Louis Hémon

Biography

Childhood and youth

Born in Brittany in a family from the republican elite, Louis Hémon is the last child, after Felix and Marie, of Louise, born the Breton one, and of Felix Hémon. The father, former student of the National university, aggregate of traditional letters, is a burning republican who distributed under the coat of the poems of the Châtiments and corresponded with Victor Hugo. Professor Hémon points out himself by the French Academy which decrees to him in 1878 its Price annual of eloquence for its Éloge of Buffon . In 1882, Felix Hémon, transferred to Paris, leaves its native Brittany; Louis is then two years old, it thus will pass its childhood and its youth to Paris.

Of his/her father, professor become during one year principal private secretary of Armand Fallières with the ministry for the State education, then general inspector, who writes a Cours of literature , the son inherits a literary taste some. The Louis young person appreciates and reads Hugo, like his father, but also of the less traditional authors, Verlaine, Maupassant, Kipling. He likes also the Sport, practical the Race on foot, the Rugby, the Canoë, the Natation and the Boxe. Its studies do not impassion it, it undergoes them: “dull youth - ten years of externat in a black college - studies without glare - any combativeness disappears in front of slow oppression from the Greek topic” writes it in a self-portrait published in the one of the sporting daily newspaper the Bicycle . While undertaking its studies in right to the Sorbonne, he learns how the annamite (Vietnamese) with the hope to leave one day in the Far East. After obtaining its license, he discharges his military service which displeases to him very as much as its studies. He does not follow the traces of his older brother, naval officer, which dies suddenly in 1902 of a typhoid striking down on its return of countryside in Cochinchine. Admitted with the contest of the colonial administration but affected in Algeria, Louis Hémon decides to leave… to London, thus renonçant with his contest and a diplomatic career to the great displeasure of his family.

Its London years

Of the sports editor to the writer

In the British capital, Louis Hémon is discovered writer thanks to the sport. Indeed, its entry in literature is done by the sporting magazines, in particular the Bicycle in which is published, on January 1st 1904 its text the River , classified first with the contest of news organized by the daily newspaper. As of this date, Louis Hémon becomes corresponding Vélo to London and regularly publishes sporting chronicles but also accounts. Under the sports editor the writer bores. To ensure its subsistence, he exerts various food work which does not interest it especially but which enables him to observe the beings crossed during its ambulations when he is sales agent, or the colleagues attended in the offices. What counts from now on for him, it is to write.

the writer of London

Quickly, Louis Hémon overflows of the sporting framework and its news is anchored in the English capital of which it gives to see misery in sensitive observer of the poor district, East End. A longer news, published in serial of the 3 with the March 8th 1908 in the Parisian newspaper Time , " Lizzie Blakeston" , the evolution of the writer, ripe suggests from now on for the long course. Its first novel, Blind man's buff date of 1908 - 1909 according to the raised political events; two other novels, one follow devoted to boxing Battling Malone, pugilist and another, very marked by Beautiful-Friend of Maupassant, Mr Ripois and Némésis . This last novel, very different, often badly included/understood , evokes in a " to lie vrai" love life of Louis Hémon.

London, love and the departure in Canada

Louis Hémon has a connection with an young woman of Irish origin, Lydia O' Kelly which did everything to allure it, according to the sister of the latter. The young man remained very discrete on his life with Lydia at the point not to announce the birth of his daughter Lydia Kathleen, the April 12th 1909, with his family unable to include/understand a relation also not very suitable. He chooses, when he declares the child, to make a false claim of marriage to protect Lydia. Louis Hémon, like Maupassant, his writer French of reference, does not want to marry. Its refusal of the marriage was so extremely that after her death, his/her Marie sister takes for a text of her brother a news of Kipling, its preferred English writer, in fact translated by him: " In the Pride off youth" who tells a disastrous marriage. The new one failed well to be published in the Beautiful one that here are , it is appeared in the review of France under the title in " In the pride of sound âge" in 1923, on a purely posthumous basis. Lydia O' Kelly manifest of the serious mental disorders and it is interned shortly after the birth of his/her daughter. Louis Hémon entrusts the child to the sister of his partner, Mrs Philips. But Lydia does not cure, it remains with the asylum of Hanwell and will be it until the end of its life. After eight last years in London where it has the feeling to arrive at nothing, Louis Hémon decides to leave to the Canada. He leaves the England in 1911, his daughter is then two years old. He is unaware of that he will re-examine neither the mother any more nor the child.

