Maria Chapdelaine

the right decision, instead of escaping to the cities of the south, to remain. “Il faut rester dans le province où nos pères sont restés, et vivre comme ils ont vécu, pour obéir au commandement inexprimé qui s’est formé dans leurs cœurs, qui a passé dans les nôtres, et que nous devrons transmettre à notre tour à de nombreux enfants. Au pays de Québec, rien ne doit mourir, et rien ne doit changer.”

After writing Maria Chapdelaine, Hémon set out on another journey—it may have been in search of new experiences—but he was killed by a passing train in 1913 at Chapleau in Ontario.

Near the little church at Péribonka stands a monument erected to his memory, on which is written:

A LOUIS HEMON, ‘HOMME DE LETTRES,” NÉ A BREST (FRANCE), LE 12 OCTOBRE 1880, DÉCÉDÉ A CHAPLEAU (ONTARIO), LE 8 JUILLET 1913.

It is this book that has won for him a place of honour among even the most distinguished French authors. “Classic in form and style is the narrative in which Louis Hémon has clothed his theme, classic in sureness of outline, in compression and restraint, in harmony of colour and rhythm, in the incomparable rightness of thought and word. It is a quality of which only the genius of France seems capable in the modern world. Prévost, Mérimée, Halévy in L’Abbé Constantin, and Pierre Loti in Le Pécheur d'Islande are names which come to mind, and among which Louis Hémon may, without false praise, be placed.”’1

By the courtesy of the Publisher, M. Bernard Grasset,

1 The New Republic, July 1922 (Robert Morss Lovett).