In his Lives of the twelve Caesars, the high official Suétonius, given for one of the first historians, offers short biographies of the masters of the Roman world, from Julius Caesar to Domitian. A whole part of his book is devoted to Caius Caligula. From him, images of excess, madness and horror come to mind spontaneously. However, Suetonius speaks of it quite differently.
He presents him as a being crowned with popular affection. His remarks, even the most outrageous, Caligula can hold them, recalls Suetonius, with general consent. Even the Senate supports it. The historian also credits Caligula with high moral virtues. Did he not banish from Rome the inventors of certain debaucheries?
In the middle of this very complimentary story, Suetonius stops. He just stops. And he drops this: “I have spoken so far of a prince; I will now speak of a monster. »
I have already spoken on the microphone of Gilles Proulx. He was, at the time, known as the king of the airwaves in Montreal. The other radio barons were André Arthur and Pierre Pascau.
Should I have worried about going there? Proulx never hesitated to call each other scavengers, trash, sub-shit, cellars, eunuchs, degenerates, whatever you want, in an endless litany of swear words of hatred carabinieri who never had the rhythmic and fun musicality of those uttered by Captain Haddock.
Who knows why, I was not particularly anxious at the idea of finding myself in front of this sulphurous character. At his microphone, we talked about history. Gilles Proulx had not cut me off. I expected to suffer one of his one man shows, inflated with helium until reason burst. On the contrary, he had been attentive. He had called me back, with tact and precision.
The show ended with our interview. A very amiable, even kind Gilles Proulx thanked me warmly in his most theatrical tone, with his incredible affectation of diction. Then he had accompanied me to the exit, leaving at the same pace too. We had walked a few moments together, on the sidewalk, near the station, before parting for good. THANKS. Bye. Good evening. In short, nothing to say about this charming, courteous man, imbued with old manners.
I have spoken to you so far of a prince… Do I need to speak to you of the monster?
For decades, on all the platforms, Gilles Proulx has spoken of Quebecers as a people of cellars and insignificants. Doesn’t the fact of enduring this for so long at least say something about our collective daze in the face of such people?
In a documentary, director Alanis Obomsawin makes hear the belching of Gilles Proulx during the Oka crisis. We must see again these indigenous women and children whose convoy is stoned in stride by stone throwing. Last year, host and writer Michel Jean pointed out to the Duty that Gilles Proulx continues to maintain crude prejudices against Aboriginal people at the microphone of QUB radio, without his host taking the trouble to even lift a finger to reframe his remarks.
Criticism at home, when it involves a woman, often reaches the depths of the sewer workers. Proulx had gone so far as to describe on television a rape victim, found half dead, as a “little bitch”, “little silly girl”, “little cow”. We must now hear him talk about Mayor Valérie Plante!
The show Investigation revealed in 2012 that Proulx was among those who saw fit to pay for a bogus graduate degree. This false certificate of studies had been awarded to him by an American university, which was just as much, without him feeling particularly embarrassed.
In his history books, which claim to be popular, but which are populist at best, Gilles Proulx strides along the well-trodden ruts of a nationalist novel. He rehearses for his readers remarks from another era, without ever taking the trouble to confront them with the rigor of the historical method and up-to-date knowledge. So that, as long as you do, it is even better to reread the dated sources that he paraphrases, the Lionel Groulx, Michel Brunet and other Robert Rumilly.
Who can imagine today that he was employed, for years, as a lecturer by the University of Montreal and that he obtained, along the way, a number of prizes for “his contribution to the development of journalism »? The figure of Gilles Proulx expresses something that has gone wrong in our beautiful society.
Himself a former Parti Québécois candidate, he affirms that we must get rid of the deputies of Québec solidaire as if it were “gangrene”. His words, as always, go a long way. Do they go beyond his thought? The Premier of Quebec, in any case, saw fit to condemn them. And Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, in reaction, welcomed it. While it is about the talk of the airhead and the scatterbrains who still give it credit, it is not about the management of the state.
Gilles Proulx has always been a diversion. And talking about the excesses of all the Gilles Proulx, over the course of the news and at the heart of the day, is always easier than settling substantive issues.
Everyone knows, however, that shouters and chatterboxes only write their names in the winds of history. If they continue to be heard, it is because they bring money to those who support them. It is they, above all, who deserve to be questioned.
It’s worth sticking your nose out of buzz serial. Life and its future are played out elsewhere than among all the surly people who have fun playing, on a whim, yesterday as today, pitiful incarnations of Caligula.