82 JOHN LESPERANCE ON THE 
their services extended promiscuously over a term of five and twenty years. They have 
the further advantage of giving me a starting point and enabling me to trace the origin of 
French-Canadian literature to its orators. Papineau stands facile princeps among these. 
His contemporaries describe him as a Mirabeau, both in variety of learning and the higher 
gifts of voice, gesture and inspiration. His speeches have unfortunately not been pre- 
served, but from the scraps that have reached us, we may easily account for the admira- 
tion of those who enjoyed the advantage of hearing him either in the halls of Parliament 
or in the immense uprisings that led to the rebellion of 1837-38. Since those days, Papi- 
neau has had a long train of brilliant disciples. Chief among them is the Hon. P. J. O. 
Chauveau, Vice-President of our Society. M. Chauveau is essentially an academic orator, 
accurately rhetorical, delicate in feeling, judiciously impassioned and a through stylist. 
His panegyric of the Braves who fell at the battle of Ste. Foye, in 1760, is a masterpiece, 
worthy of the place it has long held in the various collections of elegant extracts. I have 
only space to mention next the Lafontaines, Morins, Papins, Laberges, Dorions, Lorangers 
and Labreches. These all flourished in the eventful days from 1848 to 1867. In our 
own time, the traditions of oratory have not been lost. The Province of Quebec can boast 
to-day of two born orators such as are not surpassed in any part of the Dominion, nor in 
any period of the country’s history. I refer to Chapleau and Laurier. I have heard some 
of the most illustrious masters of speech in the United States and Europe and can safely 
say that, in natural gifts, none of them appear to me to excel either of the two orators 
whom I have just mentioned. In a larger sphere, and before audiences that would afford 
an ampler measure of publicity, both of them would achieve a continental reputation. 
Mercier is not far behind, and he is followed by a long line of young speakers, such as 
Charland, Christin, Tremblay, Poirier, Cornellier, Thibault and others who are training 
for eminent positions in the parliamentary career. 
The circumstances of the Roman Catholic system in French Canada are particularly 
favorable to the development of pulpit oratory, and it is easy to enumerate such distin- 
guished preachers as the Racines, Colins, Martineaus, Levesques, Hamons, Paquets, 
Bruchesi, Bélangers, Légarés and Beaudoins. 
I know of no better school for the youthful student of oratory than the sacred tribune, 
where, as at the feet of Gamaliel, he may learn from men of deep scholarship the art of 
combining the graces of elocution with appropriate erudition and logical sequence of 
thought. This union is the more to be sought after, as, notwithstanding my admiration 
for our French orators, I am bound to confess that they too frequently rely on natural 
advantages, to the neglect of serried argument and learned illustration. 
101, 
HISTORIANS AND BIOGRAPHERS. 
There is no department of literature that presupposes more intellectual vigor in a 
young country than that of history and biography. Happy is the people that has a history 
of its own to be written and a historian of its own to write it. French Canada has both. 
Considering the circumstances under which it was written, and the resources at his com- 
mand, Garneau’s history is a remarkable performance, constituting an epoch. It is a 
monument both to the man and to the land, and Garneau’s son has fulfilled at once a 
