All summer long, we will be offering you forays into Quebec libraries to discover their little-known treasures, on unusual themes. This week, we take a look at the National Assembly library’s collection of censored books.
They have been burned, blacked out, hidden, destroyed. They have circulated under the cloak and been opened furtively under the covers. The book, apparently inanimate, can inflame the mind, provide arguments, chisel thought, open the vast doors of the imagination and possibilities. In this context, banned books say a lot about the times, about the instances of power, and about mentalities.
Last year, the children’s book Pink, Blue and You! (Pink, blue and you!), by Quebec author Elise Gravel, which addresses diversity and gender stereotypes, was banned in Florida schools. In defense of Elise Gravel’s work, the National Assembly of Quebec adopted a motion denouncing this censorship.
A few steps from the Chamber of Deputies, in the same building, the library of the National Assembly has assembled a collection from books censored in Quebec, On the index, in the form of a virtual exhibition. On the program: banned works, anticlerical firebrands from the 18th centurye century to newspapers critical of the British administration in the 19th centurye century, works exploring adolescent sexuality, such as The crying spring (1962), by Adrien Thério, with the sulphurous history of O (1954) by Pauline Réage, alias Anne Desclos, denunciations of justice withc Coffin was innocent (1958), by Jacques Hébert, to the text “The truth is passed a finger”, by Denis Vanier, published in Chopped steak and denounced in 2000 by the morality squad. A look back at a long story.
The Jesuits
Censorship arrived in Quebec at the same time as the Jesuits, in the 17th century.e century. It was first targeted Anti-cottonby an anonymous author, who accused the Jesuits of being involved in the assassination of King Henry IV, perpetrated by someone who had attended their schools. This text, which some attribute to César de Claix, denounced the Jesuit Pierre Coton, who had published a manifesto defending the Jesuits in this affair.
Anti-cottontherefore, was burned in 1625 in the public square by an executioner, in Quebec, after having been put on the index by the Church in 1617. The University of Montreal holds a rare copy, which was loaned to the library of the National Assembly in the context of the exhibition. The official index of the time is theIndex librorum prohibitorumthat is, the “censorship rules and the list of books prohibited by the Catholic Church, of the XVIe century to 1966,” specifies Pierre Hébert in the Dictionary of censorship in Quebecpublished by Fides in 2006, and widely cited in the exhibition.
“From 1625 to 1840, this is a period characterized more by the application of censorship on a case-by-case basis,” explains Carolyne Ménard, librarian of the National Assembly, who put together the exhibition.
An index specific to Quebec
When we say that a book has been put on the index in Quebec, we actually mean that the book has been banned. “To really put a book on the index is to have it registered in theIndex librorum prohibitorumand this was very rarely the case in Quebec, ultimately, because of the fact that the book had to be sent to Rome and studied by a committee there. And in the 19th centurye century and early 20th centurye century, we didn’t have the same means of communication as today,” she explains.
It was not only Rome that censored works at the beginning of the 19th century.e century. In Quebec, repression will also be exercised a lot by the British, on political newspapers. “This is particularly the case of the newspaper The Canadian, which will be censored by the British governor, who is on site,” explains Carolyne Ménard. The Canadian was founded by Pierre Nicolas Bédard, MP and leader of the Parti Canadien, who campaigned for greater self-government for French Canadians. In 1810, Governor James Craig “would order the arrest and imprisonment of the newspaper’s editors. The newspaper’s presses would be confiscated and they would ransack the offices,” adds Carolyne Ménard. In 1837, The Minervaa newspaper founded by Ludger Duvernay, was also banned during the Patriots’ Revolt.
The Great Age of Censorship
In the 19th centurye century begins what Pierre Hébert calls “clerical censorship”. In libraries, books are generally not freely accessible; you have to ask for them at the counter.
This is the great era of censorship, continues Carolyne Ménard. It is also the quarter century of confrontations between the Canadian Institute of Montreal, whose library keeps books indexed, and the clergy, represented by Mgr Bourget. The latter would excommunicate all members of the Canadian Institute and go so far as to desecrate the plot of the Côte-des-Neiges cemetery where one of its members, the typographer Joseph Guibord, was buried. The clergy published lists of works to be banned, first in its journal Religious Mixturesthen in the review Lecturesin 1946, where moral ratings are given to books. They can be classified as “bad”, “dangerous”, called “reserves, for people who are intellectually and morally trained”, or be classified as “for adults”. In this classification, Agagukby Yves Thériault, receives the “dangerous” rating and Bittersweetby Claire Martin, is rated “bad” because it deals with love outside of marriage.
Censorship continues
From 1960 onwards, the Quiet Revolution defused the power of the clergy. In the pages of Duty“The insolence of Brother So-and-so”, alias Jean-Paul Desbiens, anonymously criticize the education system and the hierarchical power of the Church. Desbiens, unmasked, will first have to go into exile in Rome, then in Switzerland, to avoid the wrath of the clergy. He will then return to Quebec and will be one of the great inspirations of the Quebec reforms.
But the censors’ work did not stop there. In 1978, “young Canadians for a Christian civilization” sang prayers in front of the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde to protest the presentation of the play The fairies are thirsty, by Denise Boucher. The play denounces the feminine archetypes of the virgin, the mother and the whore. Its continued performance will deprive the theatre of a $15,000 government subsidy.
Forty years later, the play SLAVby Robert Lepage, was pulled from the bill after black protesters denounced its treatment of black history in America.
In fact, censorship continues to exist even if it changes form and targets over the years. “Censorship changes over time. It is constantly redefined based on the context that shapes it and what is considered socially acceptable,” notes Carolyne Ménard.
The National Assembly Library was inspired by an American event, directly linked to censorship, to put together this collection. It was the Banned Books Week, a week in the fall that highlights censored works in the history of the United States. “We found this concept nice and we started looking through our collections to find works that had initially experienced a form of censorship,” says Carolyne Ménard. At present, the exhibition is only available virtually, but it could return to meet the public in the form of a traveling presentation starting in 2025. Under the covers of the banned books, it is the history of Quebec, and its oppressions, that is revealed.