Le Canada-français /, 1 avril 1942, Correspondance de Parkman, IV

CHRONIQUE DES ARCHIVES par l’abbé A.Maheüx VINGT-HUIT ANS DE CORRESPONDANCE AVEC M.PARKMAN MANUSCRIT DE l’abbé HENRI-RAYMOND CASGRAIN «Mon cher ami, (Suite) « Jamaica Plain, 23 May '73 « Many thanks for the Mémoires de Laterrière1, which I myself much pleasure in reading.promise « I had already suspected that some of your views had drawn upon your comment in certain quarters 2, though I confess myself unable to see how these views are reconcilable with others which I know you to hold." I use the word democracy in its general and not in its party sense,—that is in the same sense in which it is used in French.In other words, I regard the suffrage of ignorant classes of men! black or white, as a nuisance and a danger.Those who cannot form political opinions for themselves are sure to be led by others.I niversal suffrage is, as I think, the most dangerous enemy of liberal government and the source of all the dangers which threaten the Imted States.Of one thing.I beg you to be entirely assured and that is that your article in the Revue has not in the slightest degree affected the cordial regard which I entertain for you.I knew that you wrote it with pain and regret, in obedience to a sense of duty; and besides, I believe that, when I feel confident in my position, I am not very sensitive to criticism.« Faithfully your friend ».Parkman m avait fait l’honneur de venir passer plusieurs jours avec moi à la Rivière-Ouelle, à la fin de l’été J.édition tirée à un très petit nombre d’exemplaires qui ne sont pas dans le commerce.M 2.Allusion à certaines attaques dirigées contre moi par quelques journaux, à cause de mes appréciations des écrits de M.Parkman qu’ils trouvaient lui etre trop favorables.^ Le Canada Fbançais, Québec, vol.XXIX, n° 8, avril 1942. ARCHIVES 693 1873.C’est à cette visite qu’il fait allusion dans la lettre qui suit: « Jamaica Plain, Oct.14, 1873.« My dear abbé, « Thank you for the three little books you sent me on the purpoise fishery x.They remind me very pleasantly of my charming visit at the manor house of River Ouelle.Pray give my respects to Madame your mother and to all the members of her most kind and hospitable household.« I return to morrow to Boston for the winter.A few days ago I was on Lac Saint-Sacrement, which was superb in its autumnal foliage.« Ever very cordially ».M.l’abbé H.R.Casgrain, Manoir d’Airvault, Rivière-Ouelle, P.Q.« F.Parkman.« Boston, 25 Oct.‘73.« My dear friend, « I congratulate you on your agreeable prospects, and trust that your journey may give you both pleasure and restored strengt i « The portrait of Mad.de Frontenac is No.35082 (Versailles, troisième étage).On lit sur le tableau, Anne de la Grange Comtesse de Frontenac.La peinture est du XVIIme siècle.Elle, la dame, porte un casque, une cuirasse, une écharpe bleue, et elle tient un bouclier et un arc.« Quant à son mari vous vous rappelez, sans doute, la gravure, reproduite en petit par le photographe Livernois, qu’on dit être de Frontenac après sa mort.Livernois en a encore.Si vous vouliez mettre une de ces petites cartes dans vos malles pour essayer en trouver l’original en France, et pour apprendre si e e est en effet le portrait de Frontenac, vos compatriotes et moi nous vous en saurions gré.« Adieu, mon ami, bon voyage.1 Eclaircissements sur la pêche aux marsouins dans le golfe Saint-Laurent Cet article se trouve reproduit dans le premier volume de mes Oeuvres, imprimé à Montréal, chez Beauchemin et Valois.2.Le portrait de Frontenac dont parle ci-dessus M.Parkman est apocryphe.Ce n’est autre que celui de Jean-Henri Heidegger, pasteur protestant, qui se trouve dans l’Art de connaître les hommes par la phy-Sionomfe par Gaspard Lavater.Cette vérification est due aux patientes recherchesP de M Ernest Myrand.On peut consulter à ce sujet son ouvrage, Sir William Phipps devant Quebec.A la demande de M Myrand, j’ai fait photographier au palais de Versailles, le portrait de la Comtesse de Frontenac.Le Canada Français, Québec, vol.XXIX, n° 8, avril 1942. 694 LE CANADA FRANÇAIS « P.S.Je ne sais pas où est né Frontenac.Sa principale demeure était l’Isle-Savary, près Blois.C’était ici qu’il se ruinait par des dépenses sans bornes, ce qui fit dire à Mlle de Montpensier qu’il avait besoin d’être surintendant des finances pour supporter ses extravagances.« Je ne puis m’empêcher de croire que le portrait dont Livernois a fait la photographie est vraiment celui de Frontenac, pris après sa mort.Mais par qui ?Quel artiste y avait-il alors au Canada ?Moi, je ne sais.Cependant, l’intelligence, la fermeté, l’orgueil, l’empreinte altière et fine de sa haute naissance y sont marqués tous.