LUCIEN BOUCHARD

HENRI BOURASSA

WHAT REMAINS OF HENRI Bourassa in Quebeckers’ collective memory? Few visible traces, alas: some street names, a Montreal metro station, and the daily reminder inscribed on the masthead of Le Devoir by its publishers, in tribute to the newspaper’s founder. He is absent from contemporary political debate and commentary in Quebec—even more so in the rest of Canada.

Not that he is the victim of some singular ostracism: any politician’s endurance in the public mind is a slender thread on which the blade can quickly fall. Many others have joined Bourassa in the shadowy realm of the forgotten. Given that a recent survey found that 20 per cent of Canadians were unaware of who was currently governing their country, it should come as no surprise that such eminent figures as Lomer Gouin, Ernest Lapointe, Adélard Godbout, Joseph-Mathias Tellier, Armand Lavergne, and Olivier Asselin, to name a few, have vanished from memory. Even silhouettes that towered in their day—such as those of Wilfrid Laurier, Honoré Mercier, and (perhaps to a lesser extent) Louis-Joseph Papineau—have today receded into the mists of unfortunate unfamiliarity.

In writing this chapter on Henri Bourassa, I set out to paint a portrait of this exceptional and, in some respects, enigmatic figure. I have no pretension to a historian’s view—rather, mine is that of an observer fascinated by the origins, qualities, and contradictions of this fiery, intelligent man. Everything destined him for the fierce struggles he waged on behalf of the French language, minorities, and independence for what he felt was his country. His was a life of great triumphs, but of defeats and disappointments as well. As we shall see, in his efforts he often came up against the wall that nationalist Quebeckers sooner or later confront in Ottawa—especially those who, like him, found themselves in a double bind brought on by their Catholic allegiance and the demands of the clerical authorities of the time.

THE MAN

All representations of historical figures are necessarily approximations: one can only perceive them through the layered veils spun by champions and detractors alike, not to mention the inexorable blurrings of time.

It is even more difficult to paint a picture of Henri Bourassa, so stark was the contrast between the man and the world he lived in. Francophone Quebec society of the time was essentially agrarian, poor, and bereft of education. It did comprise a petite bourgeoisie, largely made up of doctors, lawyers, judges, and, in rare instances, business people, almost all of whom had modest upbringings. So it is difficult to imagine how that society could identify with the grandson of a seigneur whose name was already written in gilded letters in the political annals of the country.

Henri Bourassa’s childhood memories included the fleeting vision of that famous grandfather: Louis-Joseph Papineau, a living legend in his seigneurial manor, Montebello. Educated mostly by tutors, without ever receiving a graduate degree, young Henri was immersed in the artistic and intellectual milieux frequented by his father, the painter and sculptor Napoléon Bourassa. He read from a young age, and by his teen years was acquainted with novelists, poets, and historians both French and English. With his distinguished bearing, impeccable manners, elegant articulation in both languages, and faultless appearance, he cut an impressive figure, rather distant and severe.

He was a far cry from the typical politician spouting politicalese, and we would be hard pressed to imagine him on a modern talk-show set. It’s not merely a matter of different eras, but of character. Bourassa was imperious and brooked no compromise.

The question, then, is how did he tolerate the political arena? The fact is, he always refused to play the game, and usually to his detriment. That he left his mark on the politics of his time was more a matter of his sincerity, verging on passion, and his peerless talent.

It was through words that Henri Bourassa first connected with the people. It should be remembered that this was a time of orators. Crowds could discern the best of them. In Bourassa’s case, mastery of the art of speech went hand in hand with mastery of all the resources of language, leaving him fully engaged with his audiences and their emotions. History records several hundred assemblies at which he spoke, often for more than three hours at a stretch, outdoors in front of massive crowds, or in rooms packed to the rafters with fervent listeners.

Witnesses described Bourassa gesticulating and roving about the rostrum, then trying in vain to evade overexcited listeners who would accompany him home after some speeches. In the National Assembly, he was known to leave the bench, swept up by his own fiery words, and walk up and down the central aisle while continuing to speak.

Like every great orator, he had a twofold preparation process. He could always rely on a bedrock of general knowledge and deep thinking, nurtured by his wide-ranging reading. More immediately, though he would write some speeches in advance, he was most often content to draft notes, which he called his feuilles de route, or roadmaps. Like many speechmakers, he was a practitioner of prepared improvisation. But when confronted with consequential choices—adopting an editorial line, running for office, mapping out strategic directions—he forced himself to conduct painstaking analyses. That prudence didn’t keep him from outbursts in which he unleashed the power of his passionate convictions to full effect, firing up the crowd. That ability to rouse an audience, though, made him somewhat hesitant about the virtues of oratory. After all, he had once said of his grandfather, Louis-Joseph Papineau, that he was “possessed of the fatal gift of eloquence and let the enthusiasm he created around him go to his head.”*¹

Though his own public successes never led to disorder or agitation, Henri Bourassa would complain that they failed to produce any durable impact. He had more profound aims than to stir emotions temporarily: he had set himself the task of educating his fellow citizens and urging them to pursue the common good. This no doubt underlaid his decision to disseminate his ideas and his teaching through writing. Very early on, he began to publish texts of lectures and speeches, and his attraction to political journalism eventually led him to found Le Devoir in 1910. A respected editorialist and communicator, he headed the newspaper until 1932, penning countless editorials and articles. Though a proponent of engagé journalism, he was committed to respecting his adversaries and sought to refocus debate on ideas and principles.

To him, honesty was more than just a word. In his personal life as in his political action, he was the exemplar of integrity, relentlessly combatting corruption. Denouncing les coquins, or “scoundrels,” was part of Le Devoir’s inaugural mission statement.*²

Coupled with that constant concern was Bourassa’s staunch independence of mind. From his very first campaign, in 1895, he told the Liberal riding leadership that, if elected, he reserved the right to follow his convictions and vote with or against the party line. And he added that, to safeguard that freedom of expression, he would refuse “to allow so much as a penny of the election fund in his riding,”*³ paying his campaign expenses out of his own pocket.

The contemporary observer cannot help but perceive a degree of naïveté in these affirmations of independence. Though clearly sincere, they reveal—at the very least—a misunderstanding of the concessions demanded by the party line and by respect for its leader. Bourassa’s struggles on behalf of the French language and national independence would provide opportunities to realize this.

THE COMBAT ON BEHALF OF FRANCOPHONE MINORITIES

From the moment he entered the House of Commons, Henri Bourassa came up against the realpolitik of the federal government, embodied in the debate around the fate of the French-speaking Catholic minority in Manitoba. The root of the issue dated to 1890, and the adoption of provincial legislation that abolished that minority’s education rights. Such a flagrant violation of the guarantees provided in the 1867 Confederation agreement undermined the very foundations of the principle of equality between the two founding peoples, at least in the eyes of Bourassa and his supporters. The ensuing crisis was to influence Canada’s political history, laying the groundwork for the debate that has pitted Quebec against the rest of Canada to this day.

