Marie-Josephte Corriveau

Marie-Josephte Corriveau (1733 - 1763), known as “ Corriveau ”, condemned to died by a martial Court British for the murder of its second husband and hung with Quebec, probably the April 18th 1763, is one of the most popular figures of the Folklore Québécois. To take again the expression of the ethnographer Luc Lacourcière, author of best critical work about it, Corriveau knew one triple destiny, history, legendary and literary .

Marie-Josephte Corriveau: the historical character

Born in the rural parish from Saint-Vallier in News-France and baptized on May 14th, 1733, Marie-Josephte Corriveau is the single surviving girl of Joseph Corriveau, farmer, and of Francoise Bolduc. She marries at the 16 years age, on November 17th, 1749, Charles Bouchard, also farmer, of whom she has three children. After its death (it is buried on April 27th, 1760), she remarie on July 20th, 1761 with another farmer of the place, named Louis Dodier. The morning of January 27th, 1763, this one is found died in its barn, with many wounds with the head. In spite of a death allotted to received blows of shoe of its horses and a fast burial the very same day, the rumors of homicide and the suspicions are not long in being spread in the vicinity, Dodier having been of alive sound in bad terms with his/her father-in-law and his wife.

At that time, News-France, conquered in 1760 by the British within the framework of the operations of the War Seven Year old, is managed by the English army. The British local military authorities, charged to maintain the order, thus order, on the faith of the rumors, an investigation into the death of Dodier, at the conclusion which opens in Quebec, on March 29th, 1763, in front of a military tribunal composed of 12 English officers, the lawsuit of Joseph Corriveau and his Marie-Josephte daughter. This lawsuit is concluded, on April 9th, by the death sentence of Joseph Corriveau, found guilty of the murder of his/her son-in-law, and by the judgment of Marie-Josephte, its supposed accessory, with 60 blows of whip and with the red Fer. Corriveau, condemned to hanging, acknowledges then, at the instigation of sound Confesseur, to have been only the accomplice of its daughter, after this one killed her husband. At the time of a second lawsuit, the next on April 15th, Marie-Josephte acknowledges in her turn to have killed its husband of two blows of hatchet during its sleep, especially because of the ill treatments which this one made him undergo. The court declares then it guilty and condemns it to be hung, its corpse then having to be hung “in the chains”.

The execution took place on Hillock-with-Nepveu, close to the Plaines of Abraham, a little in the west of the current door Saint-Louis, probably on April 18th. The body, in accordance with the sentence, was then exposed “in the chains”, i.e. in a kind of made cage of chains and iron circles, suspended with a gibet with Point-Levy (today the Town of Lévis). It was a first in North America, because this British macabre practice dated from the Middle Ages. The cage was exposed close to a crossroads located at the crossing of the four principal ways at the time. This crossroads is located in the sector named " The fork of the chemins" , with the angle of the St-Joseph streets and the Boulevard of the Agreement of the Lauzon sector in Lévis. The site of the cage was located on a high ground located between the street Vaudreuil and the street St-Joseph. A monument of temperance was installed at this place at the XIXe century. The body and the cage remained exposed until May 25th with the sight of the passers by at least, date where an order of the governor James Murray allowed removal and the burial of it.

In 1849, the cage was found in a pit of the cemetery of Point-Levy, at the side of the St-Joseph church. The writer Louis Fréchette was pilot of this discovery at the 10 years age. He mentions in his writings that some bones were in the cage. The cage would have been acquired thereafter by the circus Barnum and it would have been exposed to Boston Museum with the beginning of the year 1900. It seems that it would have been destroyed following the fire of the museum.

Corriveau: the legend

This exhibition postmortem with a attended crossroads of the skin of Marie-Josephte Corriveau (an unusual sorrow and unknown factor during the Mode French and reserved in England with the guilty people recognized of the most serious crimes), the bounces of the lawsuits, the rumor according to which his/her father would have initially recognized himself guilty of the murder of Dodier at the instigation of his daughter and the suspicions which were born then on the circumstances from died from the first husband from this one, is as many facts who struck popular imagination and was transformed into legends transmitted still today by the oral tradition, multiplying the number of husbands assassinated (up to 7) or comparing Corriveau to a Witch.

About 1850, the discovery of an iron cage buried in the cemetery of Lauzon seems to have reactivated the legends and the tale of fantasies, which were amplified and exploited by writers of the 19th century. The first, in 1863, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, in the Former Canadians , camps Corriveau supernatural suspended in its cage of Point-Levy, terrorizing one night a passer by which she begs to lead to the Sabbath of the wizards and the will-o'-the-wisps to the Île of Orleans. James MacPherson the Monk ( Maple Leaves , 1863), and William Kirby in his wake ( The Golden delicious Dog , 1877), made of it empoisonneuse professional, downward direct of the Neighbor. Literary men and historians like Louis Fréchette and Pierre-Georges Roy tried to tell the history of Corriveau, but without managing to completely dissociate the actual facts of anachronistic imaginations or the legendary and romantic data .

The figure of Corriveau did not cease, since, to inspire Romance, songs and plays and to feed the controversies (it was guilty or not?). The oral tradition remained also and is remained rather long-lived, as testifies to them the many accounts collected on the ground in several areas to Quebec.

Corriveau in the culture

1863 : the Former Canadians (Quebec, 1863), novel of Philippe Aubert de Gaspé
1863 : “Marie-Josephte Corriveau, has Canadian Lafarge”, in Maple Leaves: With Budget off Legendary, Historical, Critical, and Sporting Intelligence of James MacPherson the Monk
1877 : The Dog Golden delicious, has off Legend Quebec , novel of William Kirby, translated into French by Leon-Pamphile May, the Dog of Gold, captions Canadian (Montreal, 1884)
1885 : “The Cage of Corriveau”, news of Louis Fréchette, appeared for the first time in an special issue of the newspaper the Fatherland , on February 24th, 1885; recovery and altered then on several occasions, in particular under the title “a Relic” in Almanac of the people of the bookstore Beauchemin , Montreal, 1913.
1971 : “Corriveau”, song written by Gilles Vigneault, popularized by the interpretation of Pauline Julien
1976 : “My Corriveau”, play of Victor-Levy Beaulieu, put in scene by Andre Pagé and presented to the Theater of Today from September 19th to October 30th, 1976.
1981 : Corriveau , historical novel of Andree LeBel
1990 : the Cage , play of Anne Hébert
1993 : “Corriveau with the Carnival of Quebec”, news of the novelist Douglas Glover, published in the collection “Murder in Quebec”
1993 : Corriveau , play of Guy Cloutier, put in scene by Denise Verville and presented to the Periscope, from January 12th to 30th 1993; recovery, adapted and diffused into dramatic televisual by Radio-Canada in 1995.
1999 : Cursed the , Romance youth of Daniel Mativat
2001 : “The Bullfight of Corriveau”, song of the group My Aïeux (album Between the branches)
2003 : Been engaged of the wind: history of Corriveau, born in News-France and hung under the English Mode , novel of Monique Pariseau
2003 : Julie and the oath of Corriveau , Romance youth of Martine Latulippe
2004 : News-France , film carried out by Jean Beaudin (very free adaptation of the topic of Corriveau)
2006 : Corriveau , cartoon film of Kyle Craig

Random links: