Lendemains de conguête: Cours d’histoire du Canada a l’Université de Montréal, 1919–1920 by l’abbé Lionel Groulx (review)

396 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW sheaves into the garner-house of a book. The defence, which is wholly unnecessary, is a jeu d'esprit worthy of Charles Lamb. Indeed a kindly humanity, a gentle humour, a prevailing courtesy combine with the scholarship to which we have grown accustomed to make an eminently readable and intp.resting volume. The purely historical essays-those on the parish of Notre-Dame-de-Foy, of Saint-Columb-de-Sillery, of St. Felix-du-Lap-Rouge-have necessarily a severely local interest. But the author seems to have grasped with the true historian's instinct the value and limitations of such history. He is always trying to avoid a mere chronicle, by a sense of historical values, and he always keeps in mind the wider background of history into which really valuable local history must fit. Whether he is dealing with an old parish-like that of NotreDame -de-Foy-or with one comparatively new-we continually find evidences of these qualities. The mechanical side of the book is good. Personally we could have done without the illustrations, and the abbe Scott seems to have forgotten some half-smiling phrase in their defence! There is unfortunately no index-a defect which is a severe handicap. Might it not be possible, especially in books of an historical nature, for French-Canadian authors to rectify this defect which is too common in their books? W. P. M. KENNEDY Lendemains de conquete: Cours d'histoire du Canada a l' Universite de Montreal, 1919-1920. Par l'abbe LIONEL GROULX. Montreal: Bibliotheque de l'Action Fran~aise. 1920. Pp. 235 A RECENT worker in the historical field, the abbe Groulx.is proving himself a prolific author. Lendemains de conquete, a series of five lectures delivered at the University of Montreal, is the suggestive title of his latest contribution. In it, hardly less than in his previous volumes, he reveals himself a psychologist, a painter, and a master of style, with an extensive knowledge of history. But in him the litetary man dominates the historian. What interests him, what he delights in, what he is not afraid to go out of his way to get, is the description, the analysis, or the general view-in a word, le tableau. For he knows how to group facts and ideas; how to mix the various colours; and how to make out of th~ whole a pleasing and living picture. The artist in him almost never fails. Very literary, the abbe Groulx is also at the same time very provincial. We suspect him to have read rather attentively M. Bourassa's book, Que devons-nous a l'Angleterre? For him the fact of the survival of the French in Canada is due to no one but themselves. This idea permeates thewhole book. It is in its light that everything isseen, REVIEWS OF BOOKS 397 discussed, and finally judged. Unconsciously, in working out this thesis, his analysis sometimes tends to misinterpret facts, and his praise, already meagre, is always conditional. He has not yet-though he is improving on his previous works-succeeded in reaching the higher level of history, the serene impartiality, for instance, of Mr. Chapais. For his romantic and patriotic mind, contemporaneous elements play but a very small part in the making of history. Racial atavism is, under Providence, the explanation of an things, omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis. Influenced by these ever-present factors, literature and environment, the abbe Groulx has produced in Lendemains de conquete an interesting, well-informed, and well-written book, which will probably be found splendid by the Quebecmajority, sectional by outsiders, and unconvincing by scholars. Between its two covers, is gathered a good deal of information, based on wide reading and occasional researches. Though it is generally but a new presentation of known fact~, the data are well brought together, but sifted through a partisan mind. The author often considers eighteenth century facts and ideas with the mentality of a twentieth -century man. As a consequence, he occasionally lacks objectivity and retrospective adaptation. Falling from a professor's pulpit, the abbe Groulx's teaching to uninformed minds is not without undesirable consequences, for, though few...