CCHA Historical
Studies 51(1984), 5-27
The Inroads of
Secularization
in Eighteenth-Century New
France:
Church and People at Louisbourg
by Terry CROWLEY
University of
Guelph
The established traditions of monarchy in
countries such as Canada have, over the centuries, fostered a close association
between church and state which has influenced the religious character of
society, although not always in the ways anticipated. The state which conceives
itself as the transmitter of ordained patterns received from the past promotes
religious development in a manner which societies which view their origins as a
secular covenant of a sovereign, though amorphous, people cannot admit. The emphasis
on the rights of man in these latter countries has entrenched the concept of
the separation of church and state in a way unacknowledged in countries whose
origins are viewed as continuing the tacit acceptance of inherited traditions
and institutions. This essentially conservative vision of the Canadian nation,
expressed most cogently and persuasively by W.L. Morton, has strongly
influenced the writing of Canadian religious history, most profoundly
concerning the French regime up to the coming of the British in 1760.
For a century Quebec’s clerical-nationalist
historians extolled the virtues of a simpler time in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries when French Canadians, far removed from the disquieting
effects of industrialization and urbanization, lived in harmony with their
land and their clergy. This pastoral interpretation of New France was not
essentially challenged by its Protestant protagonists like Max Eastman and W.A.
Riddell because such historians confirmed the place of an “ecclesiastical
control” however poorly defined or negatively viewed.1 It was only a quarter of a century ago that
neo-nationalist historian Guy Frégault, followed by iconoclast W.J. Eccles,
began the assault on this pastoral interpretation. While Frégault concluded
that the institutional strength of Roman Catholicism in New France had not been
as profound as generally assumed, Eccles questioned the portrayal of habitants
as an excessively pious people.2 About the same time, but unaware of these newer
interpretations, Charles Edwards O’Neill’s study of colonial Louisiana found
that the more southerly colony did not exhibit the religious fervour that
historians of Canada had depicted as characteristic of the more northerly
region. Indeed, O’Neill concluded that religion in early Louisiana had been a
“pervading, tempering but not a dynamic, decisive force.”3
The
experience in France’s maritime colonies has generally been excluded from these
discussions, although historians have shown a continuing interest in the
difficult role performed by French missionaries in Acadia in the tense years
leading up to the deportation in 1755. The subject of this paper is the place
of religion in the two colonies founded on Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island
by the French following their exclusion from mainland Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. In the former, which the French
called Ile Royale, immigrants from France and Placentia in Newfoundland
predominated because a sufficient number of Acadians could not be persuaded to
leave their fertile farmland for the rocky terrain they were shown in Cape
Breton. Similarly, some Canadians did move to the new colony but their numbers
were never large because even during the French regime Canadian society looked
more to the west than to the east. As at Quebec, voluntary migration was
augmented by deported criminals (largely salt smugglers) from the mother country
and small numbers of slaves, Protestants and foreigners. Settlement in Prince
Edward Island, called by the French Ile Saint Jean, retained the same
characteristics observed at Ile Royale of clinging to coastal
locations, but not until the dislocation of the Acadians in the 1750's did its
meagre population amount to much.
The capital for both islands, Louisbourg,
dominated in a manner even more pronounced than did Quebec. As Louisbourg was
the administrative, commercial, military, fishing and religious centre for the
colony, it contained a major portion of the population. The last census of
both islands taken in 1752 gave the total number of people as 8,814, almost
half of whom lived in the capital. While life in Louisbourg may not have been
sophisticated in the manner that it was in contemporary Philadelphia or
Boston, it was still cosmopolitan. The port rapidly became the foremost in New
France and fourth in colonial America. Along its quay during the shipping
months any number of languages were spoken. As well, life was heavily
influenced by a strong military presence and a disproportionate number of men
to women which was also partially attributable to the fishing industry.
Although Louisbourg was officially erected
into a parish in 1726, the colony as a whole remained a mission served only by
regular rather than secular clergy. Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame
of Montreal provided education for girls and young women while the Brothers
Hospitaler of St. John of God (Brothers of Charity) operated the king’s
hospital which housed one hundred beds. Priestly functions within the community
and the chaplaincy of the troops were shared by Recollets from two ecclesiastical
provinces, Brittany and St. Denis (Paris), until 1730 when the former assumed
all duties and the latter returned to France.
Each of these religious communities tried
to keep six of their number in the colony at most times. This meant that there
was always a shortage of priests, not just within the capital itself, but also
to serve the outlying communities on both Ile Saint Jean and Ile
Royale. The 1734 census revealed a priest-to-people ratio of 1/555,4 a figure much higher than even the rural areas of
Quebec. One Recollet served as parish priest, another as military chaplain
within the citadel of the fortress, and a third essentially combined the two
roles by ministering both to the troops at the Royal Battery and people on the
north shore of Louisbourg’s harbour. Statistics for communities outside the
capital would only be misleading as the population was both scattered and much
of it highly transitory. In this regard it should be noted that one of the
great strengths of the Recollets’ ministry was their
willingness to move around the island during the
fishing seasons in order to provide an ambulatory service to the people. Due to
the fact that there were only three priests involved there, their ministry was
never as complete as the faithful hoped or those in authority advocated. One
governor in the 1750’s went so far as to recommend ten more priests for the
colony, but this was a time when the Recollets were short-staffed and Acadians
were fleeing their homeland for refuge within French territory.5 Nor
were the Recollets ever able to provide a totally satisfactory service to the
Basque fishermen who annually came to Canadian waters. After the colony’s
Basque priest was recalled in 1715, a replacement was never found. Instead, the
Recollets tried to maintain in the colony one among them who understood the
Basque language. Petitions from Basque fishermen attest to the fact that this
solution was not as preferable in their eyes as the presence of a Basque priest
would have been.
Not just the
small number of religious in the colony, but also the character and conduct of
the Brittany Recollets coloured religious life at Louisbourg and elsewhere. The
general picture we have received of the clergy in New France is that they were
“singularly well-behaved and disciplined, dedicated and devout.”6
While some orders such as the Montreal Sulpicians or the Spiritans clearly
conformed to this impression, the Ile Royale Recollets did not.7 They were known neither for their high theological
standards nor for upright moral conduct. Bishop Saint-Vallier, in particular,
disliked both their personal deportment and their priestly practice. He had not
looked favourably on their earlier ministry at Placentia in Newfoundland and he
found as little to like in the new colony. His views were confirmed by the
Bishop of Vannes in Brittany who refused to allow members of that province of
the order to enter his diocese. Indeed, the conduct of the Louisbourg parish
priest after 1724, Benigne Le Dorz, led the bishop formally to remove him from
office and to replace him with a young secular priest from Quebec. Although
stern and aging Saint-Vallier did not consider Le Dorz to have been morally
corrupt; he could not countenance his habits of drinking heavily in public,
becoming boisterous and dancing freely. The bishop had first attempted to get
the priest to abjure his ways, but Le Dorz’s subsequent affront to canon law in
three marriages he performed necessitated more drastic action.8
Although the
public removal of Le Dorz as parish priest during Mass one Sunday in 1726 was
the most turbulent event in the colony’s religious history, it was indicative
of problems with the Ile Royale Recollets. Pierre de Soubras,
the colony’s first financial commissary, noted as early as 1716 that the morals
and conduct of the Parisian Recollets were infinitely superior to those of
their Brittany brothers. His successor charged that the friars thought only of
amassing money in order to return to France. The Quebec episcopacy felt that
the Louisbourg mission was in a pitiful state in 1731 and it was hoped that the
coadjutor might visit it to settle disputes and directly instruct the
Recollets. Another cleric went so far as to call the Recollet convent a tavern
and denounce the drunken and debauched behaviour of the friars as scandalous.
They neither preached, provided moral direction, nor taught catechism. The
situation was so bad that it was claimed that “on y voit toute sortes de vices
y tryompher Et la vertu peu cherye.”9
The Recollets also bent easily to political pressure. In 1730 when Acting
Governor Bourville refused to agree to the marriage of one of his military
officers, the financial commissary Demese was able to persuade the priests to
perform the marriage anyway.”10
Civil and
religious authorities found the situation little better in the 1750’s. Governor
Raymond concluded that religion suffered not only due to the limited number of
priests in the colony but also because the Recollets were “presque tous très
ignorants et qu’ils menent pour la plus part une vie déréglée.”11 In the outlying areas, it was maintained, only Mass
was said without other priestly activity to enhance religious life. The Sisters
of the Congregation were not happy with the friars and Abbé l’Isle-Dieu, the
vicar general of the Quebec bishop resident in Paris, went so far as to
conclude that “cette pauvre mission ne setablira jamais tandis quelle sera dans
les mains des récollets.”12
Discussions about replacing this order with secular priests intensified during
the decade of the 1750’s but got no further than they had previously.
While ecclesiastical and civil authorities
were frequently condemnatory of the Recollets, the order clearly was not as
bad as these remarks alone convey. Through their long association with the
maritime colonies, the Recollets had become part of the local identity and they
elicited local support. Both governors Costebelle and Saint-Ovide were
complimentary towards them and their ministry, although it was charged that the
latter was their only supporter at Court. The bishop’s attempt to displace the
Recollets as parish priests of Louisbourg sparked rare public petitions both
from the capital and the outlying communities. Before the coming of the
Recollets, it was maintained, there was an insufficient number of secular
priests at Placentia and the Recollets were willing to serve the outports and
the fishing industry despite the small amount of income they received. Although
we know very little about actual religious practice, one of their number was
praised for his preaching ability in the 1750’s and other evidence shows that
children were catechized. Nor can one help but be sympathetic to the argument
put forward by one of the Recollets that minor irregularities quickly got blown
out of proportion and individuals were transformed into “monsters” in the
opinions of some.13
Nor was life
easy for either the Recollets or colonists. Father Michel Le Duff wrote
plaintively of how difficult conditions were. He had not acclimatized well to
the island and had lost weight. He found the winters long and trips through the
ice and snow most arduous. Like others, he complained as well about poor food
and the lack of fresh meat.14 Le
Duff stood in marked contrast to Father Isidore Caulet who served as chaplain
to the troops for some thirty years. Although neither his intellectual capacity
nor administrative skills were highly rated by others, he was a devoted
servant of the Lord. Governor Raymond commended Caulet as “remply de Zèle, bon
prêtre, bien charitable et a de bonnes moeurs,” although he could not preach.
