- La Corriveau: de l’histoire à la légende by Catherine Ferland, Dave Corriveau
Catherine Ferland, Dave Corriveau, La Corriveau, Marie-Josephte Corriveau history, folklore, Quebec folklore, Québécois folklore
The legend of La Corriveau has stretched through the history of French Canada, sinking deep into the folklore of Québec to become one of its founding myths; a young French Canadian woman, subjected to British justice at the very hour of the colony’s fall. She has been variously described as Canada’s Bluebeard; as beautiful and alluring; or homely, yet alluring due to her mysterious air; or still further as not alluring at all, but able to attract men due to her sorcery. La Corriveau was a legendary witch, the tale of whom was passed on from generation to generation, and whose legendary status began almost immediately after her death. La Corriveau: de l’histoire à la légende is the first full-length study to emerge on the topic since Bonneau’s Josephte Corriveau-Dodier, La Corriveau, 1733–1763.1
Writing with a wide audience in mind, Catherine Ferland and Dave Corriveau attempt not only to separate the fact from the fiction in the legend of La Corriveau, but to trace the spread of the legend in French Canadian culture. Their study takes advantage of today’s greater access to archival materials, such as the original court documents of Marie-Josephte Corriveau’s trial in 1763, and the materials collected by Québec’s early folklorists, who began writing down the accounts of the tale of La Corriveau in the mid-nineteenth [End Page 122] century. The authors do an excellent job outlining the historical case of Marie-Josephte Corriveau and the facts that led to the scandalous public trial of 1763, along with contextualizing these details within the imperial drama surrounding the Corriveau’s village of Saint Vallier at the time. Marie-Josephte, along with her father, fall under suspicion of murder when her second husband, Louis Dodier, is discovered dead in the barn. The curé and the head of the militia, also a Corriveau, attempt to attribute the death to an accident, caused by being kicked in the head repeatedly by the horses. The Dodier family, however, hears whispers from the other villagers, which cause them to go to Major James Abercrombie with a complaint regarding the lack of an investigation. The body is exhumed and examined by the military company’s surgeon, who concludes that the death was, indeed, suspicious, and the Corriveau daughter and father, who are both known to have frequently quarreled with Dodier, are put on trial as the main suspects. The initial judgment is against the father, who is found to be guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged; the daughter is found guilty of being an accomplice, and is sentence to be branded. But on the day before he is to be executed, the elder Corriveau accuses his daughter of having been guilty of the whole crime. Spectacularly, Marie-Josephte admits to the crime. Because she is found guilty of murdering her husband, she is not only sentenced to be “hanged until dead,” but suspended in a gibbet, her remains never returned to her family.
There is not a whisper of witchcraft in any of the court documents. None of the witnesses testify that she was a witch, or comported herself as a witch. However, there are many suggestions that lead to the complete destruction of her reputation. Once she is suspected and found guilty of killing her second husband, there are immediately suspicions cast upon the death of her first husband. She is called a drunkard, and instances of her being so drunk that she vomited into her children’s bonnets are referred to frequently. She is accused of attempting to seduce other men into her bed, and of being violent in public.
Later versions of the Corriveau myth would involve her poisoning her husband with lead in the ear and attending sabbats, or gatherings of witches. Although the authors do a very...