Fleury Mesplet

Fleury Mesplet (Marseilles, January 10th, 1734 - Montreal, January 24th, 1794) is a Québécois printer of French origin, founder of the first newspaper of Montreal. Its writings were worth to him to be imprisoned during the Guerre of American independence.

Fleury Mesplet is born with Marseilles, on January 10th, 1734. However, it grows with Lyon where its family is established. His/her father, Jean-Baptiste Mesplet, teach to him the trade of Master-printer. In 1754, at the 20 years age, his/her aunt Marguerite Capeau-Girard entrusts to him the direction of her printing works of Avignon. He marries Marie-Marguerite Piérard in Avignon on August 17th, 1756, then later Marie Mirabeau in Lyon about 1765, and finally Marie-Anne Tison in Montreal on April 13rd, 1790.

He leaves for London in 1773, where he prints ensanglantée Louisiana of Jean de Champigny of his workshop of printing works of the Little Russell Street in the popular quarters of Covent Garden . He leaves the town of London for America and is installed with Philadelphia on recommendation of Benjamin Franklin.

Arrived at Philadelphia, then seat of the continental Congress American, it becomes printer of French language for the account of this assembly. It amongst other things prints two letters addressed to the inhabitants of the province of Quebec (old Canada) in order to encourage them to join the revolutionists Thirteen colonies. In their French version, the letters are entitled Lettre addressed to the habitans of the Province of Quebec, above Canada (October 26th, 1774) and Lettre addressed to the oppressed habitans Province of Quebec (May 29th, 1775). It takes share with the French-speaking delegation of the Congress which directs the Franklin diplomat to Montreal, and arrives in this city on May 6th, 1776.

Following the failure of the attempt at invasion of the province of Quebec by the revolutionists, and with the resumption of the territory by the British soldiers on June 15th, Fleury Mesplet remains in Montreal. It is stopped on order of the governor Frederick Haldimand, then imprisoned without lawsuit during 26 days, with others which had accommodated the delegation.

Slackened, he undertakes to print a newspaper with the lawyer Valentine Jautard, who will be the editor, the first journalist and the first literary critic. The newspaper, heading the Gazette of the trade and literary , is published for the first time on June 3rd, 1778. It will be famous thereafter simply the literary Gazette . It is about the first newspaper of exclusively French language in the province; did not exist whereas newspapers of English language and only one English-French bilingual newspaper, the Gazette of Quebec . Always with Jautard, it founds also a “company of thought”, the Académie of Montreal.

June 4th, 1779, the presses of the newspaper are seized by the British authorities. Mesplet and Jautard are stopped for “sedition” and jetés in prison without lawsuit, this time during approximately three years. August 25th, 1785, the printer remelts its newspaper, which this time becomes a periodical of French language and English named the Gazette of Montreal ''/'' The Montreal Gazette .

The historian Jacques G. Ruelland affirms that it founded a maconnic cabin in 1785. According to the author J.Z. Leon Patenaude, it would have maintained the bonds with the Grand the East of France.

Mesplet will continue to direct its newspaper until its death in 1794.

See too

References

the Time of Voltaire in Canada. Political biography of Fleury Mesplet, printer, Montreal, the spark editor, 1994,502 p.
biographical Dictionary of Canada - Fleury Mesplet
the printer of Freedoms, Fleury Mesplet, Jean-Paul de Lagrave, Jacques G. Ruelland, Break point, 2001, ISBN-10: 289553019X, 389 p.

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