Once a month, The duty challenges history enthusiasts to decipher a current theme based on a comparison with a historical event or character.
Being born a woman in 1845 represents a very different life from the one we lead today. First of all, it means attending school, taking the time to learn your little catechism and the bare necessities; there is no question of considering higher education. It also means not having the right to vote. Finally, it means getting married, therefore submitting to the authority of your husband, in accordance with the Civil Code, entering into religion or remaining single.
Laure Conan, whose name still resonates in our collective memory, made this choice. On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his death, the time has come to remember his unique journey in a 19e century marked by a rigid conception of social roles.
The career of Conan – the first woman in French Canada to earn her living through writing – has long been perceived as the consequence of a disappointed love, when on the contrary it stands out through her strategic intelligence as a writer.
Networking
Born in 1845 in La Malbaie, whose landscapes began to delight vacationers and artists, Félicité Angers saw writing impose itself on her out of necessity. The six Angers brothers and sisters found themselves orphaned by their father in 1875 and their mother in 1879.
For Félicité, Marie-Marguerite and Adèle, single, the situation was complicated by the loss of their older brother, Élie’s position as postmaster, in 1879. Aged 33, Félicité was already attracted to writing. Laure Conan, by her pen name, makes it appear A true love in the Montreal Review (1878-1879).
This is where a friend of his brother Charles, Thomas Chapais, intervenes. On April 2, 1879, the latter appealed to his father, a conservative senator, so that Félicité retains her position as postmaster, which she has held since the resignation of her brother Élie. The young Chapais asks his father to intercede with Hector Langevin, who heads the Post Office department in Ottawa, in vain.
Mademoiselle Angers at this time put aside any religious vocation and instead persisted in writing. From 1881 to 1882, she published Angeline de Montbrun serialized in The Canadian Review. Like any writer, she is not spared from criticism. She is sometimes brought back to her condition as a woman, with some telling her that her works should have “more roses and fewer thorns”.
Then, a turning point came when her priest friend Paul Bruchési presented her to Father Henri-Raymond Casgrain in 1882. The latter immediately saw her potential and recommended one of her texts to Thomas Chapais for New Canadian Evenings. Through the brambles appeared there in 1883.
As Félicité claims to be “completely incapable of [s]“interfering in political intrigues”, Abbé Casgrain, a central figure in the literary world, willingly took charge of this. In October 1883, he sought to secure a position for him in the archives office in Ottawa. She is not fooled: “This has never been done before for a woman […] and will perhaps suffer many difficulties. » Casgrain’s protégé ultimately does not obtain the coveted position.
Casgrain still managed to raise $300 to Angeline de Montbrunwhich appeared as a book in 1884. Although Conan was grateful to the “father of Canadian literature,” she knew how to stand up to him when necessary.
Living from your pen
When her first novel was published, she lost significant financial support; his brother Charles, who provided for his sisters, got married. Laure Conan decided to take care of her publications herself, looking for a magazine to host her texts, then a publisher-printer, while calling on her network to sell the copies and promote them. She adopts neither more nor less the same strategies as her male counterparts.
Like the few French Canadians who then lived, with difficulty, from their pen, Laure Conan had to show a spirit of initiative. In her correspondence, she multiplies sentences such as “If I could do a little good and make some money”.
To fuel her historical novels, Laure Conan corresponds with several historians and politicians, such as the former prime minister Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau, a writer in his spare time, the historians and abbots Henri d’Arles and Hospice-Anthelme Verreau, and the historian and politician Thomas Chapais. She also asks advice from Father Lionel Groulx, who opens the pages of the magazine to her. French Actionwhich he directs.
Conan draws her favorite subjects from clerical-nationalist ideology and the figures admired by the historians she meets. For them, history must contribute to the preservation of French-Canadian society in a present deemed deleterious. New France, idealized, serves as a model, with its exploits and its heroes.