Players and pundits of the time were well aware of the degree to which Manitoba’s Official Language Act challenged the undergirding dynamics of Confederation. The promise of equality of the two peoples was precisely what had led Lower Canada to join the confederal partnership. Its champions had had to reassure their “rouge” opponents, who feared that “the French element would be completely crushed by the majority of English representatives.”*⁴ Minorities, they were told, were protected under sections 93 and 133 of the Constitution Act. By so brutally assailing those commitments, the Manitoba statute confirmed the pessimists’ worst fears.

The controversy unfolded in many twists and turns, fed by widespread indignation among not only the Quebec population but also the majority of its elected officials and clergy. After an initial round of court challenges failed, opponents demanded that the federal government intervene to re-establish the principles of duality and respect for minority rights. The government, caught between the intractable determination of English Canada and the virulence of the response from francophones, attempted in its turn to let the courts decide. In the end, the matter was brought before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in London, which ruled in January 1895 that the Canadian government had authority to intervene.

Obliged to act, the federal government under Conservative prime minister Mackenzie Bowell in March 1895 passed a remedial order-in-council requiring the Manitoba government to backtrack and restore minority language rights.

Bourassa said that month that “if the remedial order-in-council were followed up by effective legislation” he “would not hesitate to approve it.” By April, he had grown impatient, protesting that “hesitations, ruses, prevarication of politicians” were “poisoning the debate.”*⁵ In the meantime, he announced he was running for office in the riding of Labelle, as a candidate with Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberal Party.

In response to the Manitobans’ refusal to accede to the order-in-council, and almost as if his Conservative government had decided to take young Bourassa at his word, in February 1896 Bowell tabled a bill in the House of Commons, intending to force the province to implement the remedial measures that had been requested. Bourassa reacted immediately, saying: “Given what we know of it today, we must say in all fairness that the bill appears acceptable to us .”*⁶ He even hinted that Laurier would also welcome it.

The Liberal leader had so far refrained from expressing an opinion on the principles at issue. To buy time, however, and to delay commitment (with a federal election looming), in March 1896 he asked the House to hoist the bill for six months, much to Bourassa’s dismay.

The young MP’s reaction was typical of political rookies who find themselves suddenly trapped in an impasse. There is no doubt that Bourassa was an honest man, passionately engaged in upholding the rights of French Canadians and the inherent dualism of the federal system. He had entered politics with the best of intentions, with earnest early promises that he would constantly remain independent of both party and leader. He had unreservedly pledged his unwavering resolve to never stray from his convictions.

What would Bourassa do? Should he not condemn Laurier for his dithering? Would he maintain his commitment to supporting the remedial legislation, or betray it?

Laurier, too, had to take up a position. Now holding the levers of power following the June 1896 election, he could no longer duck the issue. The new Liberal prime minister was already perceived as one of the most credible of Canadian leaders. He had the support of the people of Quebec, benefited from the stature of a statesman, showed consummate skill, and spoke English so well that no one hearing him would suspect that he had French-Canadian roots. Born a quarter-century apart, Laurier and Bourassa had been sworn in at the same time; one as prime minister, the other as the Member for Labelle.

There is no space here to explore the rich, complex relationship that formed between the two men. Their mutual admiration, respect, and even affection were undeniable. The prime minister was impressed by the talent and promise of the young MP, who in turn was enthralled by the elder man’s charismatic personality and prestige. Laurier saw a great future for his young friend. He would later confide to him that he thought Bourassa could have become prime minister, adding that a lack of practicality was the only thing that kept him from the highest office in the land. But theirs was also a love–hate relationship, made of intense connections, separations, and reconciliations.

Laurier’s temperament, and his sense of his obligations as prime minister toward the whole country, would have been good indicators of how he planned to deal with the Manitoba issue. Someone with more experience than the young Member for Labelle could have foreseen the outcome. Bourassa was about to discover the prime minister’s propensity to back down any time he felt that Canadian unity was being jeopardized.

Invoking the constraints of the sociopolitical context, in July 1896 Laurier abandoned the idea of an inquiry, which he had recommended as leader of the opposition, and decided to go the route of negotiating with the Manitoba government, led by Premier Thomas Greenway.

Mesmerized by his trust in Laurier and feeling defenceless vis-à-vis the dominance of a major party, Bourassa did an about-face, taking refuge in evasive explanations. Rather than condemn the government for contenting itself with a placebo cure that did nothing to remedy a shameful violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, he hailed the “wisdom” of Laurier’s approach. Bourassa would later justify his refusal to support the Conservatives’ remedial bill by claiming that there was no provision for tools that would “make it work.”*⁷ No doubt the young MP did not enjoy having to stray from his usual rigour.

Quite adroitly, Laurier then entrusted his protégé with a delicate mission that ended up shackling him to a flawed agreement, arrived at through negotiations in which he had little say. Bourassa was named to the team of federal government negotiators dispatched westward. Though it was a time-tested method, the young parliamentarian failed to grasp that he was being manipulated.

The talks resulted in the November 1896 agreement that came to be known as the “Laurier-Greenway Compromise.” Historian Réal Bélanger denounced the “gulf that separated the Laurier-Greenway Agreement from the Manitoba Act of 1870, which had been so generous toward the two founding peoples,” and concluded that “the very idea of a bicultural Canada so dear to the Fathers of Confederation was once again brutally called into question.”*⁸ The agreement was reduced to a set of expedients: one half-hour of religious (Catholic) and language instruction per day in schools in which at least ten pupils spoke French or “any language other than English” [italics added]—an assimilation that clearly trivialized the status of French. In reality, it officialized the disappearance of the dual public school system in Manitoba.

Instead of attacking the agreement, Bourassa endorsed it, through linguistic oversimplification, talking of an honourable compromise and the “beginning of a settlement.” Francophones in Quebec were incensed, and practically every Catholic bishop in the province rose up against Laurier as well as Bourassa. One, Msgr. Louis-François Laflèche of Trois-Rivières, said that Manitoba Catholics had been sold out and the province of Quebec betrayed, and that the so-called settlement was a mere farce. Another, Msgr. Louis-Nazaire Bégin, a moderate from the Quebec City area, described the deal as a “shameful treaty” and “an absolutely immoral act.”*⁹

To counter the opposition from the Quebec prelates, Bourassa took it upon himself to devise a strategy, which Laurier would make his own. The idea was to request Rome’s intercession to call the bishops of Quebec to reason and ensure “the unity of the Church.”*¹⁰

The operation proceeded apace. Pope Leo XIII dispatched Msgr. Rafael Merry del Val to Canada, who investigated and returned to the Holy See to report. The Pope then issued the encyclical Affari vos in December 1897, which concluded that the Manitoba law was unjust and the Laurier-Greenway Compromise “defective,” but that “partial satisfaction [should] be accepted,” in the hope that, over time, the situation might improve in keeping with “the value of moderation, gentleness, and brotherly love.”*¹¹

For Réal Bélanger, this amounted to papal sanction of “Laurier’s method of compromise”*¹² and was to lead to “the emergence of an increasingly unicultural, English-speaking Canada: a state of affairs endorsed by Bourassa.”*¹³

It is impossible to relate here the episodes of the many other struggles waged by Bourassa in Ottawa on behalf of the French language. The similar ways in which they unfolded are immediately obvious. Each had a disappointing outcome. Yet they reveal a Bourassa with fewer illusions about the sincerity of Laurier’s promises and his ability to keep them in the face of English Canada’s political clout. From then on he would make sure to secure the support of his fellow francophone citizens—and, whenever possible, that of the Church.

Insofar as we can claim to have an accurate representation of the political and social atmosphere of the time, the grandson of Louis-Joseph Papineau clearly monopolized the interest of his contemporaries. His many speeches in multiple forums were reinforced in widely published articles. He was swiftly swept up in the gyre of a busy life in which political, professional, and personal episodes continued unabated. His career was punctuated by moments of elation, confrontations, travels, joys of family life, and discouragements. At each stage, one glimpses the life of a man of heart who was instinctively loyal to his people. A people for whom he had yearnings and ambitions that he came regrettably to feel were inaccessible.

Though it would be unwise to attempt to encapsulate Bourassa’s vision of his people and its elites in a few words spoken or written in times of disappointment, some of them do reveal that he loved that people enough not to idealize it. In 1912, he wrote, “Like…Laurier…, all opportunistic politicians have indeed judged the French-Canadian people: a race of sheep, guarded by mute dogs.”*¹⁴ Or consider this less than flattering portrayal of the elites: “They set the wrong example for a people that is in the process of becoming riffraff,” he wrote, condemning the people’s “lack of patriotism.”*¹⁵ At one of his 1943 conferences, discussing the aftermath of the hanging of Louis Riel, he expressed his disappointment at the fact that Quebec voters had still “given [Conservative prime minister John A.] Macdonald a majority of seats,” adding: “It was then that I began to have doubts about the political sense of my compatriots…, they have no opinions…no, they have sentiments. When they have given rein to their sentiment of the moment, they are satisfied.”*¹⁶ Laurier would later tell him that he regarded their fellow Quebeckers the same way.

If Henri Bourassa had too-lofty dreams for his people—believed in a calling for them that proved too ambitious—it was precisely because he himself tended to stride on peaks. He showed greatness and courage on many occasions, but never more so than on the evening of September 10, 1910, at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal, before a prestigious assembly of the most distinguished political, intellectual, and religious figures from Canada and abroad.

The occasion was the first-ever international eucharistic congress in North America. Msgr. Paul Bruchési, the archbishop of Montreal, along with all of the Catholic bishops in Quebec and the rest of Canada, had undertaken the organization of the event, which was to last five days. Three cardinals, seven hundred bishops, and ten thousand adherents were expected. The papal legate, Vincenzo Cardinal Vannutelli; the archbishop of Westminster, Francis Cardinal Bourne; the premier of Quebec, Lomer Gouin; the prime minister of Canada, Wilfrid Laurier; future cardinal Pierre-Marie Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon; and others were to speak. A public meeting would take place at Notre-Dame Basilica on September 10, the eve of the final solemn procession. Henri Bourassa was among the scheduled speakers.

The blows to minority rights outside Quebec in the preceding years, and the resulting controversies, were fresh in everyone’s minds. Far from subsiding, the linguistic tensions had been exacerbated when English Catholic bishops entered the fray: they took a dim view of their French-Canadian counterparts’ influence on the dissemination of Catholicism in the Canadian federation. Meanwhile, Irish Catholics in Ontario, led by Bishop Michael Francis Fallon, were against the continued presence of bilingual schools. Both groups felt the English language was the natural vector for evangelical expansion in North America. Moreover, they were objectively allied with English-speaking Protestants, who tended to be doubly hostile to anyone both francophone and Catholic.

Until the September 10 public meeting, Archbishop Bruchési and his colleagues on the organizing committee managed to keep a lid on the powderkeg. In their addresses, Premier Gouin, Prime Minister Laurier, and other speakers trod warily. All indications were that the event would come to a calm conclusion, albeit a muffled one, with things left unsaid.

When he reached his seat in the choir of the church, amid the most distinguished guests, Bourassa could see the crowd spilling out onto the forecourt and the neighbouring Place d’Armes. Archbishop Bourne strode to the podium and spoke in English. Directly addressing the role of the English language and culture in Canada, he adamantly declared, “The future of the Church in this country and its consequent re-action upon the older countries in Europe, will depend to an enormous degree upon the extent to which the power, influence and prestige of the English language and literature can be definitively placed upon the side of the Catholic Church.”*¹⁷ He went on: “It is only by bringing the English tongue to render service to the cause of truth that Canada can be made in the full sense a Catholic nation….Until the English language, English habits of thought, English literature—in a word the entire English mentality is brought into the service of the Catholic Church, the saving work of the Church is impeded and hampered.”*¹⁸

In attendance was a young priest, the future Canon Lionel Groulx, who observed, in the choir, “the stir caused by the Archbishop’s words: people whispering in each other’s ears, gesticulating, agitation in the corner around Bourassa.”*¹⁹ The ten thousand or so French-Canadian Catholics gathered in the church and in Place d’Armes had just heard that the language of Catholicism in Canada was not French, but English. Their mother tongue, it was claimed, had no place in Canadian Catholicism.

It caused a full-blown commotion in the crowd. Around Bourassa, dismayed French Catholic bishops shared disapproving remarks in hushed tones. Msgr. Langevin, known for his defence of minority-francophone rights in western Canada, whispered in Bourassa’s ear: “Do not leave it at that. There must be a response.”*²⁰

Bourassa decided he would do just that. But he would have to wait his turn—which gave him some time to structure his thoughts. He hadn’t counted on having to deliver a rebuke. And he was indisposed: he felt his gallstones acting up.

None of the other speakers had anything to say about Archbishop Bourne’s inflammatory remarks. Then Archbishop Bruchési, the master of ceremonies, announced: “You will now hear a great orator.” Abbé Groulx writes that the crowd exploded: “In one smooth motion, the assistants rise. The people want to see, to hear. The police barrier is broken; there is general pushing in the nave, in the galleries.”*²¹

The slim, upright man who strode to the ambo encircled by a metal banister was unquestionably the greatest Canadian orator of his time. In the fifteen or so years since he had entered politics, he had spoken of and debated the lot of his people on innumerable occasions, in every forum and to every type of audience. The thousands of his fellow French-speaking citizens massed around him had just heard another provocation, seen another threat to their language. Moreover, the attack had come from the must unpredictable of sources: a high Catholic authority. Bourassa, who would later write in Hier, aujourd’hui et demain that “language…comes to us from God,” was distraught.*²² Were they claiming that God was English?

At that moment, the fiery man of faith felt the expectations flowing toward him—and realized they were hopes that he must not disappoint. He also had to consider how what he was about to say would be interpreted in various quarters. Then he embarked on an extempore address that would go down as one of the most moving and most powerful speeches in Canadian history. This was not mere oratory, but a cri du cœur. That of a Christian, and a citizen, who had been deeply wounded.

