New Horizons in the Late Nineteenth-Century Novel - Literature and Painting in Quebec: From Imagery to Identity - page 100

jardin') of Jean's fiancée Louise Routier and the house of his ancestors
('la maison paternelle'), two of the most culturally significant places in
the Quebec landscape, and whose reconfiguration will reappear in this
novel and its sequel, not to mention throughout Quebec literature and
painting. As Rivard plans his future home and garden, for example: 'À
l'est et un peu en arrière se trouvait le jardin, dont les arbres encore en
germe ombrageraient plus tard le toit de sa demeure. Jean Rivard, mal-
gré ses rudes combats contre les arbres de la forêt, était loin cependant
de leur garder rancune, et il n'eut rien de plus pressé que de faire
planter le long du nouveau chemin, vis-à-vis sa propriété, une suite
d'arbrisseaux.' (204-5; To the east and a bit behind was the garden,
whose trees, still taking root, would later provide shade for his dwell-
ing. Jean Rivard, despite his rough battles against the forest trees, was
nonetheless far from holding a grudge; he had nothing more pressing
than having a row of shrubs planted along the length of the new road,
opposite his property.) Despite the disclaimer, the trees he now desires
are the product of culture ('planter') not nature, against which the bat-
tle seems to have been won.
If Jean Rivard, le défricheur is, as Issenhuth maintains, 'un roman à thèse'
(11), that thesis clearly highlights culture, in the sense of agriculture,
making the novel an 'évangile de la colonialisation' (Beaudoin, Naissance ,
162). The narrator, who goes so far as to cite Lord Elgin anachronisti-
cally, 7 states in no uncertain terms - 'Tous ceux qui parmi nous ont à
cœur le bien-être du peuple et la prospérité du pays regardent avec rai-
son la colonisation des terres incultes comme le moyen le plus direct et le
plus sûr de parvenir à l'accomplissement de leurs vœux.' (165; All those
among us who hold dear the well-being of the people and the prosperity
of the country rightfully see the colonization of uncultivated land as the
most direct and surest means of fulfilling their wishes.) And this thesis is
sustained to the detriment of its antitheses, the city (vilified repeatedly in
letters from Jean's friend Gustave Charmenil), and even nature, which
dominates at the beginning, but eventually succumbs to the colonizing
force of agriculture, as Jean's farm flourishes.
The protagonist's success is not merely personal, however; it extends
to the French-Canadian collectivity, and the scope of the landscape de-
scription expands accordingly:
La cabane de Jean Rivard devint trop petite pour la société qui la fré-
quentait, car il faut dire que le canton de Bristol s'établissait avec une
rapidité sans exemple dans les annales de la colonialisation. Chaque jour