« Si vous allez à Paris, vous passerez peut-être par l’école des Chartes.En ce cas, pourriez-vous faire copier, à mon dépens, les principales pièces sur le Canada dont vous m’avez parlé?J’en serais très reconnaissant.J’avais le dessein d’y aller moi-même quand j’étais à Paris, mais j’étais alors trop occupé ailleurs.Néanmoins je vous prie avant tout de ne point risquer votre santé et vos yeux.Vous voyagez pour vous délasser et non pas pour travailler.« Encore, adieu; je vous serre la main.F.P.» « Boston, 2 avril 1874.« Mon cher ami, « J’ai reçu il y a une demi heure, votre aimable lettre du 31 mars, et je suis bien aise d’entendre de vos nouvelles.Je vous félicite de tout mon cœur de votre retour et de l’heureux succès de votre voyage.« Je n’ai rien entendu de la part de M.Jules Fontaine.J’espère qu’il ne tardera pas, car j’ai fini un volume que j’ai l’intention de publier avant l’automne.Je m’y suis occupé principalement de l’application du système de Colbert au gouvernement du Canada, de son caractère et de ses effets.Si vous voulez m’envoyer l’adresse de M.Fontaine, je lui écrirai tout de suite.« Je vous prie de me rappeler au souvenir de Madame votre mère, de Mademoiselle votre sœur, et de toute votre famille.(( Croyez à l’amitié sincère de votre tout dévoué.» M.Jules Fontaine dont parle ici M.Parkman est le pseudonyme sous lequel était connu à Paris notre malheureux poète canadien, Octave Crémazie.Comme il y était fort à la gêne, il avait accepté la proposition que je lui avais faite de faire la copie des manuscrits dont M.Parkman avait besoin.Je lui avais particulièrement indiqué une masse de pièces fort importantes que j’avais feuilletées avec lui aux Archives Nationales.Le Canada Français, Québec, vol.XXIX, n° 8, avril 1942. ARCHIVES 695 « 50, Chestnut St.Boston, 11 May 74.« My dear fried, « Pardon my delay in answering your note of ap.22.I have been in the country for a week or two.As for the passage about the bishop, and the citation, I have suppressed both, not that I believe that they would have attracted comment, but that I wish to avoid any possibility of it.(( The papers which I bouquet from Paris — chiefly from the Marine and Colonies — have proved extremely rich in information as to the condition of the colony, on which they throw a great deal of new light.Their revelations, unfortunately, are not always agreeableT In fact, the condition of Canada under the old régime was simply deplorable.My book1 is in the printer's hands.I shall send you an early copy.« Pray give my remembrance to M.Letellier and believe me.« Very faithfully yours ».« 50, Chestnut St., Boston, 25 July 1874.« My dear friend, « I was much disappointed, a few days ago, not to find you at Quebec, where I made a short visit with my two daughters.« I have received a duplicate list from M.Fontaine, and have sent him a request to copy a considerable number of documents chiefly relating to the war of 1755-63.I had had an impression that the Archives of the Ecole des Chartes were distinct from the Archives Nationales 3, from which I had already obtained a number of very interesting documents.M.Fontaine’s list, however, reveals others equally valuable for the later parts of my series, and I expect to receive from him some 400 or 500 pages, including the correspondence of Vaudreuil for the year 1759.« I suppose that mv new volume, The Old Régime in Canada, will be out in Sept, and*I shall send you an early copy.The next Frontenac and thç Canadian Wars 4 will be to me much more agree- 1.The Old Regime in Canada., 2.M.Letellier de Saint-Just était alors lieutenant-gouverneur de la province de Québec.i ¦»» t> i.;î.Ce qui avait donné lieu à cette méprise de la part de M.1 arkman, c’est que l’École des Chartes et les Archives Nationales sont installées toutes deux dans l’ancien hôtel Soubise.M.Parkman croyait avoir des recherches à faire dans deux endroits différents, tandis qu â 1 hoU'l .ou bise, il n’y a de documents sur le Canada qu’aux seules Archives Nationales.4.Comme pour son ouvrage sur les Jésuites, M.Parkman a modifie le titre de ce volume qui, on le sait, a paru sous celui de: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.Le Canada Français, Québec, vol.XXIX, n* 8, avril 1942. 696 LE CANADA FRANÇAIS able and much less difficult writing.The material for it is all prepared and arranged.« With respects and compliments to Madame Casgrain and all her family.« Yours very truly ».La lettre qui suit est une réponse à la critique du Old Regime que j’avais publiée dans la Revue Canadienne de Montréal, et qui est publiée dans le premier volume de mes Oeuvres, p.376, édition de Beauchemin et Valois.Il n’y a guère que les lecteurs qui ont lu, ou qui se donneront la peine de lire mon article, qui comprendront les remarques de M.Parkman.« Jamaica Plain, Mass.9, May 1875.