Читать книгу Maurice Duplessis - Marguerite Paulin - Страница 13
ОглавлениеWhen asked what name he would choose for his child, Nérée Duplessis answered:
“Maurice, if it’s a boy. Do you know why? To honour the people in the riding of Saint-Maurice, because that’s where I was first elected to the Quebec legislature in 1886 – and I hope to represent them for as long as I can.”
On April 20, 1890, two months before his re-election to the Legislative Assembly, 1 Conservative politician Nérée Duplessis hands out cigars to his friends. His wife, Berthe Genest, has just given birth to a strapping baby boy. The family’s first son cries in his crib. He is hungry, and he is thirsty. Bursting with pride, a jubilant Nérée mingles with his guests. The family lineage is assured.
Berthe Genest, mother of Maurice Duplessis
Nérée Duplessis, father of Maurice Duplessis around 1895.
Maurice Duplessis, around 1908, a young law student at the Université Laval of Montreal.
“Look! My son is already an orator. Just listen to him! He insists on being heard. He’s already showing character. A real Duplessis.”
Berthe swaddles her infant.
She thinks of her neighbours who have just lost a newborn. The health of an infant is so fragile. The remedies against contagious diseases are not very effective. The christening must take place soon as possible. If something should happen to the little boy, at least he will not end up in Limbo.
The city of Trois-Rivières is Bishop Laflèche’s kingdom, especially when he preaches fire and brimstone from the pulpit: the sky is bleu1, hell is rouge2. Formerly a missionary in the Canadian West, the prelate with the flashy reputation has returned to Quebec to preach ultramontanism, a movement that advocates the supremacy of Church over State. His most fervent political mouthpiece is Nérée Duplessis who, in the spirit of reciprocity, benefits from Bishop Laflèche’s influence over his parishioners. He is reelected virtually without opposition in his home riding.
The two make quite the pair.
So it is only natural that Bishop Laflèche should bless the son of the honourable member for Saint-Maurice. When his godmother holds the wriggling newborn above the baptismal font, the prelate, lost in prayer, administers the sacrament: Vade retro, Satana. Then, with a solemn gesture, he makes the sign of the cross on the baby’s forehead. “I baptize thee, Joseph Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Nérée and Berthe feel at peace. Their child is now a son of the Catholic religion.
Nothing can cloud their happiness.
In Trois-Rivières, the Duplessis family enjoys the prestige of being comfortably off. Son of the Conservative member, Maurice lacks for nothing. In winter, he cavorts on the skating rink. He plays hockey sporting a brand-new sweater and skates. In summer, he runs to the baseball field in knickerbockers, with the proper leather glove on his hand. On Sundays, the whole family occupies the front pew in their parish church.
The years pass in peaceful serenity, but a dark shadow hovers in the background. There are days when Nérée is haunted by the unthinkable. Could he one day lose the election? With Honoré Mercier in power, the member for Saint-Maurice pulls out all the stops against the despised enemy. He attacks ferociously, like Caton the Ancient against Carthage:
“They’re all rotten, the Rouges! And this Mercier, what a scoundrel! He has so much money that he built himself a mansion out in the country while our poor farmers are starving.”
The departure of the head of the Liberal Party gives new impetus to the Duplessis family for whom politics is the mainstay of their existence. Maurice, constantly overhearing his father’s propaganda, picks up his words: “They’re all rotten, those Rouges!” This makes his parents laugh. Eventually, might he not also represent the riding? A future premier, perhaps?
In 1897, Nérée fights yet another electoral campaign like a soldier in the line of fire. Maurice loves accompanying him. Sometimes, he even improvises short harangues in support of his father. One day, he slips into the crowd gathered around the podium not far from the church and the small restaurant where they sell penny candy.
“Go and pass around these pamphlets to those who seem less interested, and also to the women. They don’t vote but they can influence their husbands,” Nérée tells his son before climbing up onto the podium. He is determined to point out the broad lines of his platform while reviling liberalism, branding it a social plague.
But his adversaries are tough. Some of them have even stormed the square. Maurice can’t believe it. They are heckling his father and shouting hostile slogans: “You’re a traitor, Nérée. The Bleus are scoundrels, rogues!”
What is the meaning of these words? Since John A. Macdonald agreed to the hanging of Louis Riel, the Conservative Party bears the blame for this emblematic death. Luckily for the Duplessis family, the Saint-Maurice riding is Conservative through and through. In May 1897, Nérée is re-elected member of the Quebec legislature but this time he has to sit in the Opposition. Liberal Felix-Gabriel Marchand has won fifty-one seats against twenty-three Conservatives.
