Note 25 — IV.
Reading edition
Page 17.—Octave Crémazie was one of the vrai sang of French Canada, and a bookseller without the least aptitude for business. He left Quebec after his failure, and lived under an assumed name in France, where he died in poverty. His life was most unfortunate, and in the gloomy days of his later French career he never realized the expectations which his literary efforts in Canada raised among his ardent friends. His poems appeared at first in the 'Soirées Canadiennes' and French Canadian journals, but his works were published in full at Montreal, in 1882, under the patronage of the Institut Canadien of Quebec, of which he was one of the founders. The Abbé Casgrain has given the introduction for this edition, and added some of the letters written to him by Crémazie from Paris. Crémazie, and indeed many of his friends, considered the "Trois Morts" as the best effort of his poetic genius; but the Abbé truly says: "Crémazie has never really been original except in his patriotic poems; in them must be sought the secret of his popularity and his strongest claim to fame." And he goes on to say: "The old mother-country has so far given a warm welcome to only one of our poets. She has acknowledged Fréchette as the most emphatically French of our poetic aspirants; but the time is not far distant when she will recognize in Crémazie the most thoroughly Canadian of them all. His verses have not the exquisite workmanship that is so much admired in Fréchette, but it is full of a patriotic inspiration that is not so often found in the author of 'Fleurs Boréales.' Despite his inequalities and imperfections, Crémazie must live among us as the father of our national poetry." The patriotic poem which has touched most deeply the hearts of his countrymen is "Le Drapeau de Carillon," in which he recalls the military achievements of the days of Lévis and Montcalm—
"Les jours de Carillon, Où, sur le drapeau blanc attachant la victoire, Nos pères se couvraient d'un immortel renom Et traçaient de leur glaive une héroïque histoire. "O radieux débris d'une grande épopée! Héroïque bannière au naufrage échappée! Tu restes sur nos bords comme un témoin vivant Des glorieux exploits d'une race guerrière; Et, sur les jours passés, répandant ta lumière, Tu viens rendre à son nom un hommage éclatant. "Ah! bientôt puissions-nous, ô drapeau de nos pères! Voir tous les Canadiens, unis comme des frères, Comme au jour du combat se serrer près de toi! Puisse des souvenirs la tradition sainte, En régnant dans leur cœur, garder de toute atteinte, Et leur langue et leur foi."
When we hear aspirations whispered nowadays that there may be only one language in Canada, it is well to consider the influence of such nervous poetic French on the national feelings of the large population in the province of Quebec. The French language is likely to be deeply seated for some generations yet while there are French Canadian poets.