Monument des Braves

One response of Quebec francophones to the cult of memory surrounding Wolfe and the battle of Sept. 13, 1759, has been to emphasize the Battle of Ste-Foy fought the following year on April 28th. In this battle the Chevalier de Lévis, whom most historians regard as a more capable tactician than Montcalm, but who was away from the city in September 1759, attacked the English forces led by James Murray in an attempt to retake Quebec. He was able to inflict significant casualties, and then beseige the fortified city, but when British ships arrived two weeks later and relieved Murray, Lévis' effort failed, and the focus shifted to Montreal. Because the French carried the day at Ste-Foy, commemorations of this battle have been used as a counterweight to Wolfe and the Plains of Abraham. So when military reenactment hobbyists proposed activities on the occasion of the 250th anniversary in 2009, they promised to reenact both battles. And likewise when the National Battlefield Commission began designing the park, they included the Monument which already stood at the sight of the former Dumont mill, around which the Ste-Foy battle had been fought. Here is a reproduction of a painting of the battle by Joseph Legaré, on a signboard at the park.

The text of the signboard contains a detailed account of the military maneuvers which led Lévis to victory. It also explains how "in 1849, workers discovered bones and remains of weapons near the presumed site of the Dumont mill. Excavations conducted in 1852 seem to confirm that the remains were those of soldiers, both French and British, who died in the Battle of Sainte-Foy. ON June 5, 1854 a translation ceremony was held, at the end of which a casket containing the soldiers' remains was lowered into a grave on the battlefield, where the monument was later erected."
The battlefield commission seems reluctant to endorse the authenticity of these finds. I also like the way the verb "translated" has the obscure meaning of "the removal of the body or relics of a saint to another place of interment" [OED I 1. a]. As we have seen, translation between English and French is also an important element of the commemoration process.

The monument is at the north end of the Avenue des Braves, a street of sumptuous residences, which runs from the eastern end of Battlefields park. It's about a kilometer to walk, and so few tourists who see the Wolfe Monument and other sites in the park are likely to make the trip, although in the high season there is a shuttle bus.

The monument itself was commissioned by the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Québec (the francophone social/political club, which had purchased the land in 1855), designed by celebrated architect Charles Baillargé, and erected in 1860. It has the Roman goddess of war, Bellona, on top, and plaques on opposite sides honoring Levis and Murray.

 So it seems clear that the SSJB wanted to reply to the Wolfe monument and the Dalhousie one by putting up their own to the 1760 battle, which was a French victory, but they made it appear non-partisan by using a design similar to the Dalhousie monument, with paired French and English heroes, plaques with the name of each facing away from each other on opposite sides of the monument even as they faced toward each other on the battlefield.

There are also, in an adjoining shelter added much more recently, two bronze statues of the two heroes. The francophones were already in the mid 1800s adept at monumental balance, at giving equal time to both sides so as to avoid offending the Anglophones who held greater economic clout in the city. The same kind of delicacy is often required today when building historical monuments and composing plaques and texts, whether in the U.S. or Canada, and whether the issue is the Civil War, or slavery, or what-have-you.

The only way the francophones can celebrate their own side is to do so obliquely. Thus, for instance, the first stone in the construction of the monument was laid in June 1855 by the captain of the Capricieuse, the first French military vessel to reach Quebec since the Conquest 96 years earlier. In our next posts we will see more examples of this oblique patriotism.

The Wolfe Monument

The Wolfe Monument is the is the most highly charged monument in the entire city. Not because of its appearance, more because of its location and its history. Wolfe’s heroic image and the commodification of it in England and the Empire (see Alan McNairn's book Behold the Hero) has aroused resentment among some Francophone partisans and Quebec nationalists. And the location of the monument directly in front of the national museum of art is a position of privilege exceeded only by that of the Champlain and Laval monuments at the brink of the bluff in the old city, and monuments in front of the Capitol building. An heroic bronze equestrian statue might be more provocative in suggesting Wolfe's military might, and huge bronze statue of Wolfe is found in Greenwich park near London, but of course Wolfe did not ride a horse into the battle on Sept. 13, 1759. The Wolfe column is a memorial not a statue, on the top are a bronze helmet and a sword, a neoclassical symbol for the fallen warrior. It marks the spot (supposedly) of Wolfe’s death, and suggests a metonymic connection with his body, much like the relics of a saint.

