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Title: Sketches of Quebec
Author: Henry Van Dyke [
Titles by Van Dyke]
Sketches of Quebec
If you love a certain country, for its natural beauty, or for the
friends you have made there, or for the happy days you have passed
within its borders, you are troubled and distressed when that
country comes under criticism, suspicion, and reproach.
It is just as it would be if a woman who had been very kind
to you and had done you a great deal of good were accused of some
unworthiness. You would refuse to believe it. You would insist on
understanding before you pronounced judgment. Memories would ask
to be heard.
That is what I feel in regard to French Canada, the province of
Quebec, where I have had so many joyful times, and found so many
true comrades among the _voyageurs_, the _habitants_,
and the _coureurs de bois._
People are saying now that Quebec is not loyal, not brave, not
patriotic in this war for freedom and humanity.
Even if the accusation were true, of course it would not spoil the
big woods, the rushing rivers, the sparkling lakes, the friendly
mountains of French Canada. But all the same, it hurts me to hear
such a charge against my friends of the forest.
Do you mean to tell me that Francois and Ferdinand and Louis and
Jean and Eugene and Iside are not true men? Do you mean to tell me
that these lumbermen who steer big logs down steep places, these
trappers who brave the death-cold grip of Winter, these canoe-men
who shout for joy as they run the foaming rapids,--do you mean to
tell me that they have no courage?
I am not ready to credit that. I want to hear what they have to say
for themselves. And in listening for that testimony certain little
remembrances come to me--not an argument--only a few sketches on
the wall. Here they are. Take them for what they are worth.
I
LA GRANDE DECHARGE
September, 1894
In one of the long stillwaters of the mighty stream that rushes
from _Lac Saint Jean_ to make the Saguenay--below the _Ile
Maligne_ and above the cataract of Chicoutimi--two birch-bark
canoes are floating quietly, descending with rhythmic strokes of
the paddle, through the luminous northern twilight.
The chief guide, Jean Morel, is a _coureur de bois_ of the old
type--broad-shouldered, red-bearded, a fearless canoeman, a good
hunter and fisherman--simple of speech and deep of heart: a good
man to trust in the rapids.
"Tell me, Jean," I ask in the comfortable leisure of our voyage
which conduces to pipe-smoking and conversation, "tell me, are you
a Frenchman or an Englishman?"
"Not the one, nor the other," answers Jean in his old-fashioned
_patois._ "M'sieu' knows I am French-Canadian."
A remarkable answer, when you come to think of it; for it claims
a nationality which has never existed, and is not likely to exist,
except in a dream.
"Well, then," I say, following my impulse of psychological curiosity,
of which Jean is sublimely ignorant, "suppose a war should come
between France and England. On which side would you fight?"
Jean knocks the dottle out of his pipe, refills and relights. Then,
between the even strokes of his paddle, he makes this extraordinary
reply:
_"M'sieu, I suppose my body would march under the flag of England.
But my heart would march under the flag of France."_
Good old Jean Morel! You had no premonition of this glorious war
in which the Tricolor and the Union Jack would advance together
against the ravening black eagle of Germany, and the Stars and
Stripes would join them.
How should you know anything about it? Your log cabin was your
capitol. Your little family was your council of state. Even the
rest of us, proud of our university culture, were too blind, in
those late Victorian days, to see the looming menace of Prussian
paganism and the conquer-lust of the Hohenzollerns, which has
plunged the whole world in war.
II
OXFORD
February, 1917
The "Schools" building, though modern, is one of the stateliest
on the Main Street. Here, in old peaceful times, the university
examinations used to be held. Now it is transformed into a hospital
for the wounded men from the fighting front of freedom.
Sir William Osier, Canadian, and world-renowned physician, is my
guide, an old friend in Baltimore, now Regius Professor of Medicine
in Oxford.
"Come," he says, "I want you to see an example of the Carrel
treatment of wounds."
The patient is sitting up in bed--a fine young fellow about twenty
years old. A shrapnel-shell, somewhere in France, passed over his
head and burst just behind him. His bare back is a mass of scars.
The healing fluid is being pumped in through the shattered elbow
of his right arm, not yet out of danger.
"Does it hurt," I ask.
"Not much," he answers, trying to smile, "at least not too much,
M'sieu'."
The accent of French Canada is unmistakable. I talk to him in his
own dialect.
"What part of Quebec do you come from?"
"From _Trois Rivieres,_ M'sieu', or rather from a country back
of that, the Saint Maurice River."
"I know it well--often hunted there. But what made you go to the
war?"
"I heard that England fought to save France from the damned Germans.
That was enough, M'sieu', to make me march. Besides, I always liked
to fight."