Abbé l’Isle-Dieu was more pointed in his estimation: “"Ce bon religieux
est aymé et estimé, mais fort vieux et a moitié sourd, sans aucune espèce de
talent.”15 The faithful
chaplain ended his life in 1754 at Louisbourg where he had come as a young man.
Because not
all the Recollets were like Father Caulet, episcopal authority attempted to
discipline the order through the appointment of vicars-general in the colony.
The Recollets responded forcefully because they were opposed to the imposition
of any immediate ecclesiastical power outside their own order. After
Saint-Vallier failed in his bid to make a secular priest the curé of Louisbourg, he
appointed a Parisian Recollet as vicar-general but the bishop’s death in late
1727 ended that appointment. His successor wanted to appoint a secular priest
as vicar-general but argued that he needed government assistance which was
refused. In 1740 Pierre Maillard, the apostle to the Micmacs, was made
vicar-general. The Recollets reacted not only on grounds of principle, but
because Maillard was better dealing with the Amerindians than Whites. He not
only severely criticized the friars, but his new authority also went to his
head and he acted inconsistently. The quarrels and divisions were such that
Commandant Duquesnel and François Bigot, the financial commissary, supported
the Recollets’ request for the recall of Maillard. The minister of Marine
intervened with ecclesiastical authorities, with the ultimate result that
Bishop Pontbriand divided the powers of vicar-general between Maillard and the
superior of the Recollets in 1744. There were further problems during the
1750’s. When the wellknown Acadian missionary Jean-Louis Le Loutre was made
vicar-general in addition to Maillard, two Recollets were recalled to France.
Pontbriand insisted that the Recollets obey the vicars-general and expressly
forbad the friars to perform any marriages in the evening without their
permission. In 1756 Father Girard on Ile Saint Jean was appointed
vicar-general just for that island.16
The other
two religious orders escaped the criticism directed at the Recollets. Although
Sister de la Conception who founded the Sisters of the Congregation at
Louisbourg was a contentious individual not universally admired, the nuns
themselves were continually praised for their devotion to their calling and
their contribution to the community. Not only did they educate, but they also
cared for the sick and took in orphans in emergencies such as the smallpox
epidemics of the early 1730’s. Some criticism was directed at the Brothers of
Charity but most of this can be interpreted as part of the objections directed
towards any science as inexact as eighteenth-century medicine or any places as
horrible as contemporary hospitals. In the 1750’s Thomas Pichon went further to
suggest that the Brothers were guilty of disobeying their vow of chastity:
Comme ils sont chirurgiens, medecins et apothicaires
pour toute la colonie, ils sont perpetuellement à errer dans les maisons, et
Dieu scait ce qu’ils font; je crois du moins que s’il y a des femmes qui ne
s’en plaignent pas, it y auroit bien des maris qui auroient à plaindre.17
Are we to lend any credence to the innuendo of a man
committed to the intellectual anticlericalism of the Enlightenment and who also
became a traitor to his country? While it is tempting to dismiss this charge
outrightly, other evidence does volunteer one example of sexual misconduct. In
1751 the superior of the order at Louisbourg, Brother Boniface, was sent back
to France by the governor because of such activities.18 The
action taken in this case belies Pichon’s generalized statement and suggestion.
It should be noted, however, that a Louisbourg woman was insulted in 1758 by a
man who called her a beggar woman and a whore to the monks in the town.19 She
took him to court where the assertion was not proven, but the remark indicated
some degree of public scepticism about clerical celibacy in the same way that
Pichon gave expression to Enlightenment anticlericalism in New France.
Not only
have the clergy of New France been portrayed as exceptionally disciplined and
devoted, so have her people. Even a scholar like Nive Voisine who notes the
sources of institutional weakness for Roman Catholicism during the French
regime still comes to the conclusion that during this period of history “les
Canadiens baignent dans une atmosphère religieuse.”20 In trying to
determine whether the experience in Ile Royale came closer to this example
or that of Louisiana which was at one time referred to as “veritable Babylon”
that had thrown off the yoke of God,21 it should be remembered many of the generalizations
for the religious history of Quebec are based on the seventeenth century when
the influence of the CounterReformation was strongly felt, especially in
adventures such as the founding of Montreal or the conversion of the
Amerindians. In contrast, as Jacques Mathieu and Pierre Hurtubise have recently
pointed out, studies of society in eighteenth-century New France are lacking
and frequently deficient in analysis.22 In using the term “people”, we must as well remember
La Bruyère’s reservations: “Qui dit le peuple dit plus d’une chose: c’est une
vaste expression, et l’on étonneroit de voir ce qu’elle embrasse, et jusques où
elle s’étend.”23 We should be careful
to differentiate military officers from soldiers, men from women, and Marine
officials and the bourgoisie from craftsmen, labourers, indentured servants,
slaves, and both resident and itinerant fishermen.