He began by using the outline of the speech he had planned to give. Then he carried on, without notes, in a riposte to Msgr. Bourne’s unexpected attack: “His Eminence,” he began, “has spoken on the issue of language;…in the name of the Catholic interests, he has asked us to make [English] the customary language in which the Gospel would be announced and preached to people.”*²³ He immediately urged the prelate to “grant…to the Catholics of all nations who land on this hospitable soil of Canada, the right to pray to God in the language of their race, their country, the blessed language of their father and mother. Do not tear from anyone, oh you priests of Christ, that which is the dearest to man after the God he adores.”*²⁴ And he concluded, “Allow me…to claim the same right for my compatriots, for those who speak my language…under the maternal wing of the Catholic Church—the Church of that Christ who died for all men and who imposed on no one the obligation of denying his race that he might remain faithful to Him.”*²⁵

At that moment, stenographer Louis Achille Cusson noted the “frenzied” reaction of those in attendance.

Even at a century’s remove, at a time when religious fervour in Quebec has cooled considerably, it is impossible to read these impassioned lines without feeling the same emotions that overwhelmed those French Canadians in 1910, humiliated because of their language and loath to be forced into an agonizing choice between it and their Catholic allegiance.

Picture the orator, standing tall before the overflowing nave of the magnificent church in Old Montreal. He comes to life, striding from one side of the ambo to the other, launching one heartbreaking appeal after another: “Yes, when Christ was attacked by the Iroquois, when Christ was denied by the English, when Christ was attacked by the whole world, we have confessed and we have confessed in our language. Le sort de trois millions de catholiques, j’en suis certain, ne peut être indifférent au cœur de Pie X pas plus qu’à celui de l’éminent cardinal qui le représente ici.”*²⁶

To read the speech in its entirety is to understand the immense influence of Henri Bourassa on his contemporaries, as well as their boundless admiration for his humanism and oratory skills.

Three elements came together to forge Bourassa’s exploit that day at Notre-Dame: a great orator, an exceptional circumstance, and a fundamental issue. Bourassa had practised eloquence for too long to be unaware of his skills. After all, had he not once quoted Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, the famed preacher, for whom “orator and audience are one personage who are born and die together”?*²⁷

His listeners were moved to tears: here at last was someone who could express their indignation and their pride, a man with whom they were in perfect harmony, who could stir their most profound sentiments. The emotion brought on by the speech spread like wildfire, that very evening and in the ensuing days in Montreal and across Quebec.

What followed was to throw the ambiguous nature of the Church’s support for Bourassa’s nationalism into sharp relief. If the low clergy, the bishops and the French-Canadian diaspora generally supported and even applauded him, such was not always the case in the upper reaches of the episcopal hierarchy. It was they who had to deal with the Vatican, whose policy with regard to the linguistic rights of the French Canadians was one of fence-straddling. Bourassa himself on certain occasions had criticized concessions made by senior church dignitaries: they had decided to accept compromises that he deemed unfavourable to their flock.

The shock waves from the Notre-Dame speech reached as far as Rome, where church officials were alerted, among others, by cabinet minister Rodolphe Lemieux, who was dispatched by Laurier. The delegate met the cardinal secretary of state, Msgr. Merry del Val, who told him he found Bourassa’s words “scandalous.”

Bourassa decided to go to Rome himself to justify his views to Pope Pius X, who granted him an audience. Kneeling before the Holy Father, the politician explained the problematic situation of the French language in Canada. Pius X listened but, rather than replying, rose and abrubtly ended the audience, saying simply, “Very well, justice will be done.” His visitor was disappointed at the cool reception. “I had been given my dismissal,” he said later, and found it difficult to let go of what he perceived as a “small humiliation.”*²⁸

He was to pen even more bitter confidences in letters to a correspondent. In one, he wrote, “Fundamentally, men are the same everywhere and, aside from customs, decorum and manners, great men are hardly stronger or more shrewd in Rome than in London or in Ottawa.” And in another, “Officials, whether of the Church or the State, are generally short of sight, narrow of mind and hard of heart. One should not expect them to direct the public consciousness or display a sense of duty.”*²⁹

The year was 1910. Henri Bourassa was forty-two years old. He may have been a hero to his people, but he was disappointed as a politician and appalled as a Catholic. Had his life ended then and there, historians would surely have had an easier job of encapsulating his position vis-à-vis the Church, his faith, and the French language. He had always been a devout Catholic, but now began a period in which he lived his faith even more intensely—one might say absolutely. He began increasingly to question the importance of the link between language and religion, to the point that he mitigated and even disavowed his earlier commitment.

It would be futile to try to pinpoint where, exactly, the changes in the later life of this complex man began. There is one clear signpost, though: a turning point as obvious as it was irreversible. He had a second papal audience, this time with Pius XI in 1926. The tenor of that meeting is evidence of the reversal that caused Bourassa to doubt the priority he had always ascribed to language over the Church’s authority.

If Bourassa had shown himself to be moody in the days following his meeting with Pius X in 1910, the audience with Pius XI traumatized him. He described it as “the hardest lesson…of his life.” For an hour, the Pope reminded him of his “first duty,” which was to “defend the causes of God and of the Church…, other causes, even legitimate ones, are secondary and must be subordinate: a Catholic must never put them first.” Bourassa then heard the Pontiff bemoan “the substitution of nationalism for Catholicism.”*³⁰

Nationalism was a dirty word to Europeans, who viewed it as the root cause of the catastrophe of 1914–1918.*³¹ But Bourassa realized that it was his own brand of nationalism, his vision of the rights and the future of his people, that were the subject of the papal warning.

This time, he did not rebel. His reaction was simply one of prostration. Robert Rumilly writes that he sailed aboard the first available liner, returning home “almost without exiting his stateroom during the crossing…kneeling at the foot of the bunk…ready for every sacrifice.”*³² He related to a clergyman friend his heartbreak at having to submit to the head of the Church: “I know of course that my patriotic action does not do disservice to the Church; indeed it does it service…and yet the Pope is moved by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is infallible.”*³³

From then on, his major cause was to make the primacy of the rights of the Church central to his discourse. His faith in the Gospel message was accompanied by complete obedience toward the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1930 he admitted that, after his first political disappointments, he had taken “the resolution…in all matters…to obey the Pope.”*³⁴ In 1935, he disavowed everything in his career that “had not clearly respected the primacy of the rights of the Church over race, over language and over any human interest.”*³⁵ He went even further in 1943: “[From] this decisive hour of my life, I resolved, to the very end, to do everything to combat the evil signalled by the Pope.”*³⁶ The evil, of course, was the nationalism the Pope had denounced as “extreme.”

It is easy to imagine the dismay that those loyal to the nationalist leader would have felt upon reading in Le Devoir, in January 1929, this repudiation: “It is not permitted for Catholics, on the pretext of defending the French language, to jeopardize the unity and authority of the Church.”*³⁷

One can also imagine the reaction from voters who sought Bourassa’s counsel in the federal election of 1921, only to be told simply, “May God enlighten your conscience and those of your compatriots.”*³⁸ And what of the advice given to Armand Lavergne, his longtime disciple and lieutenant, who asked for Bourassa’s support when he sought the Liberal nomination in Wilfrid Laurier’s former riding of Quebec East? Lavergne’s mentor suggested that he rely on “Christian resignation and hope in God.”*³⁹

One cannot help but think that some drama played a part in the uncompromising soul-searching he conducted as he retreated into the silence of his later years.