Its Québécois years

After a stay with Quebec, it unloads with Montreal and earns its living as clerk in an insurance company, while writing some articles on Canada for the Européens. The June 15th 1912, it leaves Montreal for the area of the Saguenay, area of pioneers, still rather wild whose a priest at the time of the crossing had spoken to him. It initially remains with Tuque, then with Roberval on the Lac Midsummer's Day of which it projects to make the turn with foot (+ of 100km) but with Péribonka it meets Samuel Bédard who engages it as farm laborer. He works on the farm until August, then like chaîneur for a company of land-surveyors in the north of the lake Midsummer's Day. He seems a strange being with the eyes of the population of this small town, acceptor to work for nothing, speaking little, always a notebook with the hand, attending the mass like all the village but awaiting the exit of the parishioners in front of the church. He leaves Péribonka and Bédard the December 28th 1912 and is installed on the other side of the lake, with Saint-Gédéon, to write a first version of Maria Chapdelaine of which he fixed on his notebook the broad outlines.

At the beginning of April, of return to Montreal, he works as translator, while typing his novel on the machine of his employer while arriving early the morning at the office. The June 26th, it dispatches this one with the newspaper the Time , which will publish it the following year.

Meanwhile, it leaves Montreal in direction of the Canadian West where it wishes to take part in the harvests. In Chapleau, where it stopped, it dies in 33 years, grabbed by a train with a companion of equipped Australian the July 8th 1913. The accident remains still not easily explainable.

Posthumous success

Its novel is published between the January 27th and the February 23rd 1914, in serial, in Time . It hardly draws the attention. In 1916, a slightly expurgée version will be published in Montreal, thanks to Louvigny de Montigny, with the father of Hémon and a subsidy of the government of the Quebec. In 1921, a new edition of the young editor Grasset makes known the novel of the public. It will obtain a considerable business success. The other novels of Hémon will be finally published. Colin-Maillard (1924) puts in Irish scene one revolted. Battling Malone (1926) presents the rise and the decline of an Irish boxer. Mr Ripois and Némésis (1950) described a French who makes use of the women to rise socially. These three novels, very different of Maria Chapdelaine , are built on social conflicts and testify to the sympathy of the author to the displaced ones, to the people of modest means.

One will delay the publication of Mr Ripois and Némésis to preserve the image of " young man of good famille" that one had made in Louis Hémon. In a general way, its image will be recovered not to say diverted by its family with the creation of a Louis Hémon official, contrary to the Louis Hémon real. It is thus presented as the symbol of the good traditions whereas it was in rupture with its middle-class origins, catholisant whereas it did not practice, in love with the Breton ground which it almost does not know and of France which it has flees. It will be also associated with his father, one of the dominant figures of the French official culture of this time. His/her Lydie-Katleen daughter will be adopted by the sister of Louis Hémon, guardian of the official memory of her brother. The reality of its early childhood, the abandonment by his/her father and the internment of his mother will be hidden to him.

Its novel Maria Chapdelaine , after a first rather cold reception by the institutional ones, will be recovered then by the latter of which Québécois Catholic church and elites well thinking.

Maria Chapdelaine will know multiple editions (250 to date), will be translated in several languages, will be illustrated abundantly (Suzor-Side, Clarence Gagnon, Thoreau MacDonald, Jean Lebédeff, Fernand Labelle…), turned out of film three times (Julien Duvivier in 1934 with Jean Gabin and Madeleine Renaud, Marc Allégret in 1950 in a free interpretation of work and Gilles Carle in 1984 with Carole Laure), transformed into data base, play, illustrated novel, radio-novel, televised series. One will publish continuations with the novel. The village of Péribonka will be equipped with one museum to the memory of the author in 1938.

In short, Maria Chapdelaine will become a literary myth: for the French Canadians, it illustrates their fight for national survival; for the French, it symbolizes old France, that founded on the family and the religion.

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