That's me at the monument, which stands in a traffic circle directly in front of the entrance to the national art museum, and just a few meters off the Grande Allée. But the monument predates the civic buildings (including the city's main jail, only recently transformed into a wing of the art museum). The travel writer John Lambert reported that in 1807 he "went sadly to the place where Wolfe had given his life for the glory of the Empire, deploring that sacriligeous hands had taken the large stone against which the motrally wounded general had been held up by his officers, and indignant that his compatriots did not show more respect." Lambert suggests and English pilgrims were so eager to take home a piece of this sacred rock that they finally destroyed it altogether. Adjacent to the site, but now effaced by the construction of a new building for the Musée de Beaux Arts de Quebec, was a well, from which Wolfe was supposedly given water in the last moments of his life. Like the name Plains of Abraham, (which had an entirely secular origin in the name Abraham Martin, who sailed with Champlain), this story gives a biblical weight to Wolfe's heroic image. He sacrificed so that his people (the English) might become God's chosen and might reign over Quebec and the world.

The plaque explains that this column is the fifth monument on the site. The fourth was destroyed on March 29, 1963 in an act of vandalism that some attribute to the Front pour la Libération de Québec, a radical nationalist group. In my photo here you can see faded evidence of a red X across the plaque on the left. I will update with more about the attack.

I believe that the reason this monument is so provocative is not simply that it is devoted to Wolfe but that it lacks the balance carefully observed in the obelisk at the Jardin des Gouverneurs and in the Monument des Braves, which will be the subject of my next post.

The other monuments of Quebec City either show a careful balance between English and French communities and heroes, or they use an allusive rather than direct method of favoring one side over the other. The Wolfe monument here is direct and partisan.

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.

"maitres chez nous"

Student strike continues here. There was a brief period of negotiations between the ministre de l'education Line Beauchamp and some of the student groups who had agreed to renounce violence. But the acronyms for various student organizations: FEUQ, CLASSE, etc. are a real alphabet soup and it has been impossible to get them all in line together.

In the english-language Montreal daily, The Gazette, I read this op-ed article which I found really interesting. The author asserts that the student movement is appropriating slogans from the nationalist movement of the Quiet Revolution, such as "maîtres chez nous" for their own student movement. She critiques the exclusionary nature of these slogans. If the nous includes only native born Quebecois, then are they ignoring the presence of African and native students in their classes? A video of a demonstration, she says, included only white faces among the protestors. The students attempt to evoke Pierre Vallières' notorious essay "les Negres blancs d'Amérique" which claimed the Quebecois suffered the same kind of discrimination from white Anglophones as blacks were suffering in the American south. It was hyperbole but it resonated with the radical-chic of the moment. The phrase also reminds me of the film about the Irish blues band that covered soul hits and declared that "the Irish are the blacks of Europe!"

The student movement does appear to dovetail with the Quebec separatist movement. It is little surprise that students from other provinces (of whom there are very few at Laval) or from other countries (including the Haitians I have met in the CELAT program) are not supporting the strikes. If one intends to move out of Quebec after earning one's degree, why would one wish to sacrifice an entire term of credits in order to preserve lower tuition for future undergraduates here in Quebec?

Another op-ed in the same paper examined how the Parti Quebecois leader has taken to wearing the red square, symbol of the student movement, on her lapel. Will this be a successful strategy for the PQ? I'm not sure, but there is an obvious resonance. The strikers attack the Liberal party provincial government and demand to be "maîtres chez nous" as if the liberals and the university rectors are their anglophone oppressors.

Portland Timbers vs. Montréal Impact

The only possible meeting between Oregon and Québec teams in major sports will take place this coming Saturday 2 pm at Stade Olympique in Montréal. Portland Timbers vs. Montreal Impact. I'd love to go. It would be my first MLS soccer game and the second time at the Olympic Stadium. I saw the Expos play there in 1993!

Je veux que les Inuit soient libres de nouveau

Last weekend I went to a poetry reading called Les Bruits du Monde connected with the Salon du Livre book fair here. It featured 20 different poets in less than two hours, and nearly all of them were memorable. Several of the readers were Haitian, including Dany Laferrière who is one of Canada's best known contemporary authors, and I think four were Native authors, or Autochthones as they like to say here in Quebec. Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui, a Wendat writer and part of the important Sioui family, was one and Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau, a Cree métisse painter and writer, was another.

Native authors who publish in French and in an autochthonous language are interesting, and I'm sure are very little known to the US scholarly community in Native American Literature. I'd like to pursue this a little and try to read some of their works, and perhaps try to publish something on it if I find a writer I enjoy reading.