Henri Bourassa was certainly not the first to realize that religion and politics do not always mix well. He had to cope (and did so poorly, by all accounts) with the impediments imposed by his religious allegiances on his political thought and engagement. It would appear that he lived with that subjugation serenely, in total surrender to his faith. At any rate, that is the state of mind one imagines he was in when, shortly before his eighty-fourth birthday and surrounded by his family, he breathed his last, having received last rites from François, the elder of his two Jesuit sons.

FIGHTING FOR INDEPENDENCE

Whether constraint or consolation, religion gave Bourassa free rein in the other great struggle of his life: the cause of Canada’s autonomy.

When the young MP for Labelle arrived in the House of Commons, Canada was a dominion of the British Empire, then at the pinnacle of its power and influence over fully one-quarter of the globe. In Canada, the Empire was a source of pride and much respected, especially among the English-speaking population. In the province of Quebec, the majority of the elites, including the Catholic bishops, readily accepted British supremacy.

Henri Bourassa did not. He had a fundamental objective from which he never wavered: to break the imperial chain. He felt this was a condition for the survival of Confederation.

He described his nationalism as “a Canadian nationalism, founded on the duality of races…; The homeland for us is the whole of Canada….The nation we wish to see develop is the Canadian nation composed of French and English Canadians…united in a sentiment of fraternity and devotion to a common homeland.”*⁴⁰ His speeches and texts championed “the only ideal worthy of the national ambition of Canadians…to show to the entire world the example…of a nation acceding to independence by measured degrees.”*⁴¹ Throughout his career, he emphasized “the need to create everywhere in Canada an authentic Canadian sentiment.”*⁴²

The modern reader will find nothing revolutionary about these words; they are spoken daily by Québécois proponents of Canadian federalism. At the time, though, Bourassa’s crusade was a brusque affront to public perception, especially in English Canada. Bourassa was brutally awakened to this in 1899 when London requested that Ottawa send troops to South Africa in support of the British Army’s South African War campaign.

At the time, Bourassa had been a member of Parliament for three years. He admired and adored his leader, and had no reason to think that Laurier might commit Canadians to a faraway conflict. But tensions began rising across the country, especially once the war had been declared in South Africa, where British reinforcements had been sent to help English settlers in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, both of which were controlled by the Boers. In Ontario, there was strong pressure on the government to send Canadian troops into the fray. The Empire needed its dominions, and Canada had to say yes.

In Quebec, meanwhile, there was virulent opposition. Bourassa made up his mind: he refused to consider any possibility of committing troops to assist the British. Laurier consulted aides, hesitated, and, in the end, announced that Canadian soldiers would be sent to South Africa. Appalled, Bourassa told the prime minister he would not follow him, and would contest his decision. The eventual force, however, consisted of volunteers only, transported and outfitted by the federal government. In his biography of Laurier, André Pratte writes that 7,300 Canadians fought in the Transvaal under orders from British officers.*⁴³

Forced to choose between siding with Laurier and leaving the party, Bourassa announced he was resigning his seat in the House of Commons on October 18, 1899. Two days later, he explained his actions to his Labelle constituents and announced that, to justify his decision, he would seek their support for a renewed mandate. They responded on January 18, 1900, electing him by acclamation as an independent MP. Quebec nationalists applauded his determination in standing against Laurier and his government. On the other side, in addition to blaming him for lacking loyalty toward the Liberal Party, many were saddened to see the promising young MP isolate himself and turn his back on a career that might have taken him very far indeed.

But Henri Bourassa had made his bed and would now lie in it. He continued to urge his compatriots to maintain a safe distance from England, to avoid all risk of being drawn into imperial wars. Along with his nationalist disciples, he believed the colonies of the British Empire should develop on the bases of nationalism and autonomy. The concept of autonomy was the basis for their definition of the status of Canada as well as that of the provinces: “For Canada, in its relations with Great Britain, the largest measure of political, commercial and military autonomy compatible with the maintenance of the colonial tie….For Canadian provinces, in their relation with the federal power, the largest measure of autonomy compatible with the maintenance of the federal tie.”*⁴⁴

Another controversy would furnish Bourassa with an opportunity to clearly illustrate his determination to shield Canada from imperial interference: the political upheaval surrounding the proposed creation of a Canadian navy.

The navies of Great Britain and Germany were engaged in an unbridled arms race, both countries pouring astronomical sums into the construction of new battleships known as dreadnoughts—steel-plated behemoths with displacements in the tens of thousands of tonnes and armed with massive guns. England called on the Dominion of Canada for help, requesting nothing less than for it to assume the cost of building warships for incorporation into the Royal Navy.

British leaders had reason to expect a positive response from Laurier, who had made a pledge to them at the Colonial Conference of 1897, held in conjunction with Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee: “If a day were ever to come when England was in danger, let the bugle sound, let the fires be lit on the hills, and…though we might not be able to do much, whatever we can do shall be done by the colonies to help her.”*⁴⁵ Malcontents of the time no doubt remarked that the author of this enthusiastic support for the Empire returned from that trip to London with the name Sir Wilfrid Laurier on his luggage.

By 1909, England had raised the alarm: Germany would achieve maritime supremacy in 1912. Imperialists in Canada were stirred to action: the Dominion had to come to the aid of the motherland and help it build more battleships. On January 12, 1910—coincidentally, two days after the first edition of Le Devoir was published—Prime Minister Laurier introduced a bill that was to equip Canada with its own naval fleet, choosing the same moment to declare to the House of Commons that “When Britain is at war, Canada is at war.”*⁴⁶

Bourassa protested in the strongest terms, demanding a plebiscite to allow the people to “manifest its will.”*⁴⁷ In English Canada, the imperialists chanted “One King, one fleet, one flag.”*⁴⁸

Laurier’s Liberals were soundly beaten in the 1911 federal election by the Conservatives under Robert Borden, who had promised to revisit Laurier’s Naval Service Bill. On the strength of that pledge, Bourassa sided with the Conservative leader. His support weighed heavily in the defeat of Laurier, but it also earned him harsh disapproval from the many Quebeckers who admired the francophone prime minister. He was severely reprimanded for having formed an alliance with the Conservatives…and then had to suffer the shame of having been duped by Borden. For, as soon as he was elected, the Tory prime minister broke his word and announced the Naval Aid Bill, under which Canada would provide thirty-five million dollars to Great Britain for the construction of three dreadnought-class vessels for the benefit of the British Royal Navy.*⁴⁹

Bourassa would once more step into the breach, this time during the Conscription Crisis of 1917, which he attacked in many speeches and editorials. But he did so with moderation, and this was remarked upon. Even as he campaigned against conscription, he was quick to express his wish that public turmoil be avoided. The day after giving a speech at the Monument-National in Montreal in June 1917, fearing the possible consequences of his fiery rhetoric, he published an article in Le Devoir that urged people to oppose conscription “with sangfroid.”*⁵⁰ He was deeply concerned about rumours of possible rioting and violence. As biographer Robert Rumilly noted, “Bourassa feared, as his grandfather had, that it would all end in riots and bloody reprisals.”*⁵¹ After that, he was relatively silent on the issue.

While he may not have dedicated himself so zealously to his repudiation of conscription, Bourassa remains the politician who most steadfastly advocated for the autonomy and even the independence of Canada.

