-Madeleine Jarret de Verchères (1678-1747) naquit à Verchères en aval de Montréal, fille du Sieur François Jarret, seigneur fondateur du lieu.  Elle grandit à une époque pionnière, marquée avant tout par la guerre franco-iroquoise.  Le 27 octobre 1692, âgée de quatorze ans, elle aurait accompli l'acte qui l'a immortalisé: en l'absence de ses parents et d'une garnison digne du nom, elle défendit le fort de Verchères contre une attaque iroquoise.

Pendant la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle, la droite nationaliste canadienne-française redécouvrit cette figure oubliée et vit en elle un puissant symbole de survivance.  Une véritable Jeanne d'Arc canadienne!   Au début du XXe siècle, d'autres s'approprièrent le personnage avec autant d'ardeur: nationalistes pan-canadiens cherchant à développer une mémoire historique commune aux deux "races" fondatrices; mais aussi féministes et suffragettes anglophones à la recherche d'icônes exaltantes.

Ayant atteint son apogée pendant les années 1920, la popularité de Madeleine de Verchères a par la suite péréclité.  Les historiens ont beaucoup contribué à cette tendance. André Vachon (dans le Dictionnaire biographique du Canada) et Marcel Trudel (dans Mythes et réalités dans l'histoire du Québec) ont relevé les exaggérations et les nombreuses irrégularités dans les récits que Madeleine de Verchères a fait de ses exploits.  Elle fut, en effet, l'auteure de sa propre légende.  Ces historiens ont par ailleurs souligné à quel point sa vie adulte fut ponctuée de querelles l'opposant à ses voisins et au clergé local.  La Madeleine, semble-t-il, avait fort mauvais caractère.

Plus récemment, Colin Coates a sondé dans Heroines and History: Representations of Madeleine de Verchères and Laura Secord la gamme des messages véhiculés par cette héroïne au fil des années.   La dimension la plus inquiétante, peut-être, du culte de Madeleine de Verchères et que celui-ci s'insère dans la trame pernicieuse où s'affrontent héroïsme européen et perfidie autochtone.  Dans l'histoire de cette "héroïne québécoise", les méchants Iroquois rôdent à l'orée du bois.  Ils sont méconnus et méconnaissables.  Or, les travaux des historiens nous ont donné depuis deux ou trois décennies une bien meilleure compréhension de la culture, des motivations, de la guerre mais aussi de la diplomatie de ceux qu'on appelait jadis les "Sauvages".

Conclusion: les politiciens et leurs entourages n'ont-ils pas le devoir de se livrer à l'examen des figures, des symboles et des monuments historiques avant de s'y vouer?  Une figure politique réfléchirait à deux fois avant de se faire prendre en photo devant un monument à Dollard des Ormeaux.  Madeleine de Verchères n'est-elle pas moins l'héroïne d'une société québécoise d'avant la Révolution tranquille, une société désormais révolue?

P.-F.-X.