In a comprehensive and astonishing book, where she offers an original history of Quebec society, Andrée Lévesque paints a rich portrait of a world of poor and forgotten people, that of a lineage of local women. Jeanne’s daughters is a stunning book. This is the story of the descendants of Jeanne Perrin, who arrived from France on the banks of the Saint Lawrence in 1658. Andrée Lévesque follows the course of her descendants up to Maria Mélançon Brisson, who died in 1915. Between the two, ten generations have passed in what, far beyond a fresco, takes on the appearance of a masterful lesson in humanity and history.
These unknown lives, if they were worth living, also deserve to be told, believes the historian. Specialist in the history of women and the labor movement, long professor at McGill University, Andrée Lévesque directs the Passe-Mémoire Archives, devoted to autobiographical writings. This experienced historian set out, equipped with her lively and pleasant writing, to trace these anonymous lives. “This is work I undertook during the pandemic, with the help of an assistant and resources from McGill University. »
Others that they have already followed a similar path to the land of the anonymous. Alain Corbin, French historian, set out to tell the life of a simple clog maker by achieving the feat of exposing an entire world based on him. It is the immense merit of Andrée Lévesque to give us a better understanding of this world of the humble and the forgotten that official history has passed over in silence, in favor of the great epics of official history.
Following the history of a line of ordinary women is not easy. “First, because they change their name with each generation, taking that of their husband. Then, because they are illiterate. They did not leave stories of their lives. » To understand them, we must try to understand their society as best as possible, on the basis of the little we know about them, through official acts: baptism, marriage, deed of sale, will, inventory on the occasion of a death. With almost nothing in hand, a whole section of Quebec history is what Andrée Lévesque succeeds in bringing to light before the reader’s eyes, in a sort of storytelling magic where she swaddles her subject in a piece of knitting with multiple colors.
From La Rochelle
Andrée Lévesque speaks about Jeanne Perrin to begin her astonishing book. Mme Perrin did indeed exist. She had an identity, a life, torments, joys, sorrows. We know almost nothing about her. Andrée Lévesque approaches it, places it in her world. So much so that through her emerges in a way the portrait of all the women of her time who will immigrate to the New World.
But let’s not go too fast. Here we are first in La Rochelle. This large port city is barely recovering from the siege of a terrible religious war when Jeanne Perrin, in her late forties and mother of three children, sets sail for the New World. “Very few women of this age arrived in New France at that time. Even less alone, with three children,” explains Andrée Lévesque in an interview. Jeanne sets foot on the banks of the St. Lawrence before the Daughters of the King, who are supposed to populate the colony where relations of domination with the Indigenous people are established. What is she doing there?
“Why,” summarizes Andrée Lévesque on the telephone, “did Jeanne Perrin’s husband let his wife and three children leave for New France? He is a simple porter. The equivalent of a tank top. He died three months after his wife left. Had his health deteriorated before, to the point where his wife, in order to survive with their children, was forced to abandon him? » Nothing assures him. It is possible to think so. Perhaps Jeanne Perrin finds in this risky crossing the only opportunity to survive? In La Rochelle, a law prohibits individuals from feeding or housing the poor in any case. How to survive? Jeanne’s family is Protestant. Huguenots, as they say.
“I was surprised to see a Bible appear in the middle of an inventory. Not just a simple bible, but an eight-volume bible. » In this colony of New France, which it was constantly repeated that it was Catholic, Andrée Lévesque recalls a truth: at least 10% of the migrants who arrive on the banks of the Saint-Laurent are Protestants. “Cardinal Richelieu affirmed that there were none in the colony. It’s wrong. Arriving here, they were forced to convert, but this left its mark. »
What will become of Jeanne? She is hired, for a meager salary, as a servant, in Cap-de-la-Madeleine. His master could take native slaves, explains Andrée Lévesque. Only “these would ignore the habits and customs of France”. Between dominants and dominated, points of contact are preserved at low cost.
When you live at the bottom of the Pic-Dur range, the way of life doesn’t change much despite political changes
The historian places before her reader little by little, with the skill of the profession and with delicacy, the documents which allow her to envisage and situate the existence of the descendants of Jeanne Perrin. She presents them to us through the upheavals of each era. Here is the massive arrival of Acadians in the Quebec countryside, chased from their corner of the country by the British. The assemblies of patriots in the 1830s. Then, after 1840, the ultra-Catholics who reigned in the name of temperance, this vast war against alcohol and independence of mind. The fact remains that nothing changes much in people’s lives from day to day. For generations, all these women continue to sign their names with a cross. They speak French. But no one knows how to read or write.
At the back of the row
These women participate in an Ancien Régime society that the British conquest did not fundamentally change. They live in a feudal regime which stretches until it seems to stutter from one generation to the next. In this theater, people appear in perpetual debt, even if they work all the time, at the bottom of their rank. “When you live at the bottom of the Pic-Dur range, the way of life doesn’t change that much despite the political changes,” explains Andrée Lévesque. “They continue to speak French. » And the rest flows over them, like water off a duck’s back.
Here we are in the land of perpetual debt. “Louise Dechêne, my colleague at McGill, clearly showed the situation of these people, as did Fernand Ouellet, whom I knew at the University of Ottawa. » Here and there, in the rare written documents that directly concern these lives, some details appear that make you smile. When one of Jeanne Perrin’s descendants relies on one of her sons to survive, she has, for example, formalized by a notary the assurance that she will be able to count on enough poultry. For what ? Quite simply because it needs broths capable of keeping the disease at bay…
In this long line of women, it was not until the 19the century that we see Maria appear. She will be the first to read and write. She becomes a school teacher. “But she is going to marry an illiterate man. She will take care of the children. Basically, she resumes the same life as before. We know it: there is no progress in history. » Andrée Lévesque stays far from the joyous liberal idea according to which we go from progress to progress. Emancipation and promotion are not on the agenda for several generations, she shows.
Andrée Lévesque explores these women’s lives little by little. It revolves around each one. It’s never heavy. On the contrary: it’s fascinating. All the same, the surprises are few. Still, the reader quickly experiences the feeling of tasting the story from an original and new angle. No doubt this has a lot to do with the very personal writing of Andrée Lévesque who, at the same publisher, is responsible for introducing us to the lives of Éva Circé-Côté, Jeanne Corbin and Madeleine Parent. .
Jeanne’s daughters poses, among other things, the question of the individual. Isn’t our own existence, the “I” that we claim to be, largely a construction that now casts an illusion on our relationship with the world? “The notion of the individual exploded in the 19the century only. Before, you had no private life. There are no curtains on the windows. Everything happens in promiscuity. » How to make love in a single room, occupied by ten children? What was the life of ten generations of women on this level like others? Andrée Lévesque begs me not to reveal the ending of her book. Heard. I told him, all the same, that it brought tears to my eyes. And that’s true.