In 1963, André Malraux arrived in Quebec. Since his first visit in 1937, he has grown. His luster as a flamboyant pre-war writer has partly faded. His credit, he now owes much to his high-sounding title of “Minister of General de Gaulle”. It was the latter, moreover, who asked him, for protocol purposes, to represent France in the land of maples. “Malraux,” the general would have told him, “We have to take care of Quebec!” On the program for this week-long visit, openings, receptions, inaugurations, lunches, dinners, official meetings. And on each occasion, Malraux does not need to be asked to speak.
Minister of State in charge of Cultural Affairs of the Republic, he comes in a way to sanctify the will expressed by the reforming government of Jean Lesage to break with a certain cultural isolationism with regard to France. This desire materialized in several ways, largely thanks to Georges-Émile Lapalme, the former leader of the Liberal Party who became Minister of Cultural Affairs. It was this man steeped in French culture, an avid reader, who welcomed Malraux with open arms after the latter, diplomacy oblige, had first made a quick detour to Ottawa.
“When I worked on my two books devoted to Lapalme, explains Claude Corbo in an interview with Homework, I found, in his papers, a file devoted to Malraux. ” In Malraux in Quebecthe former rector of UQAM compiled most of his public interventions during the Quebec portion of his visit to Canada, from October 7 to 15, 1963.
The origins of this visit date back to September 1960. Georges-Émile Lapalme was then in France. Thanks to mutual acquaintances, he is taken to Malraux’s office. True to form, he launches into a long monologue. In the end, Malraux enthusiastically receives a project that Lapalme has come to present to him on the sly, without having informed either the Quebec government or the Canadian diplomatic services: to create a Quebec delegation in Paris. “Lapalme did not want France to forget Quebec,” says Claude Corbo.Have
A year later, at the official inauguration of this delegation in Paris, Malraux represented the French state. On October 5, 1961, in his speech delivered for the occasion, Malraux explained that French culture had “conquered the world as the most pleasant culture for a possessing class, generally idle, which was, from Russia to Argentina , that of the big landowners”. He also reminded the premier of Quebec that “it is appropriate for Canada to rely on France”.
Dazzled by the inexhaustible verve of this minister, Léonie Gagnon, the wife of the Liberal Minister of Agriculture, Alcide Courcy, hastened to send him compliments. ” Sir marleau, she said, you speak so well! You should write…” This sentence, reported with a smirk by the diplomat André Patry, has remained inscribed in the annals of small political history. “Apart from Lapalme, who was passionate about literature, few people, in fact, knew Malraux in the Quebec government,” concedes Claude Corbo. Malraux nevertheless maintained, from time to time, relations with André Patry, whom he had known since the mid-1950s. The poet Alain Grandbois had also known him before the war. The two met again with pleasure in Montreal in 1963.
A missed date
The previous year, Malraux had been officially invited to Quebec by the Lesage government. However, the visit had to be canceled because of elections, but also because Lapalme had suffered a car accident which led him straight to bed, specifies Claude Corbo. That year, the University of Montreal wanted to take advantage of Malraux’s presence to have him inaugurate its new chair of art history. The trip was postponed until the following year.
Although the presence of Malraux in Quebec flattered a feeling of cultural affirmation in certain nationalist circles, this official visit did not provoke any wave of popular support for him. At the Hôtel Windsor, where a reception was held in honor of Malraux, Dr.r Jacques Ferron met him. Malraux seemed to him a “stuffed” character, nothing more.
Malraux constantly proceeds to associations of ideas which, most often, not only do not enlighten each other, observes Simone de Beauvoir, but will even serve to mystify his listeners. The grandiloquent character of this character who was perfectly experienced in the art of juggling diplomatic language now disappointed some of his former admirers. At the time of the tortures in Algeria committed by the French forces, he will be widely criticized for suppressing, in his political life, the concrete principles of fraternity that he had however sung at the time of the publication of hope.
What did Malraux say in the early 1960s about Quebec? One thing strikes right away. It is more about what this nation could be than what it is. He first hoped that “the poets of Canada” would be born. He then became concerned about the architecture taking shape in Montreal. “Turn around, see the skyscrapers of this city which are of American architecture. Maybe in 10 or 20 years they will be of French-Canadian architecture. Culture, he repeats, is not a matter of idleness or passivity. He therefore invites French Canadians to show confidence in themselves.
The future of the French-speaking world, he asserts, lies in a sustained association with France. Is it because France, as he says elsewhere, “brings the break with a mediocre and too simple past”? “Let us now be together a lesson in freedom”, he said in any case by way of conclusion of one of his improvised speeches.
Another Malraux
In the spring of 1937, it was a different Malraux who, for the first time, landed in Montreal. “There was then a polarization in which Malraux was part”, explains Claude Corbo. At the heart of the Spanish Civil War was indeed a prelude to the Second World War. Malraux understood that it was necessary, with a common impetus, to quickly combat fascism. So he had crossed the Atlantic to ask the New World for the money necessary to sustain this struggle.
Malraux related how a plane from his squadron had been shot down in Spain. He spoke of the need to fight, “for the people and for an ideal of human dignity”. He also praised Montreal surgeon Norman Bethune. The dutyin its pages, considered the author of The human condition, Prix Goncourt 1933, as a vulgar “propagandist”. A few months earlier, on October 25, 1936, the streets of the city had seen 100,000 people parade. They demonstrated against communism, in favor of authoritarian regimes, to the glory of the Church. In other words, Malraux faced strong opposition in Montreal.
Malraux’s audiences are predominantly English-speaking, wrote The duty, as if to better put him at a distance. However, the daily Canada advanced just the opposite when reporting the words of the writer. Still, the welcome given to him in circles of right-wing nationalism was murderous.
Biographer of Malraux, Jean Lacouture indicates that a French-Canadian worker offered him, in order to help fight fascism, his only wealth: a watch. By following André Malraux through his two visits to Quebec, he appears in any case as a tremendous revealer of the changes and continuities of Quebec society.
Correction: The caption of the photo accompanying this article has been modified to indicate that the man seen on the right is indeed the general commissioner of Expo 67, Pierre Dupuy.