Worshipping les Canadiens

The graduate course

Two years ago, shortly after the minister moved to Montreal,

"It's a divine inspiration," Bauer said of the idea behind the theology course that begins in January 2009.

"Sport is part of culture and a good way to learn about another country… To discover why people are so passionate about it, it's like, 'Tell me what your sport is and I'll tell you who you are,' " he said.

No athlete has embodied the soul of a city and the spirit of itspeople as Richard did in the 1940s and '50s in Montreal, my homefor the past 21 years.

There are moments when life gets in the way, when sports and thereal world collide at some intersection-

and raises his hand to gesture thank you and signal he is ready for them to be done. But they continue to cheer — to clap, to whistle, to holler —

Novels, plays, folk songs, academic articles and movies followed that cast Richard as an ethnic martyr of sorts, a Saint Sebastian riddled with all the arrows of prejudice that Anglos had slung the way of the Québécois over the years, and the mob became the avenging embodiment of French-Canadian frustration striking out against the imperialists.

However, I want to do what is good for the people of Montreal and the team.

The men overwhelmed law and order.

At first, they vented their frustration over the phone lines. So many called the newspapers’ sports departments to express outrage that some reporters could not concentrate in the din.

Campbell did not witness the Boston melee.

His interpretation of events and subsequent sentence would expose the nation’s ethnic enmity.

“When I’m hit, I get mad and I don’t know what I do,” he confided in one writer. “Before each game, I think about my temper and how I should control it, but as soon as I get on the ice I forget all that.”

In the 1950s, the Anglos controlled the wealth, ruled society and enforced the laws. A disproportionate number of French-Canadians lived in poverty.

For Richard was one of theirs. He was Ree-char-NOT Rih-shard — born and raised, a Catholic French-Canadian in a Catholic French-Canadian city in the heart of a Catholic French-Canadian province.

In 1939, when war broke out in Europe, the 18-year-old Richard tried to enlist for active duty, but military doctors determined his wrists and ankle — already broken during hockey games­ — had not healed properly. He tried to enlist again the following year, but was again turned away. So he applied as a machinist but was ineligible even though he had been working as one for years because he had did not have a high school diploma. He began training at the Montreal Technical School to get a certificate that would allow him to serve, but the war ended before he completed the four-year course.

He had started playing this game as a 4-year-old on the backyard rink his father Onésime, a machinist at the Canadian Pacific Railway, built for him. It was quickly apparent he could play in ways other boys could not.

He refuses to talk to reporters who ask what happened, why the two fought, other than to say, “Ask Laycoe.” He tells them Richard started the fight by hitting him first with his stick. The Boston Record sums up the incident with a banner headline: “RICHARD GOES INSANE”

For five minutes, the tempest rages. The crowd, on its feet, cannot believe the madness before them.

Incensed, Richard swings his stick with two-fisted fury at Laycoe. He hits him with such force across the shoulders that his stick splinters. Laycoe sheds his gloves and rushes at Richard, who drops his gloves. The two thrash at one another with their fists.

“No one can know when the anger of men, whipped indefinitely, becomes sculpted into political revenge

Millions of words have been written. Millions more will be.

"I have often seen Rocket Richard fill the Forum," said Dick Irvin, Jr., later the legendary Montreal play-by-play and colour man, and at that time the son of the team's coach. "But that's the first time I've ever seen him empty it."

It went on most of the night with fears of a repeat a few hours later as it grew dark again — only quelled when Richard went on radio and TV, asking for calm. He would reluctantly take his punishment.

Campbell was already infuriated with the Montreal star,

Richard's story had linesman Cliff Thompson holding him back, arms pinned, while Laycoe was allowed to smack away. Rocket said he warned the linesman three times to let him go before he finally clocked the official. 

He was a talent so large that Conn Smythe, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, offered a million dollars to the Canadiens for him (about $10 million today)

The NHL was a provincial,

almost exclusively the property of the Montreal Canadiens, believed they were more harshly treated by league president Clarence Campbell — especially Richard — when it came time to dish out suspensions and fines. How Richard himself, the Rocket, was so much a part of Quebec society that he transcended even organized religion.

Her eyes were lowered, as with a motion of her head she signified "No."

It left her spirit empty and yearning; she was fain to seek forgetfulness and cure in that life afar, among the myriad paler lights of the city.

Maria looked down again, took her work in hand, and her simple mind pursued a little further its puzzling train of thought. When a girl does not feel, or feels no longer, that deep mysterious impulse toward a man singled out from all the rest of the world, what is left to guide her? For what things should she seek in her marriage? For a satisfying life, surely; to make a happy home for herself ..