HIS INFLUENCE

Though discreet and barely visible, the influence of Henri Bourassa continues to be felt in Canadian politics today. One needs only to revisit the writings he left us and trace his tumultuous career to see the extent to which he helped lay down the parameters of contemporary political players’ thought and action.

No one analyzed the concept of nationalism in greater depth. He said that his brand of nationalism was Canadian, in the sense that he believed in a “Canadian nation, composed of French Canadians and English Canadians.”*⁵² Time and again he affirmed, “for us, the fatherland is all Canada” and that he was a “Canadian above all.” In his view, that fatherland was entirely compatible with recognition of the “French-Canadian nation” and “French-Canadian patriotism.”*⁵³

Quebec federalists certainly identify with this view, which emphasizes an attachment to all of Canada as well as an allegiance to the French-Canadian nation. It explains why they cannot abide aspersions from certain sovereigntists who attribute their federalist leanings to a lack of Québécois patriotism. In reality, many of them are like Bourassa in that their loyalty to Canada includes a love for Quebec and a sense of belonging that, to them, are just as strong as those felt by sovereigntists. And, like him, they view French Canadians as full-fledged Canadians. The motivation and arguments of federalists today, in their confrontations with sovereigntists, are therefore directly descended from Bourassa’s thinking.

Bourassa consistently stood apart from the separatist leanings that he could see among some of his followers. In his day everyone, including proponents of independence for Quebec, used the term séparatiste (separatist) and not souverainiste (sovereigntist). He harshly attacked the goal of separation, even ridiculing it in texts and speeches lampooning Abbé Groulx, despite the fact that the latter was among his followers. In so doing, the austere leader revealed a sardonic side of himself that we may find hard to imagine. Speaking to visitors, Bourassa once described the future Canon Groulx amid his supporters in the “basement of a presbytery in Mile-End.” Hearing one colleague attack the English, another the Americans, a third the capitalists, and seeing a fourth “unsheath Napoleon’s sabre…, the little Abbé Groulx, who could not fight because of his priestly position, blessed the combatants.”*⁵⁴

Bourassa went so far as to warn young people against “those who appeal to their pride in their race.”*⁵⁵ He also took pleasure in invoking a categorical argument that separatism was incompatible with Catholicism: “Is this dream [Quebec separation] attainable? I do not think so. Is it desirable? I do not believe so, either from the French point of view or, even less, from the Catholic point of view, which in my opinion takes precedence over the interest of French.”*⁵⁶ He pulled no punches in describing the “dangers” of separatism: “It would unleash civil war, sow divisions in our ranks, be harmful to other French groups in America, pit us against forces that would crush us.”*⁵⁷

His persistence in ruling out sovereignty for Quebec as a solution to disillusionment with federalism is explained by his abhorrence of “outrageous”*⁵⁸ or “savage”*⁵⁹ nationalism. It is thus easy to understand the discomfort of André Laurendeau and Lionel Groulx, who did not advocate that scorned form of nationalism and had to suffer unjust accusations from a man whom they otherwise admired and respected.

Laurendeau put his finger on one aspect that goes some way toward explaining their hero’s anger and attacks. He felt that Bourassa would “fiercely turn against his disciples…when, drawing conclusions from his repeated failures, they will lean toward isolation or separatism.”*⁶⁰

Bourassa himself, of course, was not immune to those disillusionments. At times, he spoke of the “bankruptcy” of Confederation.*⁶¹ He repeatedly denounced violations of the constitutional rights of francophones, which strayed from the principle of Canadian duality. In the House of Commons in 1905, he could not help but speak his mind in what was seemingly a disavowal of the federal regime: “Every time I return to my province, I am saddened to see developing there a feeling that Canada is not a Canada for all Canadians….We are forced to reach the conclusion that Quebec is our only country because we have no freedom elsewhere.”*⁶²

For all that, he remained hopeful and, as André Laurendeau has written, “however strong his affirmation of French-Canadian identity, he chose to be Canadian….He always demanded an autonomous country, a truly bilingual country with complete religious freedom; he constantly had the door slammed in his face, but continued to stubbornly express his dual wish….No one was ever Canadian with as much conscience and obstinacy.”*⁶³ More prosaically, and using modern terminology, some would describe Bourassa’s view as “tired federalism.” But that would be failing to grasp that any disillusionment he felt was always tempered by hope. This tenacious individual brooked no deviations from the vision of the constitution espoused by those who orchestrated it in 1867.

If he were alive today, would he be a proponent of renewed federalism? We can no more answer that question than we can this one: How long would he have waited for a renewal of the federal regime before abandoning hope?

The central issue of his political action was the fate of the French language. His impassioned campaigns for the protection of his mother tongue even brought him ridicule. Laurier enjoyed mocking his “chivalric” impulses*⁶⁴; others compared him to Don Quixote. In spite of the many insults and attacks directed at him—he was variously called a “leader of the forces of evil,” a “fallen angel,” a “divider of races,” a “destroyer of Canadian unity,” and “dictator”—he never gave up on the issue of the survival of the French language.

He was not the instigator of that great debate, in which his famous grandfather was one noted protagonist, but the passion and tenacity with which he approached it stirred in future generations of Québécois an inescapable obligation to continue the struggle. In that sense, all Quebec nationalists are Bourassa’s heirs.

It is largely thanks to him that promoting and defending French remain part of the everyday reality of that language, especially in Quebec. Of course, those struggles are no longer waged under the same conditions as in Bourassa’s day, when the French language was “the custodian of [the Catholic] faith.”*⁶⁵ Nobody today would see a need to reconcile that fight with the demands of their faith; even less to seek a bishop’s nihil obstat. Free of such constraints, as we are today, we cannot easily appreciate the courage and determination displayed by Bourassa, forced to overcome conscientious objections and submit to the influence of Rome, at the moment that his battle for equal rights for francophones demanded his full energy and the greatest possible room to manoeuvre.

Respect for both languages was integral to his vision of Canadian duality, a founding principle of Confederation, in the minds and in the arguments of his defenders in Quebec. This was the perspective in which Bourassa conceived of bilingualism. He himself made sure to practise bilingualism, for mastery of English was an invaluable tool for him in advocating for the rights of his compatriots in English Canada.

Precisely because he loved Canada and had great expectations for this country, he sought the greatest possible degree of independence for it. Often considered by his opponents, especially English Canadians, to be disloyal to the Empire and to Canada, Henri Bourassa was an unflinching advocate of Canadian independence. His constant calls to sever all links of subordination with England and forge a fully sovereign country surely helped nurture, in everybody’s mind, the sense that national independence was a necessity.

He did win that battle, albeit posthumously. Were he alive today, he could rightly claim victory.