The low
level of institutional and commercial life in New France is readily apparent to
all who study the French regime in Canada. This was especially true in the
newer colonies such as Ile Royale where royal absolutism did
not have to vie for power with traditional local authorities as it did in
France. Ile Royale did inherit some institutions from the former colony
at Placentia in Newfoundland and among these were the positions of captain of
militia and churchwarden of the local parish. Although the wealthy Louisbourg
merchant Guillaume Delort was identified in the early 1720’s as churchwarden,
the existence of the local parish council was never more than ephemeral. At the
beginning of the next decade Father Zacharie Caradet, superior of the
Recollets, tried to breathe some life into the dormant institution by allowing
the churchwardens to carry the posts to the canopy during religious
processions, but in removing this privilege from the two most senior fishing
captains, he produced a counter-reaction that took several years to pacify. His
initiative failed in its purpose. Similarly, no religious confraternity is
known ever to have existed in Louisbourg or elsewhere in the colony.
Nor even was the church predicted in
Louisbourg’s official plan of 1723 ever constructed, although it was shown
frequently on maps and views of the town. Even though chapels and churches were
built in other locations on both islands, the faithful in Louisbourg attended
the Mass firstly in the Recollet chapel and from 1735 in the royal chapel of
the barracks of the king’s bastion. Of the former, one official concluded that
there was not in France “d’Ecurie qui ne soit plus belle and plus propre qui
n’est l’Église de Louisbourg.”24 On several occasions Governor Saint-Ovide assembled
local residents to encourage them to get on with building the needed structure,
but to no avail. The royal engineer, Étienne Verrier, drew plans for the church
but other construction took precedence in the royal timetable. In the 1750’s
when the town’s population reached its highest point, the chapel was reported
as overcrowded with four Masses being said on Sundays.25 Church attendance was a sufficiently common activity
that notices of upcoming auctions were always posted on the chapel door.
A variety of
explanations were given to explain the institutional weakness of religion in
eighteenth-century Cape Breton. Bishop Saint-Vallier attributed the absence of
the parish church to the Recollets and he thought that secular priests would
have erected a sanctuary for the community. The Recollets blamed the
churchwardens whom they thought lacked the commitment to carry through the
undertaking. The churchwardens, it was reported, said it was useless to amass
money for the project as the Recollets would send it to France. The same
financial consideration was given as the reason for the lack of a parish
council. One Quebec cleric maintained that the Louisbourg people did not want
the council because it would have been charged with collections. Others argued
that the people of the colony were exceptionally poor and therefore could not
afford any substantial financial commitment to the church. The last two
officials to head the colony went so far as to maintain that “de tous les
Colons, Celuy de l’Isle Royale est le plus pauvre, que l’habitant pescheur en
général trouve à peine dans les bonnes années de quoy faire subsister sa
famille.”26
Whom are we
to believe? How are we to explain this seeming disinterest in religious
matters? One argument that cannot be accepted is the poverty of the local
population. To be sure, the colonies appeared to Frenchmen to be poor in
comparison with France itself and the lot of the bulk of Louisbourg’s
population was as wretched as elsewhere, but the colony was a thriving
commercial centre with numerous bourgeois fortunes and other adequate incomes
derived from the fishing, shipping and related industries. Ile Royale never experienced
either the currency or balance of payment problems that kept recurring at
Quebec. Nor can it be maintained that the colony lacked any inherited
traditions and was totally transitory in nature. People had come from the other
French colonies and the mother country bringing their traditions with them. A
core of prominent families provided a continuing presence both within the
military and the merchant communities.
Too much can be made of this lack of
religious dynamism and too great an effort to explain it away. Placed in a
broader context, it loses some of its peculiarity. Louisbourg was not
exceptional in failing to build a community church. Louisiana also developed
for a quarter of a century without constructing a church edifice. In both
France and New France the spread of secularization sapped the vitality of
religious practice. Confraternities seemed to have failed to conquer new areas
in France following the reign of Louis XVI and even recruitment for the most
popular Quebec confraternity, that of the Holy Family which had been founded in
1664, fell off in the eighteenth century.27
As we know
very little about the role of parish councils at Quebec, it is more difficult
to state with certainty what their role was there. In the Montreal area, parish
councils were active during the later part of the seventeenth century, but Nive
Voisine maintains that the parish was generally late in developing in New
France and did not begin to emerge as a formative institution in French Canada
until after 1725. In the majority of parishes the trustees do not appear to
have been very active, leaving most affairs to the priest except for certifying
the annual accounts. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, the
parish councils were vehicles for community democracy in action, at least in
the rural areas.28
During the French regime they seem to have varied in importance. In the small
and isolated communities where people were forced to be self-reliant rather
than depend on government, parish councils were more active. In a remote
village such as Kaskaskia in the Illinois country, the business of local
government was conducted after Mass on the steps of the church or in the home
of leading citizens. In 1739 a syndic was even elected to take charge of the
fence around the village common.29 This testifies to a form of cooperative activity
seldom seen during the French regime. Individualism rather than co-operation
was more often apparent. Whether this example or that of Louisbourg more
exactly mirrored communal life in New France generally can only be determined
through further research.
That the
Church was not a strong influence in the lives of eighteenthcentury Canadians
can be ascertained with greater certainty by examining invaluable primary
sources from the French regime: court and notarial records. Wills and
inventories made after death allow the historian to go beyond the opinions of
contemporaries. The number of wills extant does not permit us to chart
religious sentiment over time in the manner that Michel Voyelle has examined
increasing secularization or “dechristianization” in eighteenth-century
Provence, but this source is suggestive in other ways.30
Some 39 wills were examined, over three-quarters of which were written when the
testor was sick enough to be in fear of imminent death.31 Of
these, 7 (17.9%) were lying in the Louisbourg hospital under the care of the
Brothers of Charity.
What is
immediately apparent from these wills is the standard notarial formula which
commended the individual’s soul to God as a good Christian and through the
intercession of the Virgin Mary and, more infrequently, the person’s patron
saint. The only testament not drawn by a priest or notary, that of Adam Boreau
in 1715, did not contain this formula. A more profound degree of commitment to
the faith, however, was more likely to be indicated by other references to
religious or charitable ends. Just over half (20 in all) did make mention of
such intentions outside the concerns of their immediate families. These
references can be broken down further in the following manner:
Ile Royale Wills (N/39)
Number %
Reference to
Masses, special arrangements for 10 25.6
burial, prayers,
or other indications of faith
Money provided
for Masses 7 17.9
Legacies left to
religious orders or parish 6 15.4
church
Money left to
charity (sometimes to be 4 10.3
distributed by
the church)
The deeper commitment to the Church as evinced
by religious or charitable references in wills cut across class, occupational
and sexual divisions. Women were only sightly more likely to make such
affirmations: they represented 26% of the total sample and 30% of those making
reference to things religious. While an analysis of the testaments by
occupational categories is precluded by the lack of adequate information, a
sufficient number of people can be identified from other sources to conclude
that the faithful came from a variety of backgrounds. Anne Degas Barrer, widow
of the wealthy fisherman Joannis Dastarit, was generous in a manner not thought
of by merchant Guillaume Delort in his will but appreciated by a soldier of the
Swiss Karrer regiment named André Auger who was as charitable with his more meagre
resources as was the widow with her much larger estate. Where reference was
made to the poor, it was still generally as the “shameful poor”, although one
reference was to the “most needy poor”. One mother, Anne Guyon Depré, availed
herself of the opportunity presented by making her will embarked on a sea
voyage to Quebec in 1733:
Ladite Testatrice s’en raporte à ses enfans pour faire
prier Dieu pour le Respos de son ame, leur recommendant Seulement de ne la pas
oublier dans leurs prieres particulières et de faire pour les oeuvres pieuses
et prieres publiques ce que les enfans sont obligés de faire pour leurs pere
& Mere.32
Another
means of gauging religious sentiment, though admittedly inexact, is to see what
religious objets people possessed when inventories after death were made of
their estates.33 Of 82 inventories examined, only six (7%) readily
revealed religious objects other than books. The objects themselves, who owned
them, and their value varied enormously:
Individual Date
Occupation Objects
Widow 1735
Merchant A gold Christ, framed;
Dastaris a
gold Crucifix; a Holy Water basin with Crucifix; and a small framed picture of
Mary Magdalen
Issac de 1740
Governor A tableau of Mary
Forant Magdalen
Pierre Henry 1743 Master Faience Holy Water
Nadeau dit fisherman
and Basin
Lachapelle innkeeper
Abbé Courtin 1743 Priest
A large number of
small religious items intended for the Amerindians
Pierre-Jérôme 1753 Engineer Two
pictures of St. Peter
Boucher and St. Paul which sold
at
auction for 35 livres
14 sols.
Michel Vallé 1756 Fisherman Faience Holy Water basin
Sources: AN,
Section d'Outre-mer, G2, 185; 119; 198: 171; 202: 287; 205: 395. AN, OM, G3,
2039/1; 66. AN, col, E96.
A small number of religious objects has also
been found in inventories after death taken in Quebec and France. For Montreal,
Louise Dechêne found a situation not unlike that in Louisbourg: a third of some
forty-six inventories of merchants and officers revealed religious items but
none were found for craftsmen or habitants. The attempt usually made to explain
this situation by invoking the poverty of the latter or the lack of market
value for these objects will not suffice.34 Both the Louisbourg
and Quebec inventories reveal items of very little value. The faience holy
water basin owned by Henri Nadeau dit Lachapelle, for example, sold at auction with
a number of other non-religious items for only two livres.