"What did you do before you became a soldier?"
"I was a lumberjack."
(What he really said was, _"J'allais en chantier,"_ "I went
in the shanty." If he had spoken in classic French he would have
said, _"J'etais bucheron."_ How it brought back the smell of
the big spruce forest to hear that word _chantier_, in Oxford!)
[Illustration: "I was a lumberjack."]
"Well, then, I suppose you will return to the wood-cutting again,
when this war is over."
"But no, M'sieu', how can I, with this good-for-nothing arm? I
shall never be capable of swinging the axe again."
"But you could be the cook, perfectly. And you know the cook gets
the best pay in the whole shanty."
His face lights up a little.
"Truly," he replies; "I never thought of that, but it is true. I
have seen a bit of cooking at the front and learned some things.
I might take up that end of the job. _But anyway, Im glad I went
to the war."_
So we say good-by--_"bonne chance!"_
Since that day the good physician who guided me through the hospital
has borne without a murmur the greatest of all sacrifices--the loss
of his only son, a brave and lovely boy, killed in action against
the thievish, brutal German hordes.
III
SAINTE MARGUERITE August, 1917
The wild little river _Sainte Marguerite_ runs joyously among
the mountains and the green woods, back of the Saguenay, singing
the same old song of liberty and obedience to law, as if the world
had never been vexed and tortured by the madness of war-lords.
A tired man who has a brief furlough from active service is lucky
if he can spend it among the big trees and beside a flowing stream.
The trees are ministers of peace. The stream is full of courage
and adventure as it rushes toward the big sea.
We are coming back to camp from the morning's fishing, with a
brace of good salmon in the canoe.
"Tell me, Iside," I ask of the wiry little bowman, the best hunter
and fisher on the river, "why is it that you are not at the war?"
"But, M'sieu', I am too old. A father of family--almost a
grandfather--the war is not for men of that age. Besides, it does
not concern us here in Quebec."
"Why not? It concerns the whole world. Who told you that it does
not concern you?"
"The priest at our village of _Sacre Coeur,_ M'sieu'. He says
that it is only right and needful for a good Christian to fight
in defense of his home and his church. Let those Germans attack us
here, _chez nous_, and you shall see how the men of _Sacre
Coeur_ will stand up and fight."
It was an amazing revelation of a state of mind, absolutely simple,
perfectly sincere, and strictly imprisoned by the limitations of
its only recognized teacher.
"But suppose, Iside, that England and France should be beaten down
by Germany, over there. What would happen to French Canada? Do
you think you could stand alone then, to defend your home and your
church? Are you big enough, you French-Canadians?"
"M'sieu', I have never thought of that. Perhaps we have more than
a million people--many of them children, for you understand we
French-Canadians have large families--but of course the children
could not fight. Still, we should not like to have them subject to
a German Emperor. We would fight against that, if the war came to
us here on our own soil."
"But don't you see that the only way to keep it from coming
to you on your own soil is to fight against it over there? Hasn't
the English Government given you all your liberties, for home and
church?"
"Yes, M'sieu', especially since Sir Wilfred Laurier. Ah, that is
a great man! A true French-Canadian!"
"Well, then, you know that he is against Germany. You know he
believes the freedom of Canada depends on the defeat of Germany,
over there, on the other side of the sea. You would not like a
German Canada, would you?"
"Not at all, M'sieu', that would be intolerable. But I have never
thought of that."
"Well, think of it now, will you? And tell your priest to think of
it, too. He is a Christian. The things we are fighting for belong
to Christianity--justice, liberty, humanity. Tell him that, and tell
him also some of the things which the Germans did to the Christian
people in Belgium and Northern France. I will narrate them to you
later."
"M'sieu'," says Iside, dipping his paddle deeper as we round the
sharp corner of a rock, "I shall remember all that you tell me, and
I shall tell it again to our priest. You know we have few newspapers
here. Most of us could not read them, anyway. I am not well convinced
that we yet comprehend, here in French Canada, the meaning of
this war. But we shall endeavor to comprehend it better. And when
we comprehend, we shall be ready to do our duty--you can trust
yourself to the men of _Sacre Coeur_ for that. We love peace--we
all about here _(nous autres d'icite)--but we can fight like the
devil when we know it is for a good cause--liberty, for example._
Meanwhile would M'sieu' like to stop at the pool _'La Pinette'_
on the way down and try a couple of casts? There was a big salmon
rising there yesterday."
That very evening a runner comes up the river, through the woods,
to tell Iside and Eugene, who are Selectmen of the community of
_Sacre Coeur,_ that they must come down to the village for an
important meeting at ten o'clock the next morning.
