We will remember Jean-Claude Corbeil first and foremost as an immense scientist. The bibliography of the writings of this brilliant linguist, meticulously presented on the site maintained by his colleagues at the Université de Sherbrooke in his memory, is admirable. But perhaps more admirable, and rarer still, is the fact that he agreed to put this science at the service of a society that was alienated from his language, by devoting himself to all the causes he had decided to serve to protect her. From the Office québécois de la langue française and the Charter of the French language to his major lexicographical projects, Jean-Claude has spent a lot of time. He told this rich story in his beautiful book on the linguistic policies of Quebec, published under the title The embarrassment of languages (Quebec America, 2007).
I knew him when the time of his public engagements was already behind him and he gave all his energy to our Academy. With Claude Lévesque and Jacques Allard, his great accomplices, he was the first to welcome me there. Fragile, threatened, always uncertain, the future of the Académie des lettres seemed to him the very future of our language: this future, he liked to repeat, required a fundamental commitment. His example was inspiring, he who devoted himself to the most humble tasks. His modesty was accompanied by a very cheerful form of irony. By accepting the function of secretary, a role he assumed in an exemplary manner for many years, he was perhaps realizing a buried desire, that of becoming an archivist. Winner of so many prestigious awards, tireless worker, Jean-Claude now found his pleasure in the life of our company, where he had several friends.
I have fond memories of a man already worn out by so much scholarly work and demanding public commitments, who now devoted himself to the most ordinary chores, moving boxes of documents accumulated since our founding, negotiating spaces to store our history, delivering books submitted for our annual prizes or serving potato chips at receptions for which the State did not have a penny. Welcoming the generosity of Lise Bissonnette, who had made possible the support of the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec, he worked tirelessly to ensure that this agreement paved the way for recognition by the State. He laughingly evoked his counterpart from the French Academy, Mme the permanent secretary, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, who received him in 2010 to present him with the Grand Prix de la Francophonie, with all the pomp reserved for those who are introduced under the dome.
I happened to accompany him left and right, we lived three doors down from each other, his invariably calm mood was the example of the stoicism of the great clerics of the State, a mixture of generosity, equanimity, optimism. He loved Greece, sovereign and proud of its language, the island of Amorgos where he had gone so often with his companion, Ariane Archambault, collaborator of the first hour of the Thematic and visual dictionary, passed away too soon in 2006. He loved music, he followed Bach’s complete cantatas faithfully from the start at Bourgie Hall, where we went together every month on Sunday afternoons. We shared a few discreet passions in this register, which went far beyond dictionaries. A great reader, especially of essays, he also loved coffee, and I often found him seated alone on a terrace on the Avenue Bernard, immersed in a book. As he grew older, he liked to recall the causes he had served, the struggles of Catalonia, the challenges of French-speaking Africa, where he had many friends, the fate of Acadia, the tragedy of indecision of Quebec, but faced with the erosions we are witnessing today, where one would have expected a form of bitterness, he remained serene, his smile was almost Buddhist.