All of her life had Maria known this cold, this snow, the land's death-like sleep, these austere and frowning woods; now was she coming to view them with fear and hate. A paradise surely must it be, this country to the south where March is no longer winter and in April the leaves are green! At midwinter one takes to the road without snowshoes, unclad in furs, beyond sight of the cruel forest. And the cities ... the pavements ...

"You are their slaves; that's what you are. You tend them, you clean them, you gather up their dung as the poor do the rich man's crumbs. It is you who must keep them alive by hard work, because the earth is miserly and the summer so short. That is the way of it, and there is no help, as you cannot get on without them; but for cattle there would be no living on the land. But even if you could ... even if you could ... still would you have other masters: the summer, beginning too late and ending too soon; the winter, eating up seven long months of the year and bringing in nothing; drought and rain which always come just at the wrong moment..." "In the towns these things do not matter; but here you have no defence against them and they do you hurt; and I have not taken into account the extreme cold, the badness of the roads, the loneliness of being far away from everything, with no amusements. Life is one kind of hardship on top of another from beginning to end. It is often said that only those make a real success who are born and brought up on the land, and of course that is true; as for the people in the cities, small danger that they would ever be foolish enough to put up with such a way of living."

"Did you picture it to yourselves as you have found it," Chapdelaine persisted, "the country here, the life?" "Not exactly," replied the Frenchman in a low voice. "No, not exactly ..." And a shadow crossed his face which brought from Ephrem. Surprenant:—"It is rough here, rough and hard!"

The men lit their pipes; they chatted about the weather, the condition of the roads, the country news; but the conversation lagged, as though all were looking for it to take some unusual turn. Their glances sought Lorenzo and the three Frenchmen, expecting strange and marvellous tales of distant lands and unfamiliar manners from an assembly so far out of the common. The Frenchmen, only a few months in the country, apparently felt a like curiosity, for they listened, and spoke but little

Maria was thinking of the priest's words: "If there was affection between you it is very proper that you should know regret. But you were not pledged to one another, because neither you nor he had spoken to your parents; therefore it is not befitting or right that you should sorrow thus, nor feel so deep a grief for a young man who, after all is said, was nothing to you..."

Again silence. Maria well knew it was for her they said these things-aware of her grief and seeking to assuage it; but she was not able to speak, either to praise the dead or utter.-her sorrow. A hand had fastened upon her throat, stifling her, as the narrative unfolded and the end loomed inevitable; and now this hand found its way into her breast and was crushing her heart. Presently she would know a yet more intolerable pain, but now she only felt the deadly grasp of those five fingers closed about her heart.

The autumn! And it seemed as though spring were here but yesterday. The grain was yet unripe, though yellowed by the drought; nothing save the hay was in barn; the other crops could draw nutriment from the soil only while the too brief summer warmed it, and already autumn was here, the forerunner of relentless winter, of the frosts, and soon the snows ...

The women of the Chapdelaine household had no part in the work of the fields. The father and his three tall sons, all strong and skilled in farm labour, could have managed everything by themselves; if they continued to employ Legare and to pay him wages it was because he had entered their service eleven years before, when the children were young, and they kept him now, partly through habit, partly because they were loth to lose the help of so tremendous a worker. During the hay-making then, Maria and her mother had only their usual tasks: housework, cooking, washing and mending, the milking of three cows and the care of the hens, and once a week the baking which often lasted well into the night.

"And it is also true that I used to swear. When one lives all the time with rough men in the woods or on the rivers one gets the habit.

Among people speaking nothing but English I should have been unhappy all the rest of my days. I used to say to him-'Samuel, we Canadians are always better off among Canadians.'"

When I was a girl," said mother Chapdelaine, "pretty nearly everyone went off to the States. Farming did not pay as well as it does now, prices were low, we were always hearing of the big wages earned over there in the factories, and every year one family after another sold out for next to nothing and left Canada.

He checked himself, but it was plain that after the kind of life he had been living and what he had seen of the world, existence on a farm between a humble little village and the forest seemed a thing insupportable.

"My nephew Lorenzo," was Ephrem Surprenant's introduction, "a son of my brother Elzear who died last autumn. You never met him, it is a long time since he left this country for the States."

Where the fire had passed, on rocky slopes, wherever the woods were thin and the sun could penetrate, the ground had been clad in almost unbroken pink by the laurel's myriad tufts of bloom; at first the reddening blueberries contended with them in glowing colour, but under the constant sun these slowly turned to pale blue, to royal blue, to deepest purple, and when July brought the feast of Ste. Anne the bushes laden with fruit were broad patches of violet amid the rosy masses now beginning to fade.