So they set off, quite as a matter of course, for their thirty-five
mile tramp through the forest in the dark. They are good citizens,
as well as good woodsmen, you understand. On the second day they
are back again at their work in the canoe.
"Well, Iside," I ask, "how was it with the meeting yesterday? All
correct?"
"All correct, M'sieu'. It was an affair of a new schoolhouse. We are
going to build it. All goes well. We are beginning to comprehend.
Quebec is a large corner of the world. But it is only a corner,
after all, we can see that. And those damned Germans who do such
terrible things in France, we do not love them at all, no matter what
the priest may say about Christian charity. They are Protestants,
M'sieu', is it not?"
"Well," I answer, hiding a smile with a large puff of smoke, "some
of them call themselves Protestants and some call themselves
Catholics. But it seems to me they are all infidels, heathen--judging
by what they do. That is the real proof."
_"C'est b'en vrai, M'sieu',_" says Iside. "It is the conduct
that shows the Christian."
IV
BELOW CAPE DIAMOND March, 1818
The famous citadel of Quebec stands on top of the steep hill that
dominates the junction of the Saint Charles River with the Saint
Lawrence. That is Cape Diamond--a natural stronghold. Indians and
French, and British, and Americans have fought for that coign of
vantage. For a century and a half the Union Jack has floated there,
and under its fair protection the Province of Quebec, keeping its
quaint old language and peasant customs, has become an important
part of the British Empire.
The Upper Town, on the high shoulders of Cape Diamond, with
its government buildings, convents, hospitals, showy new shops,
and ancient gardens, its archiepiscopal palace, trim theological
seminary, huge castle-like hotel, and placid ramparts dominating
the _Ile d'Orleans_ with rows of antiquated, harmless cannon
around which the children play--the Upper Town belongs distinctly
to the citadel. The garrison is in evidence here. A regimental band
plays in the kiosk on Dufferin Terrace on summer evenings. There
is a good mixture of khaki in the coloring of the street crowd,
and many wounded soldiers are seen, invalided home from the front.
They are all very proud of the glorious record that Canada has made
in the battle for freedom. Most of them, it seems to me, are from
English-speaking families. But by no means all. There are many of
unmistakable French-Canadian stock; and they tell me proudly of
the notable bravery of a certain regiment which was formed early
from volunteers of their own people--hunters, woodsmen, farmers,
guides. The war does not seem very far away, up here in the region
of the citadel.
The Lower Town, with its narrow streets, little shops, gray stone
warehouses, dingy tenements, and old-fashioned markets, is quite a
different place. It belongs to the slow rivers on whose banks it
drowses and dreams. The once prosperous lumberyards are half empty
now. The shipping along the wharfs has been dwindling for many
years. The northern winter puts a quietus on the waterside. Troops,
munitions, supplies, must go down by rail to an ice-free port. The
white river-boats are all laid up. But a way is kept open across
the river to Levis, and the sturdy, snub-nosed little ice-breaking
ferry-boats buffet back and forth almost without interruption. There
is a plenty of nothing to do, now, in the Lower Town; pipe-smoking
and heated discussion of parish politics are incessant; an inconsiderate
quantity of bad liquor is imbibed, _pour faire passer le temps._
Suddenly--if anything can be said to happen suddenly in Quebec--bad
news comes from the Lower Town. A riot has broken out, an insurrection
of the French-Canadians against the new military service act, an
armed resistance to the draft. Windows have been smashed, shops
looted. A mob, not very large perhaps, but extremely noisy, has
marched up the steep curve of Mountain Hill Street, into the Upper
Town. Shots have been exchanged. People have been killed. The
revolution in Quebec has begun.
That is the disquieting rumor which comes to us, carefully spread and
magnified by those agencies which have an interest in preventing, or
at least obstructing the righteous punishment of the German criminals
in this war. Can it possibly be true? Have the French-Canadians gone
crazy, as the Irish did in 1916, under the lunatic incantations of
the Sinn-Feiners? Are they also people without a country, playing
blindly into the hands of the Prussian gang who have set out to
subjugate the world?
No! This riot in the old city is not an expression of the spirit of
French Canada at all. It is only a shrewdly stupid trick in local
politics, planned and staged by small-minded and loud-voiced
politicians who are trying to keep their hold upon the province.
The so-called revolutionists are either imported loafers and
trouble-makers, or else they are drawn from that class of "hooligans"
who have always made a noise around the Quebec hotels at night. They
shout much: they swear abominably: but they have no real fight in
them. They can be hired and used--up to a certain point--but beyond
that they are worthless. It is a waste of money to employ them.