« Mon cher ami, « I am an abonné of the Revue Canadienne, and have just read your article on the Old Régime, with attention and interest.It is very much what I had expected, knowing your views and the ardor with which you embrace them, as well as the warmth and kindliness of your feelings.I could take issue squarely on the principal points you make, but it would make this letter too long, and I do not care to enter into discussion with a personal friend on matters which he has so much at heart.Moreover, I wish to preserve an entirely judicial, and not controversial, frame of mind on all that relates to Canadian matters.Let me set you right, however, on one or two points, personal to myself.My acquaintance here would smile to hear me declared an advocate of democracy and a lover of the puritans.I have always declared openly my detestation of the unchecked rule of the masses, that it to say of universal suffrage, and the corruption which is sure to follow in every large and heretogenious community.I have also always declared a very cordial dislike of puritanism.I recognise some most respectable and valuable qualities in the settlers of New England, but do not think them or their system to be praised without great qualifications; and I would not spare criticism if I had to write about them.Nor am I at all an enthusiast for the nineteenth century, many of the tendencies of which I deplore, while admiring much that it has accomplished.It is too democratic and to much given to the pursuit of material interests at the expense of intellectual and moral greatness, which I hold to be the true and to which material progress should be but a means.« My political faith lies between two vicious extremes, democracy and absolute authority, each of which I detest the more Le Canada Français, Québec, vol.XXIX, n° 8, avril 1942. ARCHIVES 697 because it tends to react into the other.I do not object to a good constitutional monarchy, but prefer a conservative republic, where intelligence and character, and not numbers, hold the reins of power.« If you have mistaken my views, I could also point out a good many other mistakes in your article.You say that I see Canadian defects through a microscope and merits through a diminishing glass.The truth is, I have suppressed a considerable number of statements and observations because I thought, that while they would give pain, they were not absolutely necessary to the illustration of the subject; but I have invariably given every favorable testimony I could find in any authentic quarter; and after I had finished the volume I made careful search in Ferland and Garneau to see if they had discovered anything which had escaped me.The materials of Canadian history, it is true, proceed almost entirely from the pens of persons born and bred in France — for the Canadians themselves wrote very little indeed — but only a very few of these persons wrote in an adverse spirit.Wherever it was possible, I have used their own language.As for d’Allet, I have indicated his proclivities by stating that his statements are printed in the Morale Pratique, a publication well known as hostile to the Jesuits.The end of the paper stop me, I have space only to tell your how much I value your testimony to my conscienciousness as a writer, and your remarks, too partial I fear, on the literary qualities of the book.Very cordially yours.F.Parkman.« P.S.I am well aware that the conduct of the British government towards the Canadians was for a long time unjust, and in some respects grossly so; but it is not the less true that it was the conquest to which Canada owes the introduction of the institutions by which she has so greatly prospered.« In exhibiting the different workings of two political systems, it was necessary to make comparisons which seem invidious; but these comparisons are not as you say, continual; for they are confined to three or four pages at the end of the book, and the points of military efficiency on which the system of authority had advantages, are fully exhibited.You say that I show more patriotism than impartiallity.Let me beg you to turn to the foot of page 265 and the top of p.266 of the Revue, and judge as to which of us your remark best applies.As for the cri de haine Lb Canada Français, Québec, vol.XXIX, n°8, avril 1942. 698 LE CANADA FRANÇAIS which you impute to me 1, I assure you that my patriotism is not of the sort to be disturbed at this day by any vision of puritan scalps.« I am well on in the story of Frontenac, whose good and bad traits I shall endeavor, after my custom, to exhibit clearly.Perhaps, when you read what I have written, you will not think me so partial after all.« I expect to receive from France about 6000 (or more) pages of entirely, new material on the war of 1755-63.I have received about 3000 of them this winter, and have still several copiests at work in the archives ».« 50, Chestnut St.Boston, 28 Nov.1875.