In Arthabaska, all went as Zoë had hoped. The Poissons took to her at once and gave the married couple two more rooms. One of these became Laurier’s library; another was for Zoë’s piano. Now, when she played, the Poissons and other new friends from Arthabaska gathered around as her friends at the Gauthiers’ had done.
Like Laurier, Zoë loved Arthabaska and its surroundings, especially the view of the mountains. By the second year, with the agreement of the Poissons, she was busily laying out flower and vegetable gardens on their property. Like Laurier, she was good at making friends. Many of these she met in the various Church organizations she joined. Everywhere they went, doors opened to the young couple in Arthabaska.
Laurier in his first year as M.P. for the riding of Drummond-Arthabaska
And Laurier was at last beginning to taste success in his profession. He quickly developed a reputation as a lawyer who did his homework. His knowledge of the law and his respect for it put opposing lawyers on guard and made both them and the judges listen carefully when he presented his arguments in a case. Honest, thorough, and reasonable in the fees he charged, he found his income rising.
The Lauriers’ only disappointment was that they had no children. But they were still young and children perhaps would come. Meanwhile, they filled their home with family and friends and an assortment of pets. Everything went well until the eve of their third wedding anniversary in May 1871, when Laurier received a letter. It was from A.A. Dorion. This time Dorion was asking him to take a more active role in politics. An election in the province of Quebec was about to take place, and Dorion wanted Laurier to stand as a candidate for the Liberal (Rouge) party. If elected, he would become the Member of the Legislative Assembly for the riding of Drummond-Arthabaska.
Zoë’s heart sank when he told her about the letter. She opposed the idea passionately because she feared for his health. But Dorion had made it clear the Liberals were counting on Laurier, and Zoë knew that he would feel it his duty to accept. What she still had to learn was that it was more than duty. It was also politics itself that attracted him. Laurier was just beginning to understand that he was a political animal.
For Zoë, the election campaign that began at the end of May was a six-week nightmare. For Laurier, it was a mixture of pleasure and pain. Constantly on the move, racing from one part of the riding to another by horse and carriage to debate with his Conservative opponent, he usually arrived home late at night. After a hasty bite to eat, and over Zoë’s protests, he would often work into the early morning hours on a speech for his next meeting.
Despite the difficulties, he found he liked to campaign. Standing before audiences of several thousand people, he had a chance to explain what he believed in. Like a debate, it was exciting. The thrill of taking apart his opponent’s argument and showing its flaws appealed to him. And the drama of being the centre of attention pleased him too.
But as Zoë had feared, the campaign harmed his health. His cough returned, he ate little, and he lost weight. More than once he hemorrhaged and had to take to his bed. But only briefly.
He had not fully recovered from one of these setbacks, when Zoë left him in bed one morning and went downstairs to make breakfast. A quarter-hour later, when she came back to the bedroom, she found him dressed in a suit and combing his hair in front of the mirror. She almost dropped the breakfast tray
“Wilfrid,” she cried, “what are you doing? Surely you’re not planning to go out? How could you even think of it?”
Laurier gently took the tray from her hands and set it on a chair. “Dearest Zoë,” he said, “I must go. You know how much this election means to me. I’ve already missed two speaking engagements this week. I simply can’t afford to miss the one this afternoon.”
He leaned over to kiss her, and tears began to trickle down her cheeks. It was useless to protest – she knew him too well! He had made the decision, and nothing would move him.
The campaign was also hard on Zoë in another way. Laurier’s opposition was not only the Conservative party, but its powerful ally, the Roman Catholic Church. Monseigneur Laflèche, now the Bishop of Trois-Rivières, relished another chance to hammer Laurier, the unrepentant Rouge. Father Suzor, the priest in Arthabaska, was one of the key figures to launch the attacks ordered by the bishop. Four years earlier, Father Suzor had played a role in destroying Le Défricheur; now he joined in the verbal assault against Laurier. Laurier knew what to expect, but Zoë was unprepared. She was a faithful believer, and now she had to listen Sunday after Sunday to her priest calling her husband a hypocrite and a monster. It was almost unbearable. Only her deep love for Laurier and their shared belief in Liberal values kept her going.