Although
this is not the place to provide a detailed analysis of these inventories, it
is readily apparent that the absence of religious items from estates of
habitants and craftsmen cannot be explained by their lack of wealth or
furnishings. The inventories clearly reveal that Louisbourg’s artisans had
begun to enjoy part of the rising standard of living that was slowly beginning
to transform the Atlantic world. Not only did their estates usually contain
significant amounts of pewter but also sometimes silver and faience ware.
Fishing hands, to be sure, owned very little, but it is difficult to establish
whether they were permanent residents or transients.
An analysis of books found in these estates
confirms the impression that this was neither the time nor the place that was
overly concerned with matters of faith, at least by standards that would be
seen in the next century. Few people read and those who did were not especially
concerned with religious or philosophical issues. Of 85 inventories examined, some
23 contained books and only 13 (15%) contained works in the areas of philosophy
and religion.35 These books were
spread across all occupations and included the Pensées of Pascal, the
lives of the saints, a prayer book, a catechism, and sermons. These books as
well as the religious objects found at Louisbourg clearly reveal a post
Counter-Reformation sensibility. The most popular religious books were the “Forty
Hours” which provided daily devotionals. They had become increasingly
widespread in the sixteenth century just as Mary Magdalene, pictured in pieces
owned by Governor de Forant and the Widow Dastaris, grew in importance as a
devotional figure after the Counter-Reformation.36
Despite these characteristics of the age and the fact that religious and
philosophical works were owned by more of those who held books than any other
category (57%), the grouping was still relatively small and more scientific
books were held than any other category. This does not appear to have been
that different from what existed at Quebec, but it stands in contrast to the
growing importance of religious publications in the nineteenth century.37
About actual
religious practices we know very little. The absence of primary sources has
sometimes led historians to impute conduct from literature that was essentially
prescriptive in nature or which dated from other eras. The destruction of the
archives of the Sisters of the Congregation, for example, make it impossible to
go beyond what the Swedish traveller Peter Kalm wrote: that the Sisters taught
their pupils reading, writing, needlework “and other female education.”38
Similarly, religious practice was prescribed in Bishop Saint-Vallier’s
catechism and ritual for the diocese of Quebec, but we have no way of gaging
how well people were catechized or what elements they accepted or rejected. Nor
do we have any means of finding what components of folk belief were blended
with Christian tradition, almost certainly an important strain in a society
where there was so little formal education, especially for boys.
Such
interpretative problems complicate our understanding of religious holidays. For
the diocese of Quebec there were officially 37 holy days of obligation, but
this number was reduced in 1744 by moving 17 feast days to Sundays. Just which
feast days were regularly observed and in what manner is more difficult to
determine. While the holy days were undoubtedly observed within the church, not
all were shown the same attention or involved the larger community. Christmas
passed with little fanfare but Easter was important enough for an old official
like Joseph Lartigue to put aside his legal work until after the holidays.39
Within the fishing industry the feast of St. Michael (September 29) was
important as a payment and delivery deadline, while the feast of St. Barbe was
observed officially by the local government in 1741.
Apart from
these only the feasts of Corpus Christi and Saint Louis are known to have been
observed regularly and with some fanfare year after year. The feast of Saint
Louis (Louis IX) was celebrated on August 25 in the manner of a national
holiday with social festivities, artillery volleys and a bonfire in the evening
where the priest, governor and financial commissary each received a torch. The
feast of Corpus Christi late in the spring assumed more fully a religious
character since a procession involving the military moved through the town.40 In
1727 Protestant officers of the Swiss Karrer regiment refused to place
themselves at the head of their contingents or the guard during the procession
that year as was their right by military regulation. As well, officials
ordered the singing of the Te Deum, the
ancient Latin hymn of rejoicing, on eleven occasions to celebrate the victories
of France’s armed forces or events cherished by the royal family such as the
birth of legitimate offspring.
It would
appear that many other holy days of obligation were observed by few except the
local religious communities and those of the faithful who attended Mass
regularly. This was certainly the tradition inherited from Newfoundland where
the Bishop of Quebec had at one time to request that the governor see that the
Recollets and their flock at least observed the principal religious holidays
such as Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas. Fishermen there and in Ile Royale were not able to observe such holidays due to the
exigencies of their business. The Recollets at Louisbourg argued that they
should be exempted from such observance during the summer months and in 1716
Bishop Saint-Vallier complied with their request but added the proviso that
they attend Mass before setting out after their catch.41 The
bishop also required that fishermen continue to observe the main religious
holidays which were stated to be Pentecost, Holy Sacrament, Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin, Christmas, and the feast of Saint John. While these feast days
were observed with fewer activities than those of Saint Louis or Corpus
Christi, the holy days of obligation were sufficiently embedded in the popular
mind that some individuals used them to date events during court proceedings.