Maurice is the only boy in a family of five children. Mischievous, spoiled by his sisters Etiennette, Marguerite, Gabrielle, and Jeanne, he knows they will always forgive him his pranks. One day at mealtime, his father, losing patience, orders him abruptly:
“Maurice, stop being so silly at the table!”
Instead of stopping, the young boy gets up and answers back:
“There! Now I can go on… I’m no longer at the table.”
Maurice is very amusing. He knows how to win people. His mother makes a fuss over him. His sisters lavish affection on him. Nérée says of his eight-year-old son that he is a troublemaker, like his ancestors. “He’ll go far. He’s not afraid of discipline.” When it’s time to think about his education, his parents choose one of the best schools for this lively and resourceful boy. It is autumn of 1898. Maurice Duplessis is enrolled as a student at College Notre-Dame, Montreal.
Montreal seems to be at the other end of the world. The first few weeks are very difficult for the young boarder – the long corridors, the dark dormitory, the classrooms with their blackboards. From the window of the refectory, the boy tries to glimpse the blue of the sky poking through the trees. The school, run by the Brothers of the Holy Cross congregation, is located in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges, a rather remote spot but recently accessible by tramway. The landscape, with Mount Royal right across from the college, reminds him of the Mauricie region.
Maurice Duplessis is an obedient pupil who works hard to obtain good marks. His notebooks are filled with expressions of praise, stamps, and stars; his report cards are satisfactory. He looks like a model pupil dressed in a blue blazer with brass buttons, short pants, and a white shirt with a hard collar. In June, when the prizes are handed out, he doesn’t mind if he is not first in all subjects. What is important is his parents’ presence in the hall. And knowing that he will spend the summer in Trois-Rivières. At last, he will be able to play baseball with Paul, Robert, and Jean, his little neighbours from Hart Street whom he hasn’t seen for ten months.
At Collége Notre-Dame, there is someone who performs miracles!
Maurice comes home full of stories about his life in Montreal. His mother listens to him. He tells her that one day, as he was walking down the corridor, he noticed a strange little man with a threadbare cassock.
“Everyone calls him the ‘greasy brother’ because he helps cure wounds with oil. But I call him by his real name: Brother André. And he’s a friend.”
Brother André is very devout, humble. He reminds Maurice of people he knows in Trois-Rivières. He has the same humility and generosity of spirit. Brother André is the college doorman. Often he is tired after his long day. To help him, Maurice offers to fetch the pupils and bring them to the common room. From then on, they become close. The child admires the Brother who speaks of St. Joseph like a friend.
“You know, Mother, Brother André says that one day he will have an oratory built on Mount Royal in honour of his patron saint, Joseph. Many people laugh at him but I don’t. I’m sure he’ll succeed.”
He admires such determination. Maurice is discovering the mysterious power that this humble man exercises over others. A kind of charisma. It fascinates him.
After he graduates from Collége Notre-Dame, Maurice continues his classical studies at the Trois-Rivières Seminary. Even though he is only a teenager, people are already taking notice of his talent as an orator.
“Why not come to the Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin Academy?” a friend asks one day. “You like history and politics. I listened to your arguments about the Boer War and they were very convincing. You can take part in the debates we are organizing around certain themes. Next week, it will be Lincoln and the War of Secession. We need someone who will defend the Confederates. It’s a thankless role, but I can see you standing up for those who have been defeated.”
What an opportunity! Maurice is enthusiastic. He joins this group of young people who engage in spirited verbal matches. Elegant in his three-piece suits, with a trim moustache and his hair slicked back, he is impressive. And when he participates in the debates, he stirs up the audience. He soon stands out from the group.
“Who is that boy who speaks so well?”
“He’s the son of Nérée Duplessis, the former representative for Saint-Maurice. Watch him, he’ll go far, this young man. They say he can’t be beaten when it comes to politics.”
His reputation grows. His father, who holds a salon, introduces him to his friends, well-known members of the Conservative Party. Maurice talks about current affairs with historian-politician Thomas Chapais and two former premiers, Louis-Olivier Taillon and Edmund James Flynn. The year is 1908 and Trois-Rivières is slowly recovering from the great fire of June 22. Rumour says that the fire started in a stable with horses for hire. It spread like wildfire, destroying the centre of town. The business sector, the post office, the offices of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the beautiful parish church – a whole architectural heritage turned to ashes. The fire couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Industrialization had just started to draw rural families into the towns. But Trois-Rivières cannot compete with Montreal and Quebec City. Maurice reassures Thomas Chapais, who is worried about how the region will develop. He tells him that neither the Wabasso Cotton Company nor the Shawinigan Water and Power Company are about to leave town. And that reconstruction will help modernize their small city.