« My dear Abbé, « It seems to me that your last researches about the Champlain chapel have overthrown your first2.It is not often that an archaeologist becomes in this way his own critic.M.Drapeau will wish that he and not you had discovered the documents in the Faribault collection and the greffe of Quebec.* I wish I dared to infer that your eyes w*ere so far improved as to enable you to use them among the musty papers of two centuries ago.« Frontenac is about half written.Papers on the Seven Years War are still coming from Paris.I have now about 6000 pages of those in addition to those which had been previously copied by others.« Very faithfully your fried, F.Parkman.« I am as much puzzled as you about the ruins of the fort on the Bay of Châteaux.Perhaps at some later time, I may find something about it.1.M.Parkman ne me paraît pas ici avoir bien saisi ma pensée.Ce n’est pas de lui personnellement que je voulais parler, mais des colons de la Nouvelle-Angleterre.Voici, au reste, le passage de ma critique auquel il fait allusion.« En un mot, nous avons mérité le cri de haine qui retentit jusqu’à nous, â travers les annales de la Nouvelle-Angleterre.« How New-England hated him (le gentilhomme canadien) let her records tell.The reddest blood streaks on her old annals mark the track of the Canadian gentilhomme ».C’est tout ce que je veux relever dans la défense que fait M.Parkman de son livre, et cela par un motif analogue à celui qui lui faisait dire au commencement de cette lettre: I do not care to enter into discussion with a personal friend.1.Voir ce que j’ai dit à ce sujet après la lettre de M.Parkman du 28 novembre 1866.Le Canada Français, Québec, vol.XXIX, n° 8, avril 1942. ARCHIVE» 699 M.Parkman fait ici allusion à une étude archéologique qui a paru dans l’Opinion Publique et dans laquelle je donnais la description et le plan des ruines d’un fort qui se voit encore aujourd’hui dans la baie des Châteaux (détroit de Belle-Île).Aucun antiquaire n’a pu jusqu’à présent découvrir le moindre document qui puisse renseigner sur l’origine de ces fortifications.« Jamaica Plain, 7 Sept.1876.« My dear Abbé, « I have just returned from a journey and a visit to a friend on Lake Champlain.I was three or four days at Ottawa, looking up papers in the Library of Parliament.I did not go down to Quebec, as I had no occasion to make any research there, and had little time to spare.« I am very sorry to have missed the visit of the Comte de Tu-renne, whom I should have been glad to see for the sake of his name and of your introduction.« Three or four chapters remain to be written of Frontenac.There is far more work in it than I expected.You will not like all parts of it.I have, as usual, given the facts, good, bad, and indifferent, exactly as I found them; and, as in most things human, there is much in them both to blame and to praise.« I regret to see that you still write by the pen of another.With earnest wish that your sight may be fully restored, I remain, my dear Abbé, “Very cordially yours #.« 50, Chestnut St.Boston, 27 Dec.1876.« My dear friend, « I received your note yesterday.The engraver who engraved the portrait of Menendez is dead, but there is another here who does much better work.His address is F.T.Stuart, 42 Court St.Boston.« I saw him this morning.He will make an excellent engraving on steel, of a head and bust, at from $75.to $100.« Another engraver, whom I also saw, asks the same price, but his work is not so good.« I shall begin to print my new volume in a week or two, and mean to publish it in the spring.« Yours very faithfully.F.Parkman.Le Canada Français, Québec, vol.XXIX, n° 8, avril 1942. 700 LE CANADA FRANÇAIS « Pray present my compliments to Madame Casgrain and to all your family.« If I can be of service to you here I shall be very glad.I shall look with much interest for your new work ».La gravure mentionnée ici par M.Parkman, et dont il se chargeait, avec une rare complaisance, de surveiller l’exécution, est celle de la Mère de Saint-Augustin, religieuse hospitalière, dont la vie extraordinaire fait partie de YHis-toire de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Québec que je me préparais à publier.Ce portrait se trouve en tête de la première édition de cette histoire.« 50, Chestnut St.Boston, 13 Feb.1877.« My dear fried, « Frontenac is about half through the press and will probably be ready in April.« Do not hesitate to let me know if I can serve you.Be sure that it is a pleasure to « Yours faithfully ».« My dear Abbé, (( I send you to day by post a copy of Frontenac, which will be published this week.« Ever yours truly.« Boston, 13 Sept.1877 ».(à suivre) Publication de l’Université Laval N.B.— Conformément à la cutume et dans l’intérêt d’une juste liberté, les articles de la Revoie sont publiés sous la responsabilité de leurs auteurs.Des ateliers de L’Action Catholique, Québec.