On election night, July 10, 1871, Laurier was at home, too exhausted to go to Liberal party headquarters. He and Zoë had been waiting for hours for the results. Suddenly they heard loud voices in the street and insistent rapping at the front door. A large group of his supporters, singing and cheering, burst into the Poissons’ to bring Laurier the good news: he had won by a large majority. After the happy crowd had left, Laurier sank into his bed, exhausted but at peace. At age twenty-nine, he now believed his future lay in politics. He fell quickly into a deep sleep, while Zoë tossed and turned for hours. She was proud of her husband’s victory, but she now realized that her dream of a quiet life in Arthabaska was over.
Laurier found his new career in the Quebec Legislative Assembly less challenging than he had hoped. Although he rapidly made a reputation as an excellent speaker and a gifted debater, he soon became bored. For more than two years, he carried out his duties as MLA, but he yearned for greater challenges.
Then events in Ottawa changed his future dramatically. In early November, 1873, the prime minister of Canada, John A. Macdonald, was forced to resign over charges of bribery. He and his Conservative party turned control of the government over to Alexander Mackenzie and the Liberals. Within a few weeks of being sworn into office by the Governor General, Mackenzie called a general election for the House of Commons.
Laurier, meanwhile, had collapsed from a serious hemorrhage and taken to his bed. He was reading of the election in a newspaper, when he heard a commotion outside his bedroom. The door opened, and Zoë marched in. Her furrowed brow and cold manner telegraphed that she was annoyed. Behind her, looking uncomfortable, were several prominent Arthabaska Liberals. Zoë knew exactly why they had come. They wanted Laurier to stand as the federal candidate for election to the House of Commons. Despite Zoë’s frown, Laurier waved them in and listened eagerly as they told him that the Liberal party needed a man of his quality as a member of Parliament (MP) in Ottawa, where he could achieve far more than he could in the provincial government.
After they left, Zoë returned to find Laurier sitting straight up in bed. His face was full of colour, no longer pale as it had been for days. And he wore a sheepish smile.
“Oh Wilfrid, how could you…?” she began, but her words trailed off as he looked up at her with just the slightest hint of pleading in his eyes. He opened his arms, and though she was disappointed, she leaned over and let him hold her close. She disliked politics, but she loved her husband, and if this was what he wanted, she would not stand in his way. Somehow, she would have to find the courage to adjust to their new life.
The election campaign was difficult. It was midwinter and bitterly cold. In a horse-drawn sleigh, Laurier crisscrossed the snow-covered rural roads of the riding and visited every corner of the counties of Drummond and Arthabaska. Day after day Zoë bundled him up in warm clothing before he left. Then she waited anxiously. Would he come back out of breath and in a cold sweat, the first steps before a collapse? Miraculously, though he drove himself as hard as in his first campaign, his health held.
To Laurier, it was all worth it, for on election day, January 22, 1874, he won a seat in Parliament, and so did a majority of Liberal candidates throughout the nation. The Liberal party had won its first federal election. Now it would form the government of the Dominion of Canada.
At first, Laurier was a bit nervous about moving from provincial to federal politics. Somewhat shy and uncertain of his new surroundings, he turned down an invitation to attend a reception given by the Governor General. He was also worried that his English might not be good enough. The only way to find out was to test it. He made his first speech in French, but two weeks later, he rose from his seat to speak again. He began: “Mr. Speaker, I must apologize to the House for using a language with which I am imperfectly acquainted… I know only too well that in the course of the few remarks I wish to make I shall too frequently murder the Queen’s English.” After the laughter ended, he spoke for an hour in English. The subject of his speech was Louis Riel, a fugitive Métis. Riel was wanted for murder in Ontario, yet he had stood for Parliament and been elected. Like many francophones, Laurier believed Riel’s guilt had not yet been proved. Until that time, he supported Riel’s right to keep his seat. When he sat down, it was to applause from both sides of the House that lasted for several minutes. The quality of his English, as of his French, was excellent. Laurier had already made his mark.
