Under the smoke from the Quebec waste incinerator, archaeologists excavated the remains of the house occupied by François-Xavier Garneau at the time of the Patriot rebellions of 1837. They notably unearthed a fragment of a slate pencil and an inkwell which could have belonged to the first historian of French Canada.
Garneau had his “little white house” built on Chemin de la Canardière starting in the fall of 1835. This Anglo-Norman cottage of just over 1,000 square feet cost him the equivalent of a year’s salary for a civil servant of the time. The residence is “pretty, but very modest,” in the opinion of Pierre-Olivier Chauveau, who became the first prime minister of Quebec in 1867.
Rain or shine, Garneau walks up Chemin de la Canardière to the old town of Quebec, perched on Cap Diamant, 3.5 kilometers away. “He was a great walker,” exclaims his biographer, Patrice Groulx. In winter, Garneau can also take the Saint-Charles River ice bridge to save time and, above all, avoid the Dorchester Bridge toll.
Rebellions
In 1837, the future historian was an assistant translator in the Parliament of Lower Canada, where the patriot leader Louis-Joseph Papineau shined. He also worked at the Campbell solicitor’s office and at the Bank of British North America as a cashier. To relieve boredom, he published articles with a historical flavor in the newspaper The Canadian.
A fervent patriot, Garneau followed the uprising in the Richelieu valley and the county of Deux-Montagnes from his cottage in La Canardière. In 1838, he wrote a poem dedicated to the Governor General of Canada, Lord Durham, who had just arrived from England to resolve the political crisis. “Everyone was naive at that time,” emphasizes Groulx. Durham had a positive aura and Garneau had probably known him in London. »
The declaration of Queen Victoria’s representative according to which French Canadians were a “people without history or literature” would serve as a driving force for Garneau to write his History of Canada which appeared between 1845 and 1852. “He never said himself that it was a response to Lord Durham, but everyone understood it that way at the time,” explains Groulx.
Figs and potatoes
The artifacts collected on the site of the Garneau house bear witness to the family life of the historian and the tenants who occupied his home until the end of the 19th century.e century. In addition to a bone toothbrush handle, archaeologists found beer and toilet water bottles. “There is no doubt that the social status of the inhabitants of the Garneau house was rather high,” we read in the excavation report obtained by The duty.
The archaeologists of the Truelle et Cie firm were preceded by more than a century by Alfred Garneau, the historian’s eldest son, who discovered “arrow flints”, “spears” and “brain puzzles”. » (tomahawk) natives while digging the courtyard of the family home where he was born in 1836.
The children raised in this formerly rural environment left behind marbles, fragments of dolls and even a set of miniature dishes. Added to this is a bottle of children’s syrup from Doctor Coderre.
The Garneaus’ table was well stocked as evidenced by the remains of raspberries, blackberries and strawberries eaten in jellies, jams or tarts. Potatoes were also cooked there, which were fetched from a cellar specially designed for this purpose. “The potato is taking up more and more space in the Quebec diet,” we read in the excavation report, “to the point of going from an exceptional food to an essential product. »
Place of memory
François-Xavier Garneau will remain on Canardière until 1840 when he once again becomes a tenant in Quebec to be closer to his work. The historian, however, kept his small white house, where he took refuge in 1847 during the typhus epidemic. The location is rather poorly chosen, being between two centers of infection, the Marine hospital, to the south, and the Beauport asylum, to the north. “He almost died,” Groulx explains.
Recovered from his typhoid fever and a first epileptic attack, the historian returned to Cape Diamant, where he made numerous moves. “We forget it, but Quebec was a city of imperial officials,” recalls Groulx, “there were many houses for rent. »
Garneau was living on Saint-Flavien Street in 1866 when he died of pleurisy at the age of only 56. The town house where he only passed through will be classified as a heritage building one hundred years after his death. It has since become a place of memory for the historian, unlike the unused location of his little white house.
In 1903, the dilapidated Canardière residence and its land were sold to a railway company which then transferred them to British American Oil, whose factory pillars were located on the Beauport stone foundations of the old cottage that was razed. The last vestiges of the house were destroyed during the soil decontamination work which followed the archaeological excavations.