As a first step I began reading the autobiography of Taamusi Qumaq, Je veux que les Inuit soient libres de nouveau. Taamusi lived from 1914 to 1993, and also wrote an ethnographic and historical encyclopedia, in the Inuit language. His work alongside Louis-Jacques Dorais, translator of the autobiography, was instrumental for the creation of a dictionary of the language as well. But Taamusi spoke and wrote only Inuktitut, so this is an "as-told-to" autobiography. And like the works of that type in the 19th and early 20th century, such as Black Hawk's autobiography, it describes the enormous changes that colonization and modernity brought to his people, all within one lifetime. Until the early 1950s, Qumaq writes, there were no airplane flights to the villages of northern Quebec, only a resupply ship that arrived once every summer. The people lived in igloos all winter and in tents in the summer. Qumaq travelled by dogsled to fetch the mail for his community. They trapped fox and sold the pelts to traders from Revillon Freres or the Hudson Bay Company, and with the proceeds purchased only tea, ammunition, tobacco and flour.

Not until the 1960s did Qumaq and the community of Puvirnituq where he lived begin to sense the political forces of Canada. He writes of the "les deux paliers de gouvernement, fédéral et provinciale" and explains that he favored the Quebec authorities. In 1964 Qumaq, in his capacity of chair of the town council, met René Lévesque at a conference of Inuit leaders. At that time Lévesque was ministre des richesses naturelles, and in the midst of his effort to nationalize Hydro-Québec. He also worked to change the language of instruction in schools for Inuit children in Québec from English to French. The ministre said at the meeting that "Les Inuit ne devraient pas perdre leur culture et leur langage. Ils devraient pouvoir travailler dans leur propre langue...Les Blancs qui travaillent dans les collectivités inuit devraient parler l'inuktitut" (94). Those lines could just as easily have been spoken about Quebec and the French language. Qumaq was persuaded, and later even joined the Parti Québecois! This even though the schools recently established in his village demanded that the children to speak only English.

What interests me is the potential validity of an analogy between Quebecois nationalism and sovereignty movements and indigenous ones. Each can claim to be a colonized people whose language and traditions are under threat of assimilation by Anglo-American imperialists. I've begun to study how Quebecois scholars of the colonial period claim an affinity for Indians and even a kind of regional autochthony, or "originarity" to coin a term. Yet within Quebec the first nations peoples are not necessarily any better off than elsewhere in Canada, and some of them are quite annoyed by the way Francohphone Quebec claims to be a "distinct society" with special rights and privileges such as ought to be granted to the true natives of the country.

Wal-Mart Quebec

Last Sunday we went to Wal-Mart. I did not think there were any Wal-Marts in Quebec, because I remember news from many years ago that they shut down a store in St. Hyacinthe rather than allow its workers to organize. Nonetheless, there are many Wal-Mart stores in Quebec today. Wal-Mart first found success with stores in smaller towns in the Midwest and South, where people were not affluent and in any case had few retail options. The same holds true for much of Canada outside the major cities. But unlike the US South, Canada does not have anti-Union laws. The United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada has had some success in organizing workers here. Their website does not say which stores or how many workers they represent, but it explains the card-check process that applies in Quebec, which is similar to what we have in Oregon.

Our trip to Walmart, at a huge and hideous Gallerie Mall in suburban Quebec City, entailed waiting for several minutes, through three light cycles, to turn left into the complex. We also had to wait another ten minutes, Hannah and I, just to buy a soccer ball. Walmart was doing plenty of business that day. It was depressing to be stuck in there on a warm and sunny day. Fortunately, when we finally got out and returned to the hockey rink nearby where Josh was having baseball practice, Hannah and I explored the Parc Chauveau next to the rink. The Riviere Saint-Charles flows through the park, and it has lively rapids and small cliffs alongside. The shale there makes stones perfect for skipping, which Hannah loved.  This park is part of a "parc linéaire" that runs for 32 kilometers along the St. Charles.

Not only does Quebec City have Wal-Mart, they also have Costco! Our friends the Robichauds who lived for ten years in Georgia before moving back to Quebec three years ago, told me that when they go to Costco, it's like a visit back to the USA. "Even the people are fatter!" Catherine said. But Target is not yet found here, although Louis Robichaud said that Target's parent company has bought out some of the Zeller's stores formerly run by the Hudson's Bay company. The Robichauds would like to see Target in Canada.