But he was not done with Riel. Eleven years later, Riel’s sudden return would dramatically alter Laurier’s career.
Meanwhile, he soon felt comfortable in his new life in Ottawa, although he knew he would have to be re-elected in four or five years. There was one very large threat to that possibility: the never-ending campaign of the Roman Catholic Church against the Liberal party. Unless there was some way to end the hostility, the future looked very uncertain for Laurier and his party in the province of Quebec. This worry plagued him for the next two years. Then he decided to make a bold move.
It was June 1877, near the beginning of his third year in the House of Commons. An organization called Le Club Canadien invited him to speak in Quebec City and Laurier saw his opportunity to stand up to the Church.
The place where Laurier would speak, La Salle de musique, had seats for twelve hundred. When he arrived, the hall was overflowing. More than two thousand people were jammed into the auditorium, while others gathered outside in the street. In the audience were newspaper reporters from as far away as Montreal, university professors, important Liberals, and even some Roman Catholic priests. All had come expecting to hear something special.
There was absolute silence as Laurier rose from his seat and moved to the centre of the stage. Standing erect, with his hands at his sides, he scanned the audience for several seconds. Those seated in the first few rows could see how pale he looked: his face, framed by his long brown hair, was nearly as white as the shirt under his dark blue suit. Then he began.
In a clear voice that reached everyone in the hall, he explained that he knew there were many people who were prejudiced against Liberals. To them, Liberals were evil revolutionaries who wanted to turn society upside down, to destroy the Roman Catholic Church and everything it stood for.
These were not the aims of Canadian Liberals, he assured the audience. Their beliefs came from English Liberals who had won, without violent revolution, the freedoms that people in England, and also in Canada were able to enjoy. Like their English counterparts, Canadian Liberals believed in the right of the individual to enjoy freedom of conscience and to express that conscience by voting for the party of his choice. He pointed out that there were two types of political parties, the conservative and the liberal. Conservatives, he explained, did not like change, and when they did agree to change, they did so slowly and with many doubts. Liberals, by contrast, believed that change was part of the natural order of things in the world.
Raising his voice slightly, Laurier continued. “I am a Liberal. I am one of those who think that everywhere, in human beings, there are abuses to be reformed, new horizons to be opened up, and new forces to be developed.”
After pausing to let his words sink in, he went on. “Our souls are immortal, but our means are limited. We constantly aim for an ideal that we never reach. We dream of good, but we never realize the best. Only when we reach our goal do we discover new horizons opening up… that lead us on ever further and further.”
The result, he pointed out, is that there are always improvements to be made in society. Liberals believed that only by moving forward to try to make those improvements would more people have a better way of life. “This, in my opinion,” he concluded, “is what accounts for the superiority of Liberalism.”
Then he turned to the role of the Church in politics. Liberals did not want to prevent Catholic priests from taking part in politics, he said. They were convinced that every individual must have the right to express his beliefs openly. But there is a limit to every right, and that limit is reached when one individual restricts another individual’s right.
“It is… perfectly legitimate to alter the electors opinion by argument and by all other means of persuasion,” he said, “but never by intimidation. When, by terror, you force him to vote, the opinion he expresses is your opinion.”
Canada, he stressed, was a free country. Roman Catholic priests had the same rights as every other individual, but they had no right to threaten members of their faith if they voted differently from the priests.
When Laurier ended his speech, there was a brief hush and then a sudden outburst of applause, which continued for minutes. Those who had expected to hear something special were rewarded.
One person who very carefully read a copy of the speech was Bishop George Conroy. Sent from Ireland to Canada by the Pope, Conroy had come to investigate the conflict between the Church and the Liberal party. From his arrival in May, a few weeks before Laurier made his speech, to his departure in October, Conroy interviewed many Church officials and politicians and read numerous reports from both sides. Before he left, he issued a mandement, or order, to every Roman Catholic clergyman in Canada. The Pope, Conroy declared, did not condemn the Liberal party of Canada. In addition, he made it clear that every Roman Catholic was free to vote as he chose. A priest who disagreed with the political choice of a member of his parish must not threaten him. Except for exercising their right to vote, priests were to stay out of politics.
