Canada

by John George Bourinot

In the days of the French régime there was necessarily no native literature, and little general culture except in small select circles at Quebec and Montreal. But during the past half century, with the increase of wealth, the dissemination of liberal education, and the development of self-government, the French Canadians have created for themselves a literature which shows that they inherit much of the spirituality and brilliancy of their race. Their histories and poems have attracted much attention in literary circles in France, and one poet, Mr. Louis Fréchette, has won the highest prize of the French Institute for the best poem of the year. In history we have the names of Garneau, Ferland, Sulte, Tassé, Casgrain; in poetry, Crémazie, Chauveau, Fréchette, Poisson, Lemay; in science, Hamel, Laflamme, De Foville; besides many others famed as savants and littérateurs. In art some progress has been made, and several young men go to the Paris schools from time to time. The only sculptor of original merit that Canada has yet produced is Hébert, a French Canadian, whose monuments of eminent Canadians stand in several public places. Science has not made so much progress as belles-lettres and history, though Laval University—the principal educational institution of the highest class—has among its professors men who show some creditable work in mathematics, geology, and physics. In romance, however, very little has been done.

The French Canadians have a natural love for poetry and music. Indeed it is a French Canadian by birth and early education—Madame Albani—who not long ago won a high distinction on the operatic stage. No writer of this nationality, however, has yet produced an opera or a drama which has won fame for its author. The priesthood, indeed, has been a persistent enemy of the theatre, which consequently has never attained a successful foothold in French Canada. Sacred music, so essential a feature of a Roman Catholic service, has been always cultivated with success.

The chansons populaires, which have been so long in vogue among the people of all classes in the province of Quebec are the same in spirit, and very frequently in words, as those which their ancestors brought over with them from Brittany, Normandy, Saintonge, and Franche-Comté. Some have been adapted to Canadian scenery and associations, but most of them are essentially European in allusion and spirit. The Canadian lumberer among the pines of the Ottawa and its tributaries, the Métis or half-breeds of what was once the great Lone Land, still sing snatches of the songs which the coureurs de bois, who followed Duluth and other French explorers, were wont to sing as they paddled over the rivers of the West or camped beneath the pines and the maples of the great forests. It is impossible to set the words of all of them to the music of the drawing-room, where they seem tame and meaningless; but when they mingle with "the solemn sough of the forest," or with the roar of rushing waters, the air seems imbued with the spirit of the surroundings. It has been well observed by M. Gagnon, a French Canadian, that "many of them have no beauty except on the lips of the peasantry." There is "something sad and soft in the voices that imparts a peculiar charm to these monotonous airs, in which their whole existence seems to be reflected."

I give below the most popular and poetical of all the Canadian ballads, and at the same time a translation by a Canadian writer:[2]

À LA CLAIRE FONTAINE. TRANSLATION.
À la claire fontaine Down to the crystal streamlet
M'en allant promener, I strayed at close of day;
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle Into its limpid waters
Que je m'y suis baigne. I plunged without delay.
Lui ya longtemps que je t'aime, I 've loved thee long and dearly,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai. I 'll love thee, sweet, for aye.
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle Into its limpid waters
Que je m'y suis baigné, I plunged without delay;
Et c'est au pied d'un chêne Then 'mid the flowers springing
Que je m'suis reposé. At the oak-tree's foot I lay.
Et c'est au pied d'un chêne Then 'mid the flowers springing
Que je m'suis reposé; At the oak-tree's foot I lay;
Sur la plus haute branche Sweet the nightingale was singing
Le rossignol chantait. High on the topmost spray.
Sur la plus haute branche Sweet the nightingale was singing
Le rossignol chantait; High on the topmost spray;
Chante, rossignol, chante, Sweet bird! keep ever singing
Toi qui as le coeur gai. Thy song with heart so gay.
Chante, rossignol, chante, Sweet bird! keep ever singing
Toi qui as le coeur gai; Thy song with heart so gay;
Tu as le coeur à rire, Thy heart was made for laughter,
Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer. My heart 's in tears to-day.

Tu as le coeur à rire, Thy heart was made for laughter,
Moi je l'ai-t à pleurer; My heart 's in tears to-day;
J'ai perdu ma maîtresse Tears for a fickle mistress,
Sans pouvoir la trouver. Flown from its love away.
J'ai perdu ma maîtresse Tears for a fickle mistress,
Sans pouvoir la trouver; Flown from its love away,
Pour un bouquet de roses All for these faded roses
Que je lui refusai; Which I refused in play.
Pour un bouquet de roses All for these faded roses
Que je lui refusai; Which I refused in play--
Je voudrais que la rose Would that each rose were growing
Fut encore au rosier. Still on the rose-tree gay.
Je voudrais que la rose Would that each rose were growing
Fût encore au rosier, Still on the rose-tree gay,
Et que le rosier même And that the fated rose-tree
Fût dans la mer jeté. Deep in the ocean lay.
Lui ya longtemps que je t'aime, I 've loved thee long and dearly,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai. I 'll love thee, sweet, for aye.

À la Claire Fontaine has been claimed for Franche-Comté, Brittany, and Normandy, but the best authorities have come to the conclusion, from a comparison of the different versions, that it is Norman. In Malbrouck s'en va-t-en-guerre, we have a song which was sung in the time of the Grand Monarque. Of its popularity with the French Canadians, we have an example in General Strange's reply to the 65th, a French Canadian regiment, during the second Northwest rebellion. One morning, after weeks of tedious and toilsome marching, just as the men were about to fall in, the General overhead the remark—"Ah! when will we get home?" "Ah, mes garçons," laughed the General—

"Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre
Mais quand reviendra-t-il?"