The duty goes beyond the framework of the National Assembly in this series which revisits the highlights of our political history. Today, The Six Counties Assembly, by Charles Alexander Smith.
We are in 1890, at the Le Brébant café in Paris. The Canadian painter Charles Alexander Smith takes advantage of the presence of compatriots at his table to offer his services. The 26-year-old artist dreams of a large painting featuring a Canadian historical subject. Ok, but which one?
The guests turn to Gustave-Adolphe Drolet, a regular at Le Brébant. This former pontifical Zouave spontaneously proposed the assembly of the six counties of Lower Canada, which took place on the land of his grandfather, on October 23, 1837. That day, nearly 5,000 demonstrators converged on Saint- Charles-sur-Richelieu to hear the speeches of the patriot deputies in favor of a reform of democratic institutions.
Drolet grew up in revolutionary mystique. “Born of a patriotic father and mother, grandson of two grandfathers imprisoned in 1838, cradled on the knees of a nurse whose husband had been killed in the “fire of Saint-Charles”, my childhood had passed, on the enchanting banks of the river [Richelieu], to play in the meadow, where the “Great Assembly” was held! », confided Gustave-Adolphe to The Press in 1895. “Needless to say that until I entered college, ‘the troubles of 37’ were the usual topic of conversation in my family! »
Excited by the proposal of his neighbor at the table in Brébant, Smith returned to his workshop on the outskirts of Paris, where he had delivered “costumes of the time” that had been unearthed in an attic in Varennes, west of Saint – Charles. The artist obviously has an eye for detail. However, he let himself be carried away by his imagination by styling some of his characters with a Phrygian cap (1) inspired by the French Revolution of 1789.
For historian Gilles Laporte, the painter would have done better to favor the blue tuque over the red cap. Especially since this color was difficult to obtain in Lower Canada. “The only way to get red was to mix ox blood with cochineal,” he explains to the To have to. In less than a month, your beautiful scarlet tuque turned brown, while it was easier to produce a beautiful azure blue with the available dyes. »
hot and cold
Of all the speeches delivered on October 23, 1837, Smith naturally chose to illustrate that of Louis-Joseph Papineau (2). Recognizable by his puff, the leader of the Patriot Party is dressed in a bourgeois costume, the antithesis of the country cloth dress advocated by his movement to boycott British export products. “The fabric of the country, I have the impression that it lasted a day”, laughs Gilles Laporte.
Among the notables crowded on the ” husting », we note the presence of Joseph-Toussaint Drolet (3) and François Duvert (4), the two grandfathers of Gustave-Adolphe Drolet, the inspiration of the painting. Smith placed them in the front row, alongside the famous doctor Wolfred Nelson (5). “The time has come to melt our pewter dishes into balls!” would have launched the warmonger to the crowd.
This call to arms would however be apocryphal, according to Gilles Laporte. “Historians have tended to cool Papineau’s speech to better warm Nelson’s,” explains the specialist, recalling that few people were able to hear the speeches that day because of the acoustics of the premises.
Needless to say, until I entered college, “the troubles of 37” were the common topic of conversation in my family!
The contrast is striking between the rigidity of the notables painted by Smith and the fervor of the crowd displaying the Canadian national flag, green, white and red. This tide of tricolors is interspersed with white banners on which are painted inscriptions such as “Down with tyrants! », « Death to traitors! or “Our Canada First”. However, the Deux-Montagnes muskellunge flag held up by Dr. Jean-Olivier Chénier is missing.
On the corner of the dais, there is an American flag (6) recalling the republican inspiration of the Lower Canadian patriot movement. The presence of an escutcheon bearing the coat of arms of Quebec (7) is more surprising. Obviously, the painter wanted to emphasize the filiation between Lower Canada of Louis-Joseph Papineau and Quebec of Honoré Mercier.
By squinting, we can see the column of freedom (8) which dominates the crowd from the top of its fifteen feet. The monument erected in honor of Papineau overlooks the Richelieu River (9) along which the patriot uprising will break out in the weeks following the assembly. The initial momentum of the rebellion will also be broken by British troops less than a kilometer south of the platform of the six counties, at the battle of November 25, 1837.
Mercer in Paris
Completed in 1891, Smith’s work was exhibited the same year at the Palace of Industry and Fine Arts in Paris, where it dazzled the Premier of Quebec, Honoré Mercier, on an official visit to the City of Light. “He sent for the author and while praising his beautiful painting, suggested that he soften a little, or rather attenuate the ‘ferocity’ that breathed some of the historical inscriptions painted on the banners”, relates Gustave-Adolphe Droll in 1895.
Reassured by the artist, Honoré Mercier bought the canvas to offer it to the Quebec Parliament. However, the Liberal government he had led since 1887 was overthrown at the end of 1891 in the wake of the Baie des Chaleurs scandal. The conservatives will have nothing to do with the revolutionary work of Smith, which will be drawn four years later during a lottery organized by the widow of Mercier. The painting is now in the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec.
Deprived of its parliamentary showcase, the canvas imagined at the Café Brébant nevertheless contributed to the fame of October 23, 1837. To the point of overshadowing the other patriot assemblies of the time. Gilles Laporte gives the example of Berthier, where demonstrators marched on allegorical floats in front of a flowering triumphal arch, and of Yamachiche, where a record number of 8,000 patriots came to hear Papineau. “It is a posteriori that the assembly of the six counties became so important, explains the historian, because it initiated a dynamic which leads to the use of arms. »