Lower Canada and France

Three works illustrate the complex relationship between the Province of Québec and France during the French Revolution: La Bastille septentrionale attributed to Henri-Antoine Mézière; the anonymous poster, Mort tragique du Roi de France; and the Encyclopédie des voyages by Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur.

Samuel Neilson (1771-1793) was an innovative and well-advised young business man constantly on the look-out for current events. In September 1792, for the very first number of his new monthly the Quebec Magazine / Le magasin de Québec, he hired J. G. Hochstetter to engrave a view of Québec City. The Quebec Gazette published an account of Louis XVI's death on 18 April 1793. The engraving of the event appeared in the April 1793 edition of the Magasin du Québec. Colonial authorities bought 150 copies and made them public in an attempt to fight a rebellion against the Crown. The portrayal of the event was different from Parisian engravings in that the neo-Palladian architectural style of the buildings was typical of British provinces. Urban landscapes, such the Cockburn in this exhibition, regularly show these posters glued to houses and churches - one of the many public uses of printed material.

Anonymous, The Tragic Death of the King of France. View of the Guillotine, or Newly invented Machine to behead those condemned to Death [free translation of French], 1793, engraving, image 13,7 x 8 cm, plate 15,8 x 9,8 cm, sheet 55,5 x 44,5 cm, Montréal, McGill University, Rare Books, Lawrence Lande Canadiana Collection.

Sometimes attributed to Jonathan Sills, this work is more likely that of Henri-Antoine Mézière who compared the Trois-Rivières prison to a "New Bastille". Published by Fleury Mesplet, it was in his print shop that the young Mézière, a supporter of the French Revolution, became familiar with the ideas of the Enlightenment and an advertiser's responsibilities. He exiled to the United-States, then to France where he barely escaped the Reign of Terror. Toward the end of his life, he came back to Montréal to launch a short-lived magazine: L'Abeille canadienne (1818-1819).

Attributed to Henri-Antoine Mézière (1771-1819 ?), La Bastille septentrionale, ou les Trois Sujets britaniques opprimés [The Northern Bastille, or The Three oppressed British Subjects], was sold at Fleury Mesplet's in Montreal; at Mr. Bouthillier's and at the post office in Québec; at Mr. Mellish's in Trois-Rivières; at Mr. Alexis Lahaye's in Varennes; at Mr. L. Labadie's in Berthier; & at Mr. Faribault's, notary, in l'Assomption, [1791], 32 p., 21 cm, in 8¡, Montréal, Bibliothèque nationale du Québec. Photo Robert Derome.