The place of the Church in politics defined by Bishop Conroy was just what Laurier had demanded in his speech. For Bishop Laflèche and the ultramontane clergy, it was a defeat. For Laurier, it was a great victory. But as events of the next few weeks would show, it was not the end of the war.
The press praised Laurier. In papers from coast to coast, Canadians read reports of his speech, and his name quickly became known throughout the country. Inside the Liberal party, his reputation soared. To reward Laurier for his invaluable service to the party, Prime Minister Mackenzie offered him a position in his cabinet. Laurier accepted eagerly and was sworn in as minister of inland revenue on October 8, 1877.
In order to take up the cabinet position, Laurier had to resign his seat and stand in a by-election in his riding. Election day was set for October 27. Laurier hoped to win. After all, he had won the riding by more than two hundred votes three years earlier.
Perhaps he was overconfident. He may not have realized how badly the Conservatives wanted to defeat him. He also misjudged the ultramontanes, who were determined to get around Bishop Conroy’s ruling. Instead of attacking from their pulpits, many priests used private conversations to campaign against Laurier.
Laurier’s enemies used a number of nasty techniques to lay him low. One was to set loose a series of rumours that gullible people believed. As a member of the cabinet, Laurier had the title of “Minister”; now the story went around that he had become a Protestant minister. Another bit of gossip was that Laurier refused to have his children baptized. The fact that Laurier and Zoë had no children didn’t seem to matter.
But it was bribery that hurt Laurier most. Conservative party officials with large amounts of cash made their way through the riding. Gallons of free liquor flowed and thousands of dollars were slipped into voters’ pockets.
On election day nearly four thousand people went to the polls in Drummond-Arthabaska. When the final total was made, Laurier had lost by twenty-four votes. Yet one year later, after an investigation ruled that bribery had been used, the Conservative had to give up the seat.
Losing was the greatest blow that Laurier had yet received. He was crushed by the unexpected loss. But he hid his deep disappointment from the public, and also from his fellow Liberals. Only at home, alone with Zoë, did he break down. The period of grieving was brief. Although winning was vital to Laurier, he was not a poor loser. He had an unusual ability to shrug off loss and bounce back.
Three days later, the prime minister made him a new offer. The Liberal member for the riding of Quebec East in the City of Quebec was willing to resign to give Laurier the chance of winning back the seat in a by-election. Laurier accepted, and the prime minister called the by-election for November 28.
It was another no-holds-barred campaign, but this time the Liberal party put its full weight behind Laurier. Volunteers came from far and wide to go door-to-door to urge voters to support their candidate, and also to try to foil Conservative dirty tricks.
Election day was cold and miserable. Heavy rain fell throughout the day right up to the closing of polls in the evening, and Laurier’s Liberal workers struggled to get reluctant voters to leave the comfort of their homes to go to the polls. When the count showed that Laurier had won a convincing victory, they formed a torchlight procession nearly two kilometres long and marched to Jacques-Cartier Square. Surrounded by thousands of enthusiastic supporters, Laurier made a speech thanking them for their help. He concluded with a dramatic flourish: “I have unfurled the Liberal standard above the ancient citadel of Quebec and there I will keep it waving.”
It was a promise he would keep.
Throughout the next session of Parliament, which began in February 1878, Laurier carried out his cabinet duties, but his taste of high responsibility was short lived. Several months later, confidently expecting the voters to return the Liberals to power, Mackenzie called a federal election. Laurier was not so optimistic, and he was right. On election day, September 17, 1878, the majority of Canadians turned once again to John A. Macdonald and the Conservative party. After four years in power, Alexander Mackenzie and the Liberal party had suffered a crushing defeat.