The Wolfe/Montcalm Dialectic

Now, after a beautiful morning walk on the Plains with Marsha, I have new photos and can begin the narrative.

Monuments can be to persons or to places. A bronze statue is of course a monument to a person who may have little to do with the site where the statue stands, while an inscription can attach event to place with or without a specific person. Just behind our building is this monument to Wolfe's famous fatal wound:

And just about 100 meters farther east is another granite block, of nearly identical size and shape, and carrying a nearly identical inscription:

Dual French and English texts are found on nearly every such inscription and every signboard in the city, but here the two languages recapitulate the tense balance in which the two heroes are memorialized. For the heroes represent the two language communities in the city. A monument to Wolfe without equal time for Montcalm would be like a sign in English without French translation; it would be an offense and likely even a violation of the law.

I am not sure when these were erected but it would have to be after the park and the battlefields commission were begun in 1908-09. The first major monument to the heroes was erected in 1827 in the Jardin des Gouverneurs behind the Chateau Frontenac hotel. It is another example of the careful balance between the two heroic figures, and is the first volley in the ongoing dialectic.

Here are two sides of the obelisk, rigorously balanced. And here the bilingual rule is broken. In the spirit of compromise and reconciliation, the inscription was done in Latin, on the side facing the river, between the two hero's names, has two panels. The top panel, the shorter text, says:

Mortem vitus communem, famam historia, monumentum posteritas dedit
Leur courage leur a donné la même mort; l’histoire, même renommée; la postérité,même monument
Their courage as given them the same death, history, the same renown, posterity, the same monument
The larger lower panel is below the photos:

HUJUSCE

MONUMENTI IN MEMORIAM VIRORUM ILLUSTRATIUM

WOLFE ET MONTCALM

FUNDAMENTUM P.C. GEORGIUS COMMS DE DALHOUSIE

IN SEPTENTRIONALIS AMERICAE PARTIBUS

AD BRITANNOS PERTINENTIBUS

SUMMAM RERUM ADMINISTRATUS;

OPUS PER MULTOS ANNOS PRAETERMISSUM

(QUID DUCI EGREGIO CONVENIENTIUS;)

AUTORITATE PROMOVENS, EXEMPLO STIMULA

MUNIFICENTIA FOVENS

DIE NOVEMBRIS XV a A.D. MDCCCXXVII

GEORGIO IV BRITANNIARUM REGE

roughly translated this means

this

demonstrative Monument in memory of

Wolf and Montcalm

was founded during the administration of P.C. George of Dalhousie

In the northern regions of America

controlled by the the Britons, 

an administrator whose

Work went unnoticed for many years

(as is fitting for this good duke)

under his authority, to stimulate and promote examples

and foster generosity

November 15,  A.D. 1827

George IV King of Britain

The Governor General of Canada at this time, Lord Dalhousie, was trying to defuse political tensions between Anglophone and Francophone factions by promoting a sense that their patron heroes were of equal status. But the historical content--what they did to deserve such acclaim--is referred to only obliquely, and the Latin inscription reaffirms British colonial rule and the status of Dalhousie himself.