Henri Bourassa’s most tangible legacy today is surely the newspaper Le Devoir. He would doubtless remark that its editors continue to draw inspiration from values that he held dear: professional integrity, vigilance in monitoring injustices and condemning wrongdoings, allegiance to the nation of Quebec, and commitment to the French language and French-Canadian culture. While congratulating them for their resilience and appreciating the fact that readers are reminded every day of his founding role, the disciple of Louis Veuillot would surely hold his successors to account regarding their abandonment of the Church and Catholicism in favour of “ecological” proselytizing—and would probably demand a definition of the word ecological. He would be surprised to find so few Latin expressions in “his” newspaper, and would wonder whatever happened to the French–Latin dictionary by Quicherat that he had placed in the newsroom. And today’s editorialists and columnists would be wise to have some ready explanations for why the term Canadien français has been replaced by Québécois, and to be prepared to suffer the founder’s wrath upon learning that Le Devoir was now “separatist,” a defender of gender equality, and left-leaning.

In the end, though, Bourassa would not fail to value his newspaper’s vast influence in intellectual and political milieux, especially in government ministers’ offices, where political attachés rise at dawn to scrutinize every word before briefing their bosses once they are awake.

Le Devoir’s editors, meanwhile, would be most ill at ease if the august revenant told them he planned to take up the pen anew. For they would recall that in his day, he had opposed granting women the right to vote*⁶⁶ and advised them to “do more housework,”*⁶⁷ worried about the urbanization of Quebec, and, despite unequivocally condemning anti-Semitism,*⁶⁸ admired Marshal Pétain.*⁶⁹ But this is vain conjecture, of course: one cannot draw incriminating conclusions from those opinions, because it would be impossible to judge a time traveller from a bygone era according to the standards and criteria of a society so foreign to him in so many respects.

There is, however, one group to whom Bourassa’s influence might be very beneficial indeed: young Quebeckers, who are in need of a mentor. They would have a great deal to gain from his broad erudition and his admirable mastery of French. In getting to know him, they would also rectify some failings in the teaching of our history. Too often, the emerging generation lacks even minimal knowledge of the men and women who built the Quebec of today. In studying Bourassa, they would draw from the wellsprings of our history and discover a model of rigour, integrity, and selfless dedication. As François-Albert Angers has written, “A nation that no longer worships its great men has begun to die as a nation….The reward for being faithful to that memory would be a rejuvenation that we sorely need, and the oeuvre of Bourassa could well provide us with the principle for that rejuvenation.”*⁷⁰

Henri Bourassa’s entire career also provides a lesson that all Quebec nationalists elected to the House of Commons would do well to reflect on. It would teach them that their efforts to promote the interests of Quebec within a federalist party, especially if they are given a cabinet portfolio, are likely to encounter obstacles that often cannot be overcome. Those obstacles are not fixed, because they depend on the nature of the issue at stake and the importance that the person involved ascribes to it. In a debate pitting the interests of Quebec against those of English Canada, members of Parliament from Quebec have a choice: side with the majority, or hew to a position that their constituents expect of them. They are on a necessarily subjective playing field, even more so when a question of principle arises. In such situations, Québécois MPs must expect to be reminded, as Bourassa was by Laurier, of the importance of relying on their common sense rather than idealist reflexes. Bourassa’s experience, especially at the federal level, often led to such dilemmas.

One cannot doubt that the normal functioning of democratic institutions requires that decision makers, ministers, and parliamentarians show themselves capable of resolving conflicts of interest and dealing with a diversity of views. Laurier was a master at this and, in that regard among others, was arguably the greatest politician in Canadian history. But in the name of national unity, which was among his primary duties as prime minister, he had to make extensive concessions that drastically altered the equilibrium between the two founding peoples, despite its being a cornerstone of the Confederation agreement. Moreover, those actions earned him the right to be called a “traitor” and a “coward” by the scrappy MP for Labelle.

In other words, with Quebec’s influence having waned in Ottawa, MPs from the province must prepare for the possibility—rare, it must be hoped—that they will have to make concessions, through gritted teeth, or else resign, which is not the goal of any political career and can only be justified by a requirement of conscience.

AN UNFINISHED WORK

Resignation does not appear to have been Bourassa’s preferred remedy. True, he was exempt from the dilemmas of power since he was never entrusted with any ministerial duties. When he walked away from the Liberal Party in 1899, he was a backbencher, and he was immediately re-elected to the House as an independent. His struggle was instead one of ideas and causes. The Bourassa that his followers remember, during the most noteworthy period of his career, never admitted defeat in his defence of the French language, and maintained a fundamentally Canadian commitment.

In essence, he had a dual allegiance, melded into the representation of an ideal country that he was fiercely committed to building amid a rebellious reality—having resolved, once and for all, to endure the vicissitudes of a broken dream.

None of this can be construed to mean that the nationalist debate in Quebec and the rest of Canada has been extinguished. Nor can one infer any direct influence of Bourassa’s thinking and actions on the outcome of that continuing debate. The sovereigntist camp cannot conscript, even conceptually, the ardent nationalist that was Bourassa (nor, to my knowledge, has anyone in it attempted to do so). Not any more than federalists could enrol him in their campaigns against the open nationalism of Quebec sovereigntists.

Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the reactions among succeeding generations to the torment of this disillusioned federalist. His contemporary disciples witnessed first-hand the tragedy of a man who, after pinning all his hopes on a pact structured around the equal rights of Canada’s two founding peoples, had to watch powerless from the sidelines as French Canadians suffered language-based discrimination.

This great man bequeathed to Quebec nationalists an unfinished work—a failed enterprise, yes, but also an invitation to carry on. For some, the goal was renewed federalism, inspired by the ideal of Canada, while others, not trusting in any hope of renewal, sought to achieve their own ideal, a country called Quebec.

Henri Bourassa’s most positive influence will be wielded above the fray, through the example of his principled view of democracy, his intellectual rigour, and his respect for others—values to which all parties ought to turn for guidance in continuing the debates that will shape our future. For the search for a solution to the nationalist question, in one sense or the other, is an ineluctable element in the unfolding of Canadian history.

One feels a futile sense of regret: that the great Canadian, and great Quebecker, who was Henri Bourassa cannot take part in those debates in person.

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*¹ Robert Rumilly, Henri Bourassa : la vie publique d’un grand Canadien, Montreal: Éditions Chantecler, 1953, p. 759. [Freely translated.]

*² Editorial by the founder in the first issue of Le Devoir, January 10, 1910, under the title “Avant le combat,” cited by Mario Cardinal in Pourquoi j’ai fondé Le Devoir, p. 99. [Freely translated.]

*³ Henri Bourassa, Mémoires, lecture of October 13, 1943. [Freely translated.]

*⁴ Cited by Réal Bélanger in Henri Bourassa : Le fascinant destin d’un homme libre, Quebec City: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2013, p. 9. [Freely translated.]

*⁵ Cited in Ibid., p. 36. [Freely translated.]

*⁶ Le Ralliement, issue of February 13, 1896, cited in Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 37. [Freely translated.]

*⁷ Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 38. [Freely translated.]

*⁸ Bélanger, p. 50. [Freely translated.]

*⁹ Roberto Perin, “Bégin, Louis-Nazaire,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/ Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 29, 2016, http://​www.​biographi.​ca/​en/​bio/​begin_louis_​nazaire_15E.​html.

*¹⁰ Bourassa, Mémoires, lecture of October 27, 1943. [Freely translated.]

*¹¹ Encyclical Affari vos, Leo XIII, December 8, 1897.

*¹² Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 54. [Freely translated.]

*¹³ Ibid., p. 56. [Freely translated.]

