Being AustralianPub Date : 2020-07-24DOI: 10.4324/9781003115045-13
C. Elder
{"title":"Taking to the Streets","authors":"C. Elder","doi":"10.4324/9781003115045-13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003115045-13","url":null,"abstract":"In an earlier book, Making History in Twenti‐ eth-Century Quebec (1997), Ronald Rudin argued that recent Quebec historiography, in its rush to characterize French Canada as typical of other modernizing western societies, had lost sight of the distinctive features of the Quebec past. In this book, which examines commemorative activities in Quebec City around the figures of Samuel de Champlain, the city's founder, and Fran=ois de Laval, its first bishop, he seems to double back. Af‐ ter describing four grand occasions when civic and religious leaders, as well as ordinary citizens, took to the streets to honor their past--the reburial of Laval in 1878, the erection of monuments to Champlain and Laval in 1898 and 1908 respective‐ ly, and the 1908 tercentenary celebration of Champlain's arrival--he concludes that while the objects of veneration were local, the spectacles drew on \"a repertoire of commemorative tech‐ niques in use on both sides of the Atlantic in or‐ der to reinforce the place of traditional elites in a rapidly urbanizing world\" (p. 233). As the preceding quotation suggests, Rudin seeks to understand why these elaborate events were staged, and how they were shaped by the rit‐ ual repertoires available at their specific mo‐ ments. The re-interment of Laval was sparked by the accidental discovery of his remains in the basement of the Quebec Basilica by workmen do‐ ing repairs in the fall of 1877. The body was sup‐ posed to rest beneath the Seminary, but had been moved years before after a fire, and forgotten, as had Laval's impact on the shaping of Quebec. The rediscovery came at a fortuitous moment. Ultra‐ montane and liberal factions within the Quebec clergy were bickering so vociferously that a papal envoy had been dispatched to keep the peace. Outside the Church, economic depression was generating class hostility. The reburial of Laval provided an opportunity for all elements in the Church and the community to pull together, and for the liberal Archbishop Tashereau to assert his leadership.","PeriodicalId":388080,"journal":{"name":"Being Australian","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122570002","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}