But he doesn’t want to throw himself into the arena like a rookie, without experience or the necessary preparation. He wants to take the time to study the plans, tactics, and strategies of the Liberals and the Nationalists. He believes that one should never underestimate one’s adversaries. To win, one needs time – and he is patient.
These are troubled times. Maurice follows closely what is happening around the world. He reads the newspapers. Small conflicts are breaking out all over the planet, like in the Balkans. But these events happening so far away are of little concern to him. Robert Borden, the Conservative who won against Wilfrid Laurier, has been directing the destiny of the country since 1911. Canada is coping pretty well with its internal problems. Life goes on, with its highs and its lows, without too many problems. Today the weather is beautiful. On Sainte-Catherine Street, it is the end of June and already summer. By chance, he bumps into a friend.
“Did you hear the news? The Archduke of Austria, Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand, has just been assassinated.”
“It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go…”
It is Sunday afternoon. The gramophone needle slides along the grooves of the record. Maurice is in his parents’ parlour. He and his father are talking about Trois-Rivières, Montreal, and the events that have inflamed the planet. It has been more than two years since Canada entered the First World War on the side of Great Britain. The war is dragging on. Who would have thought that the shot fired by terrorist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914 against Franz Ferdinand, Archduke and heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, would have plunged so many countries into fire and bloodshed?
“What a shame that Borden had to pass a law on conscription,” confides Maurice to his father. “Once again, French Canadians will criticize their government for having duped them. In Ottawa, the government had promised that it would send only volunteers. Quebecers won’t soon forget that it was the Bleus who forced unmarried men to sign up.”
“Particularly since the province clearly voted against conscription. The Conservatives are only just recovering from their blunder in the Louis Riel affair and they are once again showing their contempt of French Canadians.”
“Yesterday I saw our young neighbour who was called up and has to report to Montreal next week. He is leaving to go halfway around the world. This will be the first time he crosses the Atlantic, and it is to go and fight… And he’s just eighteen.”
Maurice is certain that the entry of the United States into the war will hasten the end of the struggle. At least that is what he hopes. Even though he is not afraid of going to the front – as a professional he is exempt – he has seen pictures in the newspapers of mutilated poilus1 and young men lying in the trenches on their bayonets. It’s a dirty war. Although his own law practice is going well, the mood everywhere is dark.
Nérée guesses that his son is hiding something from him. Getting up, he walks to the window. Turning his back on Maurice, he speaks in stinging tones:
“I heard that you’re seeing young Augustine Delisle. Tell me: what does her father do?”
The answer is long in coming. The silence is heavy.
“I think he sells coal.”
How can the son of the former MLA who has become a judge, Nérée Duplessis’s only son, become involved with the daughter of a coal merchant?
“Listen, Maurice! Have you thought what people will say about you? About us? And when you have children? A lawyer with the daughter of a coal merchant! What a dishonour for the family!”
The argument dies out. A knife has been driven into his illusions, his dreams, his love. If Maurice insists on courting Augustine, he had better know once and for all, the Duplessis family will never agree to such a union. There is no question of going against his father’s authority. Marriage is a very big commitment. Will he have enough time for family life? And is that what he really wants?
Politics is what interests him more and more. He wants to dedicate himself with more rigour, more seriousness. The First World War is about to turn the universe upside down. When German cannons are finally silenced, when our soldiers finally come back, Canada and Quebec will have been transformed. A new society will rise up out of the old one. The young man feels ready to step out from the wings. He wants to play a leading role at the Legislative Assembly. Love can wait. Augustine is a fine girl, and one day she will find a fine young man and have children. Nérée settles into his armchair:
“Put another record on the gramophone.”
Maurice adjusts the speaker and, without even looking, almost as if by accident, he plays a love ballad full of hope:
La Madelon pour nous n’est pas sévèreQuand on lui prend la taille ou le mentonElle rit, c’est tout l’mal qu’elle sait faireMadelon, Madelon, Madelon [Madelon is never strict with us When we take her by the waist or cup her chin She just laughs, she’s never mean Madelon, Madelon, Madelon]
1. The Quebec Legislative Assembly was renamed the “National Assembly” in 1968.
1. Conservative.
2. Liberal.
1. French nickname for a soldier who fought in the First World War (1914–18).
In Trois-Rivières, the young neighbourhood lawyer is making a name for himself. For him, no case is too trivial. One day, a homeowner comes to see him:
“Sir, I mean Maître Duplessis! I knew your father well. Ah! what a great MLA he was! I need your help because I’m having problems with my new neighbour. He has built a fence on my land. It just happened and he thinks he can get away with it!”
In his office on Hart Street, a kindly, attentive Maurice Duplessis treats people like his friends. Well up on municipal, school, and parish affairs, he is the one whom people recommend to settle property disputes or wills, and quarrels over land or codicils. Are not his customers future voters? He is building a network of supporters. Their contributions will be useful; their vote will be his capital. For example, if an old parishioner comes complaining to him that somebody stole his chickens, Maître Duplessis receives him courteously. “Please be seated, Sir,” he’ll say pleasantly. “I will take them to court, those thieves. I promise you they will have to face justice.”
Maurice Duplessis becomes a lawyer and is admitted to the Bar on September 14, 1913.
People trust Maurice Duplessis because he is a winner. In court, he speaks loud and clear. His arguments are based on plain common sense. His waiting room soon fills up. The more impatient ones try to meet Maurice before he goes to his office. Every morning, around eight, he picks up his mail at the post office. Maurice speaks to everyone, he likes to joke, to laugh at life’s little problems. His reputation as the defender of the widow and the orphan grows. Those