In the Province of Quebec there is much uncertainty in the spelling and the use of names. A scattered people in a huge half-wild country, unlettered for the most part and with no one to turn to for counsel but the priests, is apt to pay attention only to the sound of names, caring nothing about their appearance when written or the sex to which they pertain. Pronunciation has naturally varied in one mouth or another, in this family or that, and when a formal occasion calls for writing, each takes leave to spell his baptismal name in his own way, without a passing thought that there may be a canonical form. Borrowings from other languages have added to the uncertainties of orthography and gender. Individuals sign indifferently, Denise, Denije or D

but almost no farming; the men live by trapping and fishing .

"Yes, I sold everything. I was never a very good hand at farming, you know. Working in the shanties, trapping, making a little money from time to time as a guide or in trade with the Indians, that is the life for me; but to scratch away at the same fields from one year's end to another, and stay there forever, I would not have been able to stick to that all my life; I would have felt like a cow tethered to a stake."

Her young vigour and health, the beautiful heavy hair and sunburnt neck of a country girl, the frank honesty of eye and gesture, all these things, thought he, were possessions of the child of seven years ago; and twice or thrice he shook his head as though to say that, in truth, she had not changed. But the consciousness too was there that he, if not she, had changed, for the sight of her before him took strange hold upon his heart.

"Only Tit'Bé has changed," said he. "When you left Mistassini he was but so high..." With a hand he indicated the stature of a child. Mother Chapdelaine's face was bright with interest; doubly pleased to receive a visitor and at the chance of talking about old times.

"At their ease ..." O dread God of the Scriptures, worshipped by these countryfolk of Quebec without a quibble or a doubt, who hast condemned man to earn his bread in the sweat of his face, canst Thou for a moment smooth the awful frown from Thy forehead when Thou art told that certain of these Thy creatures have escaped the doom, and live at their ease?

For this was the passion of his life; the passion of a man whose soul was in the clearing, not the tilling of the earth.

Mother Chapdelaine ended with a sigh. Her thoughts were ever fondly revisiting the older parishes where the land has long been cleared and cultivated, and where the houses are neighbourly-her lost paradise.

"How nice it would be to live in a country where there is hardly any winter, and where the earth makes provision for man and beast. Up here man himself, by dint of work, must care for his animals and his land. If we did not have Esdras and Da'Be earning good wages in the woods how could we get along?" "But the soil is rich in these parts," said Eutrope Gagnon.

Somewhat later he had learned to call Heulle! Heulle! very loudly behind the thin-flanked cows, and Hue! Dia! Harrie! when the horses were ploughing; to manage a hay-fork and to build a rail-fence.

In one of these compartments the father and mother had their bed; Maria and Alma Rose in the other. A steep stairway ascended from a corner to the loft where the boys slept in the summer-time; with the coming of winter they moved their bed down and enjoyed the warmth of the stove with the rest of the family.

The great three-decked stove stood in the centre of the house; the sheet-iron stove-pipe, after mounting for some feet, turned at a right angle and was carried through the house to the outside, so that none of the precious warmth should be lost.

seated facing his sister, smoked pipe after pipe without taking his eyes off her for a single moment, fearful of missing some highly important disclosure that she had hitherto held back. Little Alma Rose stood with an arm about her neck; Telesphore was listening too, as he mended his dog's harness with bits of string. Madame Chapdelaine stirred the fire in the big cast-iron stove, came and went, brought from the cupboard plates and dishes, the loaf of bread and pitcher of milk, tilted the great molasses jar over a glass jug. Not seldom she stopped to ask Maria something, or to catch what she was saying, and stood for a few moments dreaming, hands on her hips, as the villages spoken of rose before her in memory—

"There is a little water on the ice," said he, "and the snow has melted; but we ought to be able to cross all the same. Get up, Charles Eugene." The horse lowered his head and sniffed at the white expanse in front of him, then adventured upon it without more ado. The ruts of the winter road were gone, the little firs which had marked it at intervals were nearly all fallen and lying in the half-thawed snow; as they passed the island the ice cracked twice without breaking. Charles Eugene trotted smartly toward the house of Charles Lindsay on the other bank. But when the sleigh reached midstream, below the great fall, the horse had perforce to slacken pace by reason of the water which had overflowed the ice and wetted the snow. Very slowly they approached the shore; there remained only some thirty feet to be crossed when the ice began to go up and down under the horse's hoofs

Her father shook his head regretfully. The imposing ceremonial, the Latin chants, the lighted tapers, the solemnity of the Sunday mass never failed to fill him with exaltation. In a little he began to sing:—

Maria smiled to think how like he was to her father; both tall and broad, with grizzled hair, their faces tanned to the colour of leather, and, shining from their eyes, the quenchless spirit of youth which keeps alive in the countryman of Quebec his imperishable simple-heartedness.