Official respect
for the Sabbath was shown in several ways. Ships in the harbour were supposed
to fly their flags on Sundays and on more than one occasion they were fined by
Admiralty officials for failing to comply with this observance. Taverns and
drink shops were also supposed to be closed during hours of divine service with
fines payable to the parish church for contravention. Yet unlike Louisiana
where there are records of infractions on this account, their absence at Cape
Breton suggests that this regulation was honoured more in the breach than in
the observance. This is further firmed by the number of times these regulations
and indeed all regulations pertaining to taverns were re-issued by the local
government. The state, however, did ensure respect for religious institutions
as a court case in 1754 revealed. A drunken soldier broke into the royal
chapel, crawled over the altar where he broke a crucifix and left blood, and
then stole two candles and a purificator. The punishment exacted involved
having the man walk barefoot to the chapel clad only in a Shirt and wearing
signs that read “Profaner of Sacred Places,” and then asking forgiveness from
God and the king. Thereafter he was banished from the colony.42
Such
examples serve to illustrate the ostensible Christian character of this society
and the reinforcement given by the state to this self-conception. There can be
no denying that there were faithful followers who attended Mass regularly and
tried to exemplify Christian values. References to God and his mercy in the
correspondence of such individuals confirms this impression. Yet it needs to be
acknowledged that this was neither the time nor the place that held religion
with special honour. One priest lamented that the clergy worked for the
colonists
et on nest payé que d’ingratitude heureux encore si
dans sa perte ce sortes desprit heritiques et peu chrestiens que nous vons
plustot a menager qu’a gouverner se tenoint a ce seul point dereconnaissance de
nos peines et fatigues.43
What pastor has not at some time felt downhearted
about the forces of irreligion in his midst and the lack of appreciation
expressed for his labours? Yet in this lament the choice of words to describe
the local population as heretical and not very Christian is telling. This was
not unlike the description provided by two cousins wanting to marry in 1726 but
lacking the requisite dispensation. They argued that such a dispensation was
unnecessary because they lived “au milieu des infidèles et des barbares et des
catholiques grossiers et peu instruits de la Religion.”44 A local priest denied the allegation and retorted
that the entire community stood in horror of a marriage involving cousins that
had not received a dispensation.
Ile
Royale
was a bustling commercial colony with a high level of transiency and a large
number of soldiers. The lives of its sailors, fishermen, merchant traders and
many of its craftsmen were, by definition, itinerant. In this society the
tavern and the drink shop vied successfully with the church as the centres for
daily social activities. Life transmitted by the seas and the highways
continued to assume a Rabelaisian air. The tavern alone provided equality and
fraternity in a transient life. Such was the thirst for wine and spirits that
the local government never succeeded in regulating taverns and drink shops.
There were no fewer than seventy-five officially sanctioned drinking spots
within the town.45 Impossible to count were the unlicensed facilities
that frequently sprang up or the canteens maintained by the officers for their
men. One government official despaired to the point of nearly suggesting
prohibition but stopped short by acknowledging that “il faut que le soldat et
le matelot boivent, ils ne travaillent que pour cela.”46
Liquor was
frequently associated with criminal behaviour and moral laxity. Court records
attest to instances of wife beating and child abuse, but physical violence
against women is more fully detailed in accounts kept by Major Lecourtois de
Surlaville. These note eight instances of soldiers beating women in the two
years from 1751 to 1753. Such cases were handled as military offences and
subjected to discipline by officers rather than the courts.47
This same source reveals a total of forty-three instances where soldiers
transgressed on community mores through theft, rowdy behaviour in the drink
shops, noisy disturbances in town, insulting civilians, extorting civilians
while on patrol. In 1717 soldiers at Port Dauphin (Englishtown, N. S.) were so
anxious to lay their hands on liquor before the end of carnival that they
threatened the financial commissary who had refused to sell them anything. The
commissary emerged from the house brandishing a gun and threatening to blow the
head off anyone who attempted to break into his house. Only the intervention of
the officers caused calmer heads to prevail. In another incident fifteen
drunken soldiers arrived at the home of a man named La Jeunesse in the
Louisbourg vicinity only to find the husband passed out in a stupor in front of
the fireplace and his wife in bed with a soldier. Such behaviour was not just
limited to certain groups or classes. Governor Raymond got a servant girl
pregnant in the early 1750’s but he was able to avert any public scandal. Nor
did this era feel particular revulsion at the sight of the human body as slaves
were auctioned nude so as to reveal their physical condition.48
Far from
making Louisbourg appear as an anomaly, these patterns fit it more closely into
the eighteenth-century Atlantic world. Was this not the age of Hogarth in
England and the campaign against the perils of cheap gin? Was this not a time
when English squires prided themselves on being a two-bottle or three-bottle a
day man depending on how much wine they consumed? Was not the church losing
ground to the tavern in France as well?49 Such trends were also apparent in the neighbouring
colony of Acadia. In 1742 Bishop Pontbriand felt constrained to inveigh
publicly against drink shops remaining open on holy days of obligation and when
Mass was being said. He condemned these establishments as a bad influence on
youth and a source of family quarrels. At the same time he denounced other
popularly accepted practices of which the church did not approve such as
persons of the same sex dancing together, mothers sleeping with their children,
working on Sundays and feast days, and private baptisms. Not mentioned in this
long list of prohibited activities was the marriage à la gaumine, although
it did occur in Louisbourg at least. Here the prospective bride and groom rose
at the end of the Mass while the priest was facing the altar and exchanged
their vows in the presence of the congregation.50
The inroads
of secularization were as apparent in the social life of Ile Royale as they were
elsewhere. Gambling and games of chance were favourite pastimes although
officially prohibited. Cards were found everywhere and James Johnstone
observed at Louisbourg what Peter Kalm discovered at Quebec: society women were
seldom to be seen without playing cards in their hands. Such activities were so
common among the upper echelons that those not interested in such pursuits felt
excluded from the social world of the military officers, government officials
and merchants. One bookish army officer wrote of his alienation from
Louisbourg society as “membre inutile pour des sociétés ou on ne scait que
jouer, je ne suis pas recherché, puisque je ne veux ni ne puis jouer...”51
Carnival, the period stretching from just after the New Year until Lent, was
the most festive season of the calendar. Not every year witnessed the constant
round of dinners, balls, gambling and late night suppers experienced in the
winter before the second fall of the fortress, but carnival was an integral
part of popular culture in the colonies as it was in Europe, although in both
the Church had succeeded in its efforts to strip the event of many of the
excesses that had characterized it in previous centuries.