From his first work, Conan made this discourse his own, notably by incorporating numerous references to the historian François-Xavier Garneau and his History of Canada. Her admiration even pushed her to ask, in 1884, for financial assistance from Alfred Garneau, although she had never met him, under the pretext that “the son of our national historian could not be for a true Canadian nor a foreigner nor an indifferent one.”
In 1887, she also wrote to Élodie Garneau, granddaughter of the national historian, to ask her for help in getting her hands on works available only at the Library of Parliament in Ottawa.
Defend your rights
At the turn of the 20the century, copyright is embryonic. Conan did not hesitate to file a lawsuit in 1899 against the publishing house Leprohon and Leprohon which republished twice (1897 and 1899) A true love. Not only did the house do it without his permission, but they also changed the title to Tears of love.
In May 1899, The Echo of Charlevoix reports that three witnesses pleaded in favor of Conan: the journalist Robertine Barry, the librarian Alfred Duclos Decelles and the deputy Henri Bourassa. But the writer loses her lawsuit. Since she did not register her work with the State, she cannot be considered its exclusive owner.
In a literary world dominated by men, Conan presents female characters who are not relegated to the background. For example, in his psychological novel Angeline de Montbrunit features strong female characters, including a woman who discusses “the future of Canada” with her husband.
The writer also delves into the political world with the publication of brochures calling for the mobilization of her fellow citizens. In his play If Canadians wanted it! (1886), she emphasizes the importance of patriotism and invites women to campaign so that the French-Canadian people become “proud and patriotic” again. If Laure Conan does not call into question the hierarchy between the sexes in this brochure, she innovates by giving voice to female characters at a time when the theatrical environment is exclusively male.
At the end of the century, her younger contemporaries engaged in the fight for women’s suffrage. When Joséphine Dandurand questions him on the subject in her review, Conan replies that she “does not care”, adding however “that women could not use it any worse than men”. She also joined this network, frequenting Robertine Barry (Françoise) and giving conferences to the National Council of Women.
Support
As education remains the preserve of religious communities, Conan is strategic in the choice of her book subjects, because she knows the prospects offered by the educational market. She solicited people likely to help her, such as the historian priest Louis-Édouard Bois and Mgr Thomas-Étienne Hamel. Conan also calls on his faithful friend Mgr Bruchési, who became archbishop of Montreal.
In addition, the Quebec government buys reward books which it then distributes in schools. In 1904, she tried to take advantage of the connections of her brother Charles, a Liberal MP in Ottawa, even if it was at another level.
Conan wrote to Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada, to complain about the inaction of the provincial secretary, Amédée Robitaille. It was only “after being asked” that the latter promised to buy 150 copies of his work The forgotten (1902). She believes her gender is a factor in this matter.
The Quebec government does indeed buy books by Laure Conan, but no orders are placed by the provincial secretariat. In addition to the Department of Agriculture, which acquired 8,000 copies of Louis Hébert in 1914 for a sum of $800, other purchases represent only small amounts.
In 1922, aged 77, Conan requested that the Quebec government purchase several copies of Canadian silhouettes. At the same time, she began preparing a book for the David Prize. The following year, she asked Thomas Chapais to use his influence with the provincial secretary to acquire copies of her works. Angeline de Montbrun And Canadian silhouettes. Ill, she finalized a manuscript in May 1924. She died the following June 6. It is my friend Chapais who will have this final work published, The immortal sap (1925).
At the start of her career, Laure Conan confided to Father Casgrain: “Necessity alone gave me this extreme courage to get myself printed. » Letters were a difficult choice at the time. Writers generally have a parallel career in the public service. If it is this model that she is trying to reproduce first, this single woman will have to take a different path where she constantly puts forward unique strategies, proposals and project ideas.
Thus, Laure Conan, recognized during her lifetime as one of the great writers of Quebec, adapts by varying her network as soon as one generation dies and another emerges. In this, his ability to seek support from the main intellectuals and influential men of his time over the years is remarkable.
To suggest a text or to make comments and suggestions, write to Dave Noël at [email protected].