Which signified that there was no water on the table. Azalma rose to get it, and behind her back the old fellow sent a sly wink in the direction of Maria. "I assault her with parables," chuckled he. "It's politer."

I am here with some Belgians who are going to buy furs from the Indians;

the great wooden bridge, covered in and painted red, not unlike an amazingly long Noah's ark; the high hills rising almost from the very banks of the river, the old monastery crouched between the river and the heights, the water that seethed and whitened, flinging itself in wild descent down the staircase of a giant.

A pity that she lives so far off in the woods. How are the young fellows of the village to manage an evening at their place, on the other side of the river and above the falls, more than a dozen miles away and the last of them with next to no road?"

Meantime the women in their turn had begun to leave the church. Young or old, pretty or ugly, nearly all were well clad in fur cloaks, or in coats of heavy cloth; for, honouring the Sunday mass, sole festival of their lives, they had doffed coarse blouses and homespun petticoats, and a stranger might well have stood amazed to find them habited almost with elegance in this remote spot; still French to their finger-tips in the midst of the vast lonely forest and the snow, and as tastefully dressed, these peasant women, as most of the middle-class folk in provincial France.

The door opened, and the men of the congregation began to come out of the church at Peribonka.

Cleophas Pesant, son of Thadee Pesant the blacksmith, was already in light-coloured summer garments, and sported an American coat with broad padded shoulders; though on this cold Sunday he had not ventured to discard his winter cap of black cloth with harelined ear-laps for the hard felt hat he would have preferred to wear. Beside him Egide Simard, and others who had come a long road by sleigh, fastened their long fur coats as they left the church, drawing them in at the waist with scarlet sashes. The young folk of the village, very smart in coats with otter collars, gave deferential greeting to old Nazaire Larouche; a tall man with gray hair and huge bony shoulders who had in no wise altered for the mass his everyday garb: short jacket of brown cloth lined with sheepskin, patched trousers, and thick woollen socks under moose-hide moccasins.

MEANS OF HELPING THESE PEOPLES.

SOME REMARKS ON THE LIFE OF FATHER JEAN DE BREBEUF .

OF THE CAPTURE OF THE VILLAGES OF THE MISSION OF ST. IGNACE, IN THE MONTH OF MARCH OF THE YEAR 1649.

Infidels

On the 16th and 17th, the Abnakiois arrived, to the number of 30; they are notified that they are not to come again,

MARCH, 1649.

There were two other priests to do the same for two of the Gentlemen of the Council,—who, it was thought, were to be present; but they were not present.

A veritable Account of the Martyrdom and Blessed death of Father Jean de Brebœuf and of Father Gabriel L'Alemant, in New France, in the country of the Hurons, by the Iroquois, enemies of the Faith.

The Jesuits help all whom they can; in less than a year, they have received and aided at Ste. Marie over [page 15] 6,000 persons.

Brebeuf,—recounting at length the religious experiences and visions, and praising the virtues, of this pioneer missionary. For the former, he finds material in the personal memoirs written by Brebeuf at his superior's command.

Here occur two more martyrdoms; Father Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant are in charge of this mission, and [page 14] they refuse to desert their flock in order to save their own lives; and, like Daniel, they devote themselves to comforting! encouraging, or baptizing all who need their ministrations.

contains only Ragueneau's report of the Huron mission for the year ending May 1, 1649. It recounts the destruction of that mission, the martyrdom of three priests, and the dispersion of the Huron converts, in a sanguinary raid made by the Iroquois.

Abenaki Indians come to Quebec; but they are forbidden to come hither again.

in the case of a Creature of 15 or 16 years, a thief.

French are continually harassed by Iroquois raids.

This made us also deem it best, with those of la Rochelle, not to touch either the one or the other. Truly there is reason here to admire the secret judgments of God; for that infamous wretch did not deserve to have this honor shown him; and, to tell the truth, we would have had [2i8] much difficulty in resolving to make on this occasion a private Grave, and in transporting to consecrated Ground a dead man that had lived so scandalous a life in the Country, [page 309] and had given to the Savages so bad an impression of the morals of the French. At first, some felt annoyed that we did not join in the feast, and were offended,-saying to us that our action prevented them from boasting, as they had hoped, to strange Tribes that they were relations of the French; and they were afraid they would say that the friendship was only in appearance, since we had not allowed the bones of our Frenchmen to mingle with theirs. Afterward, however, when they had heard all our reasons, they thought we had acted prudently, and that it was the true way to maintain friendship with both parties.