The trouble below Cape Diamond froths up and goes down as quickly
as the effervescence on a bottle of ginger beer. Before you can
find out what it is all about, it is all over. It has not even
touched the real French-Canadians, the men of the forests and the
farms. They are loyal by nature, and slow by temperament. You have
got to give them time, and light.
What is happening in Quebec now? Just what ought to happen. The
draft is going forward smoothly and steadily, without resistance.
Sons of the best French-Canadian families are volunteering for the
war. Recruits from Laval University are coming in, stirred perhaps
by the knowledge that forty thousand Catholic priests in France
have entered the army which fights against the Prussian paganism.
The petty politicians who have sought to serve their own ends
by putting forward the mad notion of secession and an independent
"Republic of Quebec" have gone to cover under a storm of ridicule
and indignation. M. Bourassa's iridescent dream of French-Canadian
nationalism has disappeared like a soap-bubble. M. Francoeur's
motion in the Quebec legislature, carrying a vague hint that the
province might withdraw from the Dominion if the other provinces
were not particularly nice to it, was snowed under by an overwhelming
vote. The patriotic and eloquent speech of the provincial Premier,
M. Gouin, was received with every sign of approval. The political
cinema has shown its latest film, and the title is evidently
_"Fidelite de Quebec."_
Meantime a Catholic missioner has been in the province. The visit
of Archbishop Mathieu of Saskatchewan was probably made on the
invitation, certainly with the consent, of the hierarchy of Quebec.
That intelligent and fearless preacher brought with him a clear and
ringing gospel, a call to all Christian folk to stand up together
and "resist even unto blood, striving against sin"--the sin of
the German war-lords who have plunged the world in agony to enforce
their heresy that Might makes Right.
Such a message, at this time, must be of inestimable value to
the humble and devout people of the province, attached as they are
to their church, and looking patiently to her for guidance. The
parish priests, devoted to their lonely tasks in obscure hamlets,
may get a new and broader inspiration from it. They may have a vision
of the ashes of Louvain University, the ruin of Rheims Cathedral,
wrought by ruthless German hands. Then the church in Quebec will
measure up to the church in Belgium and in France. Then the village
cure will say to his young men: "Go! Fight! It is for the glory
of God and the good of the world. It is for the Christian religion
and the life of free Canada."
"Well, then," says the gentle reader, of a sociological turn of
mind, who has followed me thus far, "what have you got to say about
the big political problem of Quebec? Is a French-speaking province
a safe factor in the Dominion of Canada, in the British Empire? Why
was Quebec so late in coming into this world war against Germany?"
Dear man, I have nothing whatever to say about what you call the
big political problem of Quebec. I told you that at the beginning.
That is a question for Canada and Great Britain to settle. The
British colonial policy has always been one of the greatest liberality
and fairness, except perhaps in that last quarter of the eighteenth
century, when the madness of a German king and his ministers in
England forced the United States to break away from her, and form
the republic which has now become her most powerful friend.
The perpetuation of a double language within a state, an _enclave_,
undoubtedly carries with it an element of inconvenience and possibly
of danger. Yet Belgium is bilingual and Switzerland is quadrilingual.
If any tongue other than that of the central government is
to be admitted, what could be better than French--the language of
culture, which has spoken the large words, _liberte, egalite,
fraternite?_ The native dialect of French Canada is a quaint
and delightful thing--an eighteenth-century vocabulary with pepper
and salt from the speech of the woodsmen and hunters. I should be
sorry if it had to fade out. But evidently that is a question for
Canada to decide. She has been a bilingual country for a long time.
I see no reason why the experiment should not be carried on.
Quebec has been rather slow in waking up to the meaning of this war
for world-freedom. But she has been very little slower than some
of the United States, after all.
The Church? Well, the influence of the Church always has depended
and always must depend upon the quality of her ministers. In
France, in Belgium, they have not fallen short of their high duty.
The Archbishop of Saskatchewan, who came to Quebec, preached a
clear gospel of self-sacrifice for a righteous cause.
But the plain people of Quebec--the _voyageurs_, the
_habitants_, my old friends in the back districts--that is
what I am thinking about. I am sure they are all right. They are
very simple, old-fashioned, childish, if you like; but there is
no pacifist or pro-German virus among them. If their parochial
politicians will let them alone, if their priests will speak to
them as prophets of the God of Righteousness, they will show their
mettle. They will prove their right to be counted among the free
peoples of the world who are willing to defend peace with arms.
That is what I expect to find if I ever get back to my canoemen on
the _Sainte Marguerite_ again.
SYLVANORA, July 10, 1918.
-THE END-
Henry Van Dyke's short story: Sketches of Quebec
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