New Horizons in the Late Nineteenth-Century Novel - Literature and Painting in Quebec: From Imagery to Identity - page 102

novel betrays his mercantile values by increasing the price of the land,
which is nonetheless purchased, and thus possessed, by the advancing
throngs of French Canadians.
If Jean Rivard, le défricheur announces the thesis, Jean Rivard, écono-
miste develops it ad infinitum (some might say ad nauseam). The narra-
tor begins the sequel with a balanced view of nature and culture, space
and place: 'Transportez-vous au centre du canton de Bristol. Voyez-
vous dans l'épaisseur de la forêt, cette petite éclaircie de trente à qua-
rante acres, encore parsemée de souches noirâtres? Voyez-vous, au
milieu, sur la colline, cette maisonnette blanche, à l'apparence proprette
et gaie? C'est là le gîte modeste de Jean Rivard et de Louise Routier.'
(229; Take yourself to the centre of the canton of Bristol. Can you see in
the thick forest that small clearing of thirty or forty acres, still sprinkled
with blackish stumps? Can you see, in the middle, on the hill, that small
white house so neat and gay in appearance? That's the modest abode of
Jean Rivard and Louise Routier.) It is, however, culture that prevails,
and though Rivard used to relish felled trees, he now plants them as
would an artist: 'On a déjà vu que Jean Rivard aimait beaucoup les ar-
bres; il était même à cet égard quelque peu artiste … Il mettait autant
d'attention à bien tailler ses arbres, à disposer symétriquement ses
plantations autour de sa maison qu'il en accordait au soin de ses ani-
maux et aux autres détails de son exploitation.' (232-3; We've already
seen that Jean Rivard really liked trees; in this respect he was even a bit
of an artist. He paid as much attention to pruning his trees, to arranging
his plantings symmetrically around the house, as he did in caring for
his animals and other details of his farm.) And if agriculture itself is an
art (105), it is also a science: 'Pour nous, cultivateurs, il faut, voyez-
vous savoir un peu de tout; la chimie, la météorologie, la botanique, la
géologie, la minéralogie se rattachent étroitement à l'agriculture.'
(413; For us farmers, you see, we must know a bit of everything: chem-
istry, meteorology, botany, geology, mineralogy are all tightly linked
to agriculture.) As an aspect of culture, agriculture falls under its rules
(420; 'mon système de culture') and is perpetuated through its topics
(420; 'livres sur l'agriculture') and especially education, a main issue
in this second novel.
Through hard work, education, and religion, Jean's 'modest' home
becomes the 'earthly paradise' (238) foreseen in his initial dream (31),
and as in its mythological ancestor, life revolves around the garden,
where nature submits to the order of culture. Indeed, under Jean's lead-
ership, the entire community flourishes, and is itself compared by the