Sexual
intrigues and violent moments also surfaced occasionally. Although no brothels
are known to have existed, couples managed to find their own favourite spots to
be alone. Louis Franquet identified the barrachois blockhouse as a place
frequented by bad subjects of both sexes and recommended that it be torn down.
Venereal diseases spread and were treated in the local hospital despite initial
protests from the Brothers of Charity. Unwanted pregnancies sometimes erupted to
disturb the normal course of social life. In 1730 when nobleman and military
officer Michel de Gannes de Falaise came to wed the daughter of Gédéon de
Catalogne, his mistress and mother of his first child stood up in the church
and protested against the marriage. Only after de Gannes had settled with his
mistress, Marie-Anne Carrerot, could he proceed with his marriage which would
produce another seven children. Louise, an Amerindian slave, was not treated in
the same manner as the daughter of a bourgeois family like Marie-Anne Carrerot
was. Shortly after being purchased in 1727 by Louisbourg innkeeper Jean
Seigneur dit La Rivière, Louise had begun to show signs of pregnancy. The parish
priest was called in to inquire into this delicate matter and it was discovered
that she had slept with the captain of the ship who had brought her to the
colony. When her condition became apparent subsequently, the captain warned her
not to reveal it to her new owner. Seigneur determined to get rid of Louise but
allowed her to have her baby before selling both in Martinique and purchasing a
boy slave to help him with his Louisbourg inn.52
There is no
need to continue enumerating such incidents which also occurred at Quebec.53
What is more important is to posit the social context within which such events
occurred. The significant feature is not that such things happened, but that
they were clearly deviations from societal norms that surfaced because they
were a source of public notoriety or were brought to the attention of the
courts or royal officials. Sexual innuendo in swearing showed that community
mores frowned on loose women, buggery and adultery. At the same time the near
absence of religious insults suggest, I believe, that the church was not yet
the formidable institution in French Canadian culture that it would later be.
Community
consensus frowned on sex outside the marriage bed and on violence. The
innkeeper Seigneur, for example, not only sought judicial remedy for damaged
property but also felt compelled to sell Louise and her baby because they
served as a bad example for his own daughters. The woman found sleeping with a
soldier in the presence of her husband was known as wanton. In contrast the
parish records attest to a low level of illegitimate births despite the large
number of soldiers and high number of transients in the community.54 Nor did venereal disease ever become rampant.
Violence such as wife beating and child abuse came to the courts because the
family and community acted as agents of social control unwilling to tolerate
such conduct. When a man in the Dauphin suburb tried to kiss a young woman
against her will, he was promptly hauled into court and fined 10 livres to the poor and
30 livres to the woman for damages. Simply put, such activities
were the exceptions rather than the rule. Christian teachings set the tone for
the community, although they did not directly influence all its members.
The church
was an important institution of New France, but its influence in the
eighteenth century was not as completely profound nor as widespread as often
assumed. That there were many faithful followers is beyond dispute, but the
inroads of secularization in New France were greater than have been
acknowledged. Indeed, the influence of secular forces had been growing in
Europe for several centuries and were clearly apparent in Louisiana as well as
Cape Breton.
The experience of these two colonies is sufficiently different from what has traditionally been presented for Quebec that it suggests the need for a reexamination of the role of religion in eighteenth-century Canada. How else are we to explain how the Church arrived at those extreme difficulties that it confronted at the turn of the nineteenth century? How else are we to appreciate the full significance of the Catholic revival of the mid-nineteenth century which affected Roman Catholicism in French Canada so significantly for more than a century?55 While the zeal of the Counter-Reformation deeply influenced the early development of Canadian society, the extent and the influence of secularization in the eighteenth century remains to be investigated. What may be found is that although the state officially supported religious institutions, popular acceptance of religious values and practice depended on a dynamic all of its own and that dynamic varied from place to place and over time.