*¹⁴ Letter of April 15, 1912, to Msgr. Adélard Langevin. [Freely translated.]

*¹⁵ Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 503. [Freely translated.]

*¹⁶ Bourassa, Mémoires, lecture of October 13, 1943. [Freely translated.] This assessment of the political awareness of French Canadians is often attributed to Laurier alone, when clearly it was shared by the two antagonists.

*¹⁷ The Tablet. Supplement: Eucharistic Congress at Montreal. London, September 24, 1910, p. 514. http://​archive.​thetablet.​co.​uk/​article/​24th-september​-1910/​37/​east-and-from-the-​west-from-the-​north-and-from.

*¹⁸ Ibid., p. 515.

*¹⁹ Lionel Groulx, Mes Mémoires, Vol. II, Montreal: Fides, p. 198. [Freely translated.]

*²⁰ Bourassa, Mémoires, lecture of December 8, 1943.

*²¹ Cited in Michel Bock, A Nation Beyond Borders: Lionel Groulx on French-Canadian Minorities, tr. Ferdinanda Van Gennip, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.

*²² Cited in Hommage à Henri Bourassa, Montreal: Imprimerie Populaire, 1952, p. 212.

*²³ Cited in Joseph Levitt, Henri Bourassa on Imperialism and Bi-culturalism, 1900–1918, Toronto: Copp Clark, 1970, pp. 128–129.

*²⁴ Ibid.

*²⁵ Ibid.

*²⁶ Ibid.

*²⁷ Bourassa, Mémoires, lecture of December 8, 1943. [Freely translated.]

*²⁸ Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 341. [Freely translated.]

*²⁹ The letters were written to Abbé Henri Jeannotte in February and March 1911; they are cited in Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 342. [Freely translated.]

*³⁰ Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, p. 342. [Freely translated.] Note that André Laurendeau, on page 40 of his essay “Le nationalisme de Bourassa” (in François-Albert Angers and Patrick Allen (eds.), La pensée de Henri Bourassa, Montreal: L’Action nationale, 1954) refers to comments by Bourassa in 1935 that attenuate the forcefulness of his initial reaction to Pope Pius XI’S admonition.

*³¹ In his encyclical Ubi arcano Dei consilio, published a few years before his meeting with Bourassa, Pius XI had denounced “extreme nationalism” (as noted by Mario Cardinal in Pourquoi j’ai fondé Le Devoir: Henri Bourassa et son temps, Montreal: Libre Expression, p. 340).

*³² Rumilly, p. 693. [Freely translated.]

*³³ Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, p. 698. [Freely translated.]

*³⁴ Henri Bourassa, Le Devoir, ses origines, sa naissance, son esprit, brochure published in 1930, cited in Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, pp. 56 and 57. [Freely translated.]

*³⁵ Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, p. 741. [Freely translated.]

*³⁶ Spring 1935 lecture, cited in Ibid. [Freely translated.]

*³⁷ Ibid., p. 711. [Freely translated.]

*³⁸ Ibid., p. 633. [Freely translated.]

*³⁹ Ibid., p. 613. [Freely translated.]

*⁴⁰ Le Nationaliste, April 3, 1904, cited in Martin O’Connell, Henri Bourassa and Canadian Nationalism, Ph.D. thesis (History), University of Toronto, 1954, p. 4.

*⁴¹ Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 425. [Freely translated.]

*⁴² Ibid., p. 453. [Freely translated.]

*⁴³ André Pratte, Extraordinary Canadians: Wilfrid Laurier, Toronto: Penguin, 2011.

*⁴⁴ From the platform of the Ligue Nationaliste Canadienne, founded in 1903 by Bourassa and journalist Olivier Asselin. Cited in Joseph Levitt, Henri Bourassa and the Golden Calf: The Social Program of the Nationalists of Quebec, 1900–1914, Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1972.

*⁴⁵ The National Review, Vol. XXIX, March to August, 1897, London: Edward Arnold, 1897, p. 784.

*⁴⁶ House of Commons Debates, January 12, 1910, p. 1735. It should be noted that Laurier adopted the same ambivalence in London as in Ottawa. He blew hot and cold, with soaring pronouncements that caused his British interlocutors to hope for support that failed to materialize.

*⁴⁷ Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 304. [Freely translated]

*⁴⁸ Ibid., p. 305.

*⁴⁹ Right from the start of their relationship, Laurier had noted Bourassa’s lack of practicality. In reality, Bourassa consistently displayed a political naïveté that left him vulnerable to traps. That in particular explains the alliance with Borden to defeat Laurier in the 1911 election, which historian and biographer Réal Bélanger (Henri Bourassa, p. 367) described as “indecent.”

*⁵⁰ Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, p. 581. [Freely translated.]

*⁵¹ Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, p. 583. [Freely translated.]

*⁵² Cited in H. Mason Wade, “Political Trends,” in Essais sur le Québec contemporain / Essays on Contemporary Quebec, Jean-Charles Falardeau, ed., Sainte-Foy, Quebec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1953, pp. 150–151. Bourassa was writing in the April 3, 1904, issue of Le Nationaliste, a weekly founded by Olivier Asselin (see Note 44) and others.

*⁵³ The terms “French-Canadian nation” and “French-Canadian patriotism” had been employed by Jules-Paul Tardivel, “the ultramontane, anglophobe, and separatist editor of La Vérité” (Wade, “Political Trends,” p. 150). Bourassa was replying to Tardivel’s definition of nationalism in the April 2, 1904, issue of La Vérité. See also O’Connell, Ph.D. thesis, p. 4.

*⁵⁴ Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, pp. 750–751. [Freely translated.]

*⁵⁵ Ibid., p. 741. [Freely translated.]

*⁵⁶ Réal Bélanger, “Bourassa, Henri,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 18, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 29, 2016, http://​www.​biographi.​ca/​en/​bio/​bourassa_​henri_18E.​html.

*⁵⁷ Cited in Cardinal, Pourquoi j’ai fondé Le Devoir: Henri Bourassa et son temps, p. 339. [Freely translated.]

*⁵⁸ Ibid., p. 650. [Freely translated.]

*⁵⁹ Laurendeau, “Le nationalisme de Bourassa,” p. 47. [Freely translated.]

*⁶⁰ In Angers & Allen (eds.), La pensée de Henri Bourassa, p. 36. [Freely translated.]

*⁶¹ Ibid., p. 43. [Freely translated.]

*⁶² Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, pp. 149–150.

*⁶³ Laurendeau, Pourquoi j’ai fondé Le Devoir: Henri Bourassa et son temps, p. 36. [Freely translated.]

*⁶⁴ Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 76. [Freely translated.]

*⁶⁵ “La gardienne de la foi,” in the words of Msgr. Paul-Eugène Roy, speech to the Congrès de la langue française, April 10, 1911, cited in Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 404.

*⁶⁶ Bélanger, Henri Bourassa, p. 444.

*⁶⁷ Ibid., p. 462. [Freely translated.]

*⁶⁸ Rumilly, Henri Bourassa, p. 719, p. 741.

*⁶⁹ Ibid., pp. 769–770.

*⁷⁰ Article by François-Albert Angers in Angers & Allen (eds.), La pensée de Henri Bourassa, p. 186. [Freely translated.]