Institut canadien de Montréal
The Institut canadien de Montréal was founded on 17 December 1844, by a group of 200 young liberal professionals in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Institute was a public library and debating room for the literary and scientific society, which would later come into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church.
The Institute was the source of the ideas defended by the Parti rouge. Once of its motto was: Justice pour nous, justice pour tous; Raison et liberté pour nous, raison et liberté pour tous (Justice for us, justice for all; reason and liberty for us, reason and liberty for all).
The library contained literary works by French romantic authors, such as Victor Hugo and Alphonse de Lamartine, and Enlightenment authors, such as Voltaire and Diderot, whose writings were judged immoral by the Catholic Church. At the time, there were no French-language university nor public library in Montreal.
In 1858, a group of 158 members left the institute to found the Institut canadien-français de Montréal, which opted to obey the doctrine of the Catholic clergy and did not lend books which it judged immoral.[1][2] In 1859, Mgr Ignace Bourget condemned the institute and excommunicating its members. On July 7, 1869, Rome added the institute's Annuaire for the year 1868 to the Catholic Church's Index of prohibited books.
In 1869, Bourget refused to let Henrietta Brown, widow of typographer Joseph Guibord, bury her husband's remains in the Côte-des-Neiges Catholic cemetery because he was a member of the Institute. The widow did not accept the decision and decided to bring the case to court. Henrietta Brown's lawyer, Joseph Doutre, also a member of the Institute, ultimately won his case before the Privy Council on November 28, 1872. (See: Guibord case.)
The Institut canadien of Montreal closed the doors of its debating room in 1871, and the library closed in 1880. Only the Institut canadien de Québec, founded four years after that of Montreal, survived the Church's censorship by getting rid of certain works prohibited by the Catholic Church. Between 1845 and 1871, some 136 lectures were held inside the institute's walls.[3]
In 2006, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) concluded a deal with the Fraser-Hickson Institute on the donation and transfer of property of the collection of the Institut canadien de Montréal. The latter had preserved it since 1855.[4] Among the precious books of the collection were two editions of the Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (1785–1789), 36 volumes of L'Encyclopédie by Diderot and d'Alembert (1778–1781), 12 volumes of L'Esprit des journaux français et étrangers (1787–1792) and four volumes of Réunion des Tuileries au Louvre (1852–1857), a particular gift of Prince Napoléon to the Institut canadien.
Contents |
[edit] Members
- Marc-Aurèle Plamondon
- Francis Cassidy
- Jean-Baptiste-Éric Dorion
- François-Xavier Garneau
- Antoine-Gérin-Lajoie
- Joseph Doutre
- Louis-Antoine Dessaulles
- Arthur Buies
- Napoléon Aubin
- Victor Hugo (external member)
[edit] Awards
- Prix Condorcet, awarded posthumously in 1997[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Champagne. , p. 122
- ^ Turcotte, p. 433
- ^ Lemire. p. 151
- ^ Marie Aguettant. "Collection de l'Institut canadien de Montréal", in Univarts, November 4, 2006
- ^ St-Louis, Martin. "Le prix Condorcet 1997 à l'Institut canadien", in Laïcité, Bulletin du Mouvement laïque québécois, Winter 1998
[edit] In English
- "Institut canadien", in The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Foundation, 2008
- Robertson, Nancy Susan. The Institut canadien. An Essay in Cultural History, (Master Thesis in History), University of Western Ontario, 1965, 187 p.
[edit] In French
- Lajeunesse, Marcel (2004). Lecture publique et culture au Québec, Quebec: Presses de l'Université du Québec, pp. 160–163 (ISBN 2760512983) (preview)
- Lamonde, Yvan (2000). Histoire sociale des idées au Québec, 1760-1896, Montréal: Éditions Fides, 576 p. (ISBN 2-7621-2104-3) (online)
- St-Louis, Martin. "Le prix Condorcet 1997 à l'Institut canadien", in Laïcité, Bulletin du Mouvement laïque québécois, Winter 1998
- Champagne, André (1996). Le Québec des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles, Sillery: Septentrion, pp. 113–129 (ISBN 2894480458) (aperçu)
- Lamonde, Yvan (1994). Louis-Antoine Dessaulles, 1818-1895 : un seigneur libéral et anticlérical, Saint-Laurent: Fides, 369 p. (ISBN 2-7621-1736-4)
- Lemire, Maurice (1991). La vie littéraire au Québec, Quebec: Presses Université Laval, 671 p. (ISBN 2763774059) (preview)
- Lamonde, Yvan (1990). Gens de parole : conférences publiques, essais et débats à l'Institut canadien de Montréal, 1845-1871, Montréal: Boréal, 176 p. (ISBN 2890523691)
- de Lagrave, Jean-Paul (1976). Le combat des idées au Québec-Uni, 1840-1867, Montréal: Editions de Lagrave, 150 p.
- Dumont, Fernand, Montminy, Jean-Paul, and Hamelin, Jean ed. (1971). Idéologies au Canada français, 1850-1900, Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 327 p.
- Father Hudon, Théophile. L'Institut Canadien de Montréal et l'affaire Guibord : une page d'histoire, Montréal: Beauchemin, 1938, 172 p. (online)
- Boisseau, A. (1870). Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de l'Institut-canadien, Montréal: Alphonse Doutre, 47 p. (online)
- Lafontaine, J. L. (1855). Institut-canadien en 1855, Montréal : Sénécal & Daniel, 225 p. (online)
- Institut canadien de Montréal (1852). Catalogue de la bibliothèque de l'Institut-canadien, février 1852, Montréal: W.-H. Rowen, 39 p. (online)
