The Young Seigneur

The Young Seigneur, by Wilfrid
Châteauclair

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Title: The Young Seigneur Or, Nation-Making
Author: Wilfrid Châteauclair
Release Date: March 4, 2005 [EBook #15256]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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YOUNG SEIGNEUR ***

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THE YOUNG SEIGNEUR;
OR,

NATION-MAKING.
BY
WILFRID CHÂTEAUCLAIR [hand written: i.e. William Douw
Lighthall]
MONTREAL:
WM. DRYSDALE & CO., PUBLISHERS, 232 ST. JAMES STREET,
1888.
Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight, by WM. DRYSDALE & CO.
in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

PREFACE.
The chief aim of this book is the perhaps too bold one--to map out a
future for the Canadian nation, which has been hitherto drifting
without any plan.
A lesser purpose of it is to make some of the atmosphere of French
Canada understood by those who speak English. The writer hopes to
have done some service to these brothers of ours in using as his hero
one of those lofty characters which their circle has produced more than
once.
The book is not a political work. It must by no means be taken for a
Grit diatribe. The writer is an old-fashioned Tory and an old-fashioned
Liberal: all his parties are dead, and he is at present in a universal
Opposition. The party names he uses are, therefore, in any present-day
application, simply typical, and the work is not a political one in any
current sense.
There are those who will say his characters are untrue and impossible.
To these he would answer: Everything here, apart from a few little

inaccuracies, is studied from the life, and you can find item, man and
date for the essential particulars.
A charge of Metaphysics will be advanced also, by a generation not too
willing to think. Mon ami, what we give you of that is not very hard. If
you cannot understand it, leave it out or study Emerson. The main
subject of the book cannot be treated otherwise than with an attempt to
ground it deeply.
If Bigotry may not impossibly be laid to the author by some, because
he has drawn two or three of the characters from unusual quarters and
described them freely; the many who know him will limit any phrases
to the several characters as individuals.
Lastly, the book is not a novel. It consequently escapes the awful
charge of being 'a novel with a purpose.' None can feel more conscious
of its imperfections than the writer, or will regret more if it treads on
any sensitive toes.
WILFRID CHÂTEAUCLAIR. Dormillière, March, 1888.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE MANOIR OF DORMILLIÈRE 1 II. THE YOUNG
SEIGNEUR 4 III. HAVILAND'S IDEA 7 IV. THE MANUSCRIPT 13
V. CONFRÉRIE 16 VI. ALEXANDRA 20 VII. QUINET 22 VIII.
THE TOBOGGAN SLIDE 25 IX. ASSORTED ENTHUSIASMS 29 X.
THE ENTHUSIASM OF SOCIAL PLEASURE 33 XI. THE CAVE 43
XII. LA MÈRE PATRIE 48 XIII. SOMETHING MORE OF QUINET
52 XIV. THE ENTHUSIASM OF LEADERSHIP 54 XV. THE LIFE
OF LEADERSHIP 57
BOOK II.

XVI. A POLITICAL SERMON 67 XVII. ZOTIQUE'S RECEPTION
72 XVIII. THE AMERICAN FRANCE 79 XVIII. A DISAPPEARING
ORDER 86 XIX. HUMAN NATURE 88 XX. CHEZ-NOUS 91 XXI.
DELIVER US FROM THE-EVIL ONE 100 XXII. THE
MANUFACTORY OF REFLECTIONS 104 XXIII. THE
STATESMAN'S DREAM 106 XXIV. THE INSTITUTE 109 XXV.
THE CAMPAIGN PLAN 111 XXV. THE LOW-COUNTRY
SUNRISE 120 XXVI. THE IDEAL STATE 126 XXVII. JOSEPHTE
134 XXVIII. GRANDMOULIN 139 XXIX. CHAMILLY 145 XXX.
AN ORATION UNDER DIFFICULTIES 149 XXXI. LIBERGENT
151 XXXII. MISÉRICORDE 153 XXXIII. BLEUS 156 XXXIV. THE
FREEMASON 158 XXXV. THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE 162
XXXVI. ZOTIQUE'S MISGIVINGS 168 XXXVII. A CRIME! 170
XXXVIII. THE PASSING OF THE HOST 173 XXXIX. THE
ELECTION 175 XL. HAVILAND REFUSES 178 XLI. FIAT
JUSTITIA 180
BOOK III.
XLII. QUINET'S CONTRIBUTION 187 XLIII. HAVILAND'S
PRINCIPLE 191 XLIV. DAUGHTER OF THE GODS 194 XLV. NOT
THE END 199

BOOK I.

THE YOUNG SEIGNEUR.
CHAPTER I.
THE MANOIR OF DORMILLIÈRE.
In the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Seventy odd, about six
years after the confederation of the Provinces into the Dominion of
Canada, an Ontarian went down into Quebec,--an event then almost as
rare as a Quebecker entering Ontario.

"It's a queer old Province, and romantic to me," said the Montrealer
with whom