Poetry
La Légende d'un peuple
Not translated into English
Louis Fréchette · 1887
Synopsis
A book of about three hundred and fifty pages in alexandrines, dedicated to France: a prologue on America, three epochs and an epilogue. The first follows the discovery and New France, Cartier at Saint-Malo and on the Saint Lawrence, the missionaries and the martyrs, Cavelier de La Salle, Daulac des Ormeaux. The second runs from Frontenac defending Quebec against Phips to the Plains of Abraham and the Conquest. The third passes through Papineau, Saint-Denis, Chénier and the scaffold of the Patriotes, up to Riel's gallows. Each episode forms a tableau.
Context
The author finished his manuscript in 1887 at Le Pellerin, near Nantes, in a house lent through the good offices of the woman of letters Adine Riom; the book appeared in Paris in November, from the Librairie illustrée, with a preface by Jules Claretie, who declined to compare the author with Hugo. It was still called Les épopées nationales. A revised and expanded version appeared in 1908 in his Poems, illustrated by Henri Julien. Critics have reproached the collection for its imitative style and its grand effects.
Who it is for
A collection in alexandrines, of emphatic eloquence, read as a series of tableaux. One must know the main dates of Quebec history or be willing to open a chronology.
Prizes and reception
According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the best-known poetic work of its author, an epic chronicle of the French-Canadian past.
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