“Trois-Rivières, with the help of American capital, can become the new economic centre of Quebec,” says Maurice. “We have the forests for logging and the factories for producing pulp and paper. Loggers and workers come from everywhere to work here in the Mauricie region. And we are at midpoint on the river, which gives us the most sought-after resource in the twentieth century: electricity. The Shawinigan Power Company is our trump card. The fire is out; water is our future.”
Maurice’s intuition is accurate. He understands the challenge of the future. When he speaks, it’s easy to imagine that one day he will run for office.
“But I’m not even old enough to vote yet. First, I want to study law at Université de Laval in Montreal.”
His career plan is simple: finish his legal studies and then return to Trois-Rivières to open his own law practice. Maurice intends to climb the rungs of the profession step by step. And afterwards? When he is admitted to the Bar, there will be time enough to redirect his life. He doesn’t hide his ambitions, but he wants to consolidate his chances and learn the rules of the game before going into battle. Easy does it. This young man is not in a hurry. For the moment, he is busy making contacts and asking advice from his elders.
During a political meeting, he talks to Louis-Olivier Taillon, the patriarch with the white beard and the easygoing manner who seems to incarnate a wise man. Despite being defeated several times, the man’s authority has never been questioned. The elderly politician, feeling nostalgic, casts his mind back to the ultramontane movement. Ah! Those were wonderful times when the Zouaves marched to save the Pope. In 1868, one hundred and thirty-five volunteers left from Bonaventure Station, feeling brave and bold.
“Remember, Maurice, our faith and our language have saved the French-Canadian people. In politics, the Church is our ally. The Conservatives’ strength is based on the respect for tradition. The Liberals like to show off their great orators like Ernest Lapointe, but you’ll see, one day we’ll be back in power.”
Young Duplessis’s reply is lively and prompt:
“I also believe that. Henri Bourassa wants to be our new saviour, but Louis-Joseph Papineau’s grandson is in fact an imposter. On today’s political stage, the head of the nationalist movement doesn’t measure up. As for Lomer Gouin, he’s a Liberal with an eye on Ottawa. He is betting on both sides. We just have to be patient. The Conservative Party will rise from the ashes, believe me. It is never as much alive as when everyone is singing its swan song.”
The young man turns onto Saint-Hubert Street by way of Sherbrooke Street. Université Laval, located in the heart of the Latin quarter, is farther down Saint-Denis Street. This evening, Maurice is meeting friends at the Ouimetoscope movie house. They are showing the documentary Chutes du Niagara en hiver [Niagara Falls in Winter] and the silent film Le papillon humain [The Human Butterfly]. A novelty. Movies are in fashion and the archbishop of Montreal is starting to be wary of this kind of entertainment on a Sunday. But for the moment, at the corner of Montcalm and Sainte-Catherine streets, Maurice slips into the theatre along with the rest of the crowd. On the verge of obtaining his law degree, he cuts a fine figure. He is wearing a suit with a matching tie and breast pocket hanky. His hair is slicked back with perfumed pomade, and he sports a well-trimmed moustache. Son of a bourgeois family, he is a member of the privileged class. He exudes the good manners of his family. During a recent “model parliament” organized by the students of the law faculty and staged at the Monument National Theatre, he impressed his fellow students. He has talent, especially as a public speaker. He can control any audience. And he knows how to hold their attention.
“He is charismatic,” someone remarked. “The only problem is, he knows it.”
Before being admitted to the Bar in September 1913, Maurice Duplessis articles in Montreal in the offices of Monty & Duranleau, friends of his father’s. With them he is free to discuss legal affairs and political ideas. The two old-timers from the Bleus are furious at seeing the rising popularity of Nationalist leader Henri Bourassa who, in January 1910, founded the newspaper, Le Devoir. He is a pundit. When he speaks in the name of the French-Canadian nation, one can hear the voice of his ancestor, Papineau, leader of the Patriots of 1837. Duplessis, amused, watches this new leader of the defrocked ones from the past: “He makes me think of the Titanic that sank last year: a big ship that boasted it was unsinkable and was destroyed by an iceberg.”
Maurice, very perceptive, understands that French Canadians need political heroes. Since Confederation, it has always been the great orators who have defended the bastion of the French-Canadian nation threatened by assimilation. In Ontario, Bill 17, which declared English as the only language in the schools, cranked up Quebec patriotism by a notch. This is where the battle lies, thinks the young man. A wise decision, made at a time when those who want to run for office hesitate between Ottawa and Quebec City.