SOLEMN

I doubt not the good Nicodemus would have found much difficulty about this,

I once heard it said by some Interpreter, that these Nations had a private language in their Councils; but I have learned by experience that this is not so.

For it is not here as it is in France and elsewhere

Metaphor is largely in use among these Peoples; unless you accustom yourself to it, you will understand nothing in their councils, where they speak almost entirely in metaphors

The greatest evil is, that these wretches, under pretext of charity, often avenge their injuries, and purposely give poison to their patients, instead of medicine. What is very remarkable is their experience in healing ruptures, wherein many others in these regions are also skillful. The most extraordinary superstition is that their drugs and ointments take pleasure, so to speak, in silence and darkness. If they are recognized, or if their secret is discovered, success is not to be expected. The origin of all this folly comes from one named Oatarra, or from a little idol in the form of a doll, which he asked, [145] for the sake of being cured, from a dozen Sorcerers who had come to see him; having put it into his Tobacco pouch, it began to stir therein, and ordered the banquets and other ceremonies of the dance, according to what they say. Certainly you have here many silly things, and I am much afraid there may be something darker and more occult in them.

They hold that fish are possessed of reason, [115] as also the Deer and Moose; and that is why they do not throw to the Dogs either the bones of the latter when they are hunting, or the refuse of the former when fishing; if they did, and the others should get wind of it, they would hide themselves, and not let themselves be taken.

As to what is the state of the soul after death, they hold that it separates in such a way from the body that it does not abandon it immediately. When they bear it to the [98] grave, it walks in front, and remains in the cemetery until the feast of the Dead; by night, it walks through the villages and enters the Cabins, where it takes its part in the feasts, and eats what is left at evening in the kettle; whence it happens that many, on this account, do not willingly eat from it on the morrow; there are even some of them who will not go to the feasts made for the souls, believing that they would certainly die if they should even taste of the provisions prepared for them; others, however, are not so scrupulous, and eat their fill.

Now in connection with this name Father I must not forget the difficulty there is in teaching to say Our Father who art in Heaven, to those who have none on earth; to speak to them of the dead whom they have loved, is to insult them.

HIS is only to give some little foretaste of the language, and notice some of its peculiarities, in anticipation of a Grammar and a complete Dictionary.

We gather plenty of grapes, which are fairly good; the squashes last sometimes four and five months, and are so abundant that they are to be had almost for nothing, and so good that, on being cooked in the ashes, they are eaten as apples are in France.

We live on the shore of a great Lake, which affords as good fish as I have ever seen or eaten in France;

During the day, the Sun burns you; during the night, you run the risk of being a prey to Mosquitoes. You sometimes ascend five or six rapids in a day; and, in the evening, the only refreshment is a little corn crushed between two stones and cooked in fine clear water; the only bed is the earth, sometimes only the rough, uneven rocks, and usually no roof but the stars; and all this in perpetual silence.

they would advise me to go down to Kébec, at least after having passe another year here to learn the language perfectly; and that I would be a great Captain, and the only one who could speak in their councils.

We are of the opinion that thou shouldst take down that Cross, and hide it awhile in thy Cabin, or even in the lake, so that the thunder and the clouds may not see it, and no longer fear it; and then after the harvest thou mayest set it up again.

That same tool of the devil that I have mentioned before, Tehorenhaegnon, having been entreated to make rain, replied that he could not [29] make it; and that the [page 43] thunder, which they pretend is a bird, was afraid of the Cross that was in front of the Frenchmen's house, and that the red color with which it was painted was like a fire burning and flaming, which divided the clouds in two when they passed above it.

They believe that nothing is impossible for us.

Generally speaking they praise an approve the Christian Religion, and blame their wicked customs; but when will they leave them off entirely?

Another little girl named Catherine had often been wayward about receiving instruction, and so had not been rewarded like the others.

My own imperfect acquaintance with the language rendered me [page 11] still less intelligible, and increased my difficulties.

The deafness of this sick woman, and the depths of the mysteries I brought to her notice, prevented her from sufficiently understanding me

The "sorcerers," or medicine men, practice all their arts to bring rain, but without success, and attribute their failure to the cross erected by the missionaries.