Prior to 1874, several politicians chose to represent both a federal and a provincial riding. Louis-Olivier Taillon, at the time leader of the Conservative Party and former premier of Quebec, had also been an MP in Ottawa, and even minister of postal services in the Tupper cabinet. But Maurice Duplessis is convinced Quebec is the battleground where the political rights of the French Canadians must be defended.
Already, at twenty-three, he is telling his friends that one day, he will run for office. But he doesn’t want to throw himself into the arena like a rookie, without experience or the necessary preparation. He wants to take the time to study the plans, tactics, and strategies of the Liberals and the Nationalists. He believes that one should never underestimate one’s adversaries. To win, one needs time – and he is patient.
These are troubled times. Maurice follows closely what is happening around the world. He reads the newspapers. Small conflicts are breaking out all over the planet, like in the Balkans. But these events happening so far away are of little concern to him. Robert Borden, the Conservative who won against Wilfrid Laurier, has been directing the destiny of the country since 1911. Canada is coping pretty well with its internal problems. Life goes on, with its highs and its lows, without too many problems. Today the weather is beautiful. On Sainte-Catherine Street, it is the end of June and already summer. By chance, he bumps into a friend.
“Did you hear the news? The Archduke of Austria, Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand, has just been assassinated.”
“It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go…”
It is Sunday afternoon. The gramophone needle slides along the grooves of the record. Maurice is in his parents’ parlour. He and his father are talking about Trois-Rivières, Montreal, and the events that have inflamed the planet. It has been more than two years since Canada entered the First World War on the side of Great Britain. The war is dragging on. Who would have thought that the shot fired by terrorist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914 against Franz Ferdinand, Archduke and heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, would have plunged so many countries into fire and bloodshed?
“What a shame that Borden had to pass a law on conscription,” confides Maurice to his father. “Once again, French Canadians will criticize their government for having duped them. In Ottawa, the government had promised that it would send only volunteers. Quebecers won’t soon forget that it was the Bleus who forced unmarried men to sign up.”
“Particularly since the province clearly voted against conscription. The Conservatives are only just recovering from their blunder in the Louis Riel affair and they are once again showing their contempt of French Canadians.”
“Yesterday I saw our young neighbour who was called up and has to report to Montreal next week. He is leaving to go halfway around the world. This will be the first time he crosses the Atlantic, and it is to go and fight… And he’s just eighteen.”
Maurice is certain that the entry of the United States into the war will hasten the end of the struggle. At least that is what he hopes. Even though he is not afraid of going to the front – as a professional he is exempt – he has seen pictures in the newspapers of mutilated poilus1 and young men lying in the trenches on their bayonets. It’s a dirty war. Although his own law practice is going well, the mood everywhere is dark.
Nérée guesses that his son is hiding something from him. Getting up, he walks to the window. Turning his back on Maurice, he speaks in stinging tones:
“I heard that you’re seeing young Augustine Delisle. Tell me: what does her father do?”
The answer is long in coming. The silence is heavy.
“I think he sells coal.”
How can the son of the former MLA who has become a judge, Nérée Duplessis’s only son, become involved with the daughter of a coal merchant?
“Listen, Maurice! Have you thought what people will say about you? About us? And when you have children? A lawyer with the daughter of a coal merchant! What a dishonour for the family!”
The argument dies out. A knife has been driven into his illusions, his dreams, his love. If Maurice insists on courting Augustine, he had better know once and for all, the Duplessis family will never agree to such a union. There is no question of going against his father’s authority. Marriage is a very big commitment. Will he have enough time for family life? And is that what he really wants?
Politics is what interests him more and more. He wants to dedicate himself with more rigour, more seriousness. The First World War is about to turn the universe upside down. When German cannons are finally silenced, when our soldiers finally come back, Canada and Quebec will have been transformed. A new society will rise up out of the old one. The young man feels ready to step out from the wings. He wants to play a leading role at the Legislative Assembly. Love can wait. Augustine is a fine girl, and one day she will find a fine young man and have children. Nérée settles into his armchair:
“Put another record on the gramophone.”
Maurice adjusts the speaker and, without even looking, almost as if by accident, he plays a love ballad full of hope:
La Madelon pour nous n’est pas sévèreQuand on lui prend la taille ou le mentonElle rit, c’est tout l’mal qu’elle sait faireMadelon, Madelon, Madelon [Madelon is never strict with us When we take her by the waist or cup her chin She just laughs, she’s never mean Madelon, Madelon, Madelon]
1. The Quebec Legislative Assembly was renamed the “National Assembly” in 1968.
1. Conservative.
2. Liberal.
1. French nickname for a soldier who fought in the First World War (1914–18).
