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On 22 June 1845, a curious religious procession took place in the streets of Montreal. A “huge crowd” gathered to accompany through the city the body of a man exhumed from the Roman catacombs. His bones had been shipped to Montreal and placed in a wax figure representing a Roman soldier. Presumed to have died for his faith, this martyr was carried through the streets at arm’s length amid incense and hymns. Surprisingly, this procession was not an isolated one. From 1830 to 1930, the remains of dozens of presumed Christian martyrs extracted from the Roman catacombs were sent to Canada. In Halifax, Rimouski, Joliette, Toronto, and Windsor, they attracted the faithful and the curious. Adopted as powerful intercessors, these foreign saints would shape the beliefs, representations, and identity of generations of Catholics. Around their relics, a whole devotional universe would develop and maintain various and complex relations with society. These relics provide us with a unique window into nineteenth-century Canadian society. This thesis makes a significant contribution to historiography by exploring for the first time the topic of ultramontane devotions in Canada. It studies the deployment of the cult of Roman martyrs and their relics in the Canadian Church and reconstitutes the development of this devotion from a cultural history perspective. Using archival documents found on both sides of the Atlantic, this thesis examines how Canadians discovered, sought, and adopted this foreign devotion. In reality, this infatuation for Roman relics is primarily a transnational phenomenon that is part of the profound changes that the Catholic Church experienced in the nineteenth century, driven in particular by the Ultramontane movement. Therefore, it seeks to situate the presence of relics from the catacombs in Canada in its global context while considering its Canadian particularities. It rests on a considerable number of novel sources drawn from more than thirty archival centers. With the help of these documents, it examines the different facets that this devotion had, whether in cities or the countryside, among English-speaking or French-speaking communities or in predominantly Catholic or Protestant environments. The first chapter reveals the fascination with Christian Rome among nineteenth-century Canadians and the importance that the catacombs and their martyrs had in the minds of the Catholic faithful. The second chapter identifies the many networks uniting the Canadian Church with Rome, and more broadly with Europe, that allowed the acquisition and shipping of relics to Canada. It replaces this devotion in a larger framework by linking it to other manifestations of this expression of piety elsewhere in the world. It pays particular attention to the exchange of goods between the Italian peninsula and North America by studying the commercial routes that allowed the circulation of relics. The remaining three chapters are devoted to the presentation, the reception, and the adoption of catacomb saints in Canada. They examine the art of molding wax bodies containing relics and the symbolism of these recumbent-reliquaries, before describing the religious ceremony organized to mark the arrival of a new martyr. Finally, this thesis explores the faithful’s various expressions of piety: patronages, prayers, indulgences, and claims of miracles. It examines the attachment but also the opposition and the tensions provoked by Roman relics within society. This research demonstrates the influence that foreign religious devotions held in the spiritual lives of Canadians and the many connections uniting Canadian society with Europe. It also testifies to significant changes in the devotional universe of the nineteenth century. But above all, it highlights the profound transformations of both culture and mentalities and particularly of beliefs, emotions, and the idea of death. This study contributes to a better understanding of the religious past of several generations of Canadians by studying a devotion that has now completely been forgotten.

Cannibals, caravans under the burning desert sun, “Wild Indians” of the Northwest… these were just some of the exotic images that Quebec schoolchildren were presented with in the 19th century. In addition to being a vehicle for socialization into the nation, the school was also a window onto the wider world and a place to learn about stereotypes. What images of the Other, and produced by which ideologies, did Quebec schools transmit? How did Quebec youth become conscious of “otherness”? What recreative and pedagogical functions did these images serve? This thesis is an effort to answer these questions. The first three chapters of the thesis explore the rhetorical construction of otherness in the school. How was the Other identified and depicted? The rhetoric of otherness took many forms, from cultural distancing to racial essentializing. European imperialism and the knowledge it produced facilitated the classification of the world’s peoples, from which were drawn those peoples who had different and “bizarre” cultural practices. Consistent with the history of Orientalism, such fascination was particularly reserved for the peoples of Asia. But, as radical as the otherness of the Oriental could be, it did not attain the level of essentialization imposed on the “Negro,” defined by their race, and to the “Savage,” whose body was the primary indicator of their identity. Finally, the significant role that the figure of the Indian played in primary-level education is a reminder that it was key to realizing the very possibility of a national existence for Canadians – who were themselves essentialized as belonging to the civilized world. Far from having only been in the background of history, the Indian was at the heart of the narrative as the figure most likely to capture the interest of children. Retaining the interest of children was precisely what the pedagogy of the era was most concerned with as a means to develop various capacities, such as the power of observation and emotion, both of which the latter chapters of this thesis examines. Fascinated by the images they observed, children were exposed to a stereotyped representation of the Other that manifested itself across multiple disciplines. In employing the travel narratives of the European explorers, geography called upon students to imagine themselves elsewhere. The schoolwork of students explored here reveals their curiosity about and imaginings of far-off regions and peoples. Finally, we also see how a missionary rhetoric manipulated the emotional reactions of schoolchildren to poor non-Christian children and thereby used the school to transmit its message. The school setting ensured that children acquired a sense of authority over the Others that the educational discourse presented to them. The knowledge of the Others gave them a sense of superiority and authority. The school also transmitted a hierarchical vision of the world in which Canadian children, even those of the popular classes, belonged to the more privileged categories, that is to say to the white race and civilization. This highlights one of the central findings of this research: children were not defined as French-Canadians or English-Canadians vis-à-vis the Other; rather, they were defined as white and civilized. This thesis also shows how otherness was a pedagogical tool that public education privileged amid its expansion in the 19th century.

This dissertation focuses on the culture of collecting as a social act. It begins by studying the discourse held by individual collectors and groups of collectors pertaining to their collecting practices. This examination reveals the motivations that justify the social importance of an essentially individualistic act, by connecting it to various collective benefits such as furthering historical knowledge, building national identity, and civic education. The collectors propagate a utilitarian vision of their activities, and rationalize a hobby that is often negatively perceived. This analysis exposes the characteristics that compose the image of an ideal practitioner, as well as the criteria established to determine the status of private collections and their components. The dissertation also considers collecting as a practice, and demonstrates that collecting consists of a series of acts that can be grouped into three main categories: acquiring, managing, and disseminating. It describes how, and from whom collectors acquired objects, and reveals the importance of local and international networks of transaction. It then highlights the care given to objects in the area of collection management: preparing, cleaning, hanging, storing, classifying, inventory, and cataloguing. Finally, it establishes the particular forms, occasions, and public to which collections are exhibited. The dissertation does not consist of a study of collections, but instead puts forward a cultural history of the practice of collecting. The objects amassed and classified (coins, medallions, stamps, aboriginal artefacts, archeological objects, works of art, autographs, books, rare documents, natural history specimens) are not considered in themselves, but rather as the product of a process that is the true subject of this research. It presents a critical reading of collecting and seeks to understand the aspirations, beliefs, values and representations of collectors, for collecting is a way to organize the world, and thus the collection reveals, through the choices made in the selection of pieces and the order in which they are placed, a way to see and understand this world. The practice of collecting is considered as a way in which to study male sociability, the significance of notions such as virility or the nation, and the importance given to history, sciences, and civic education.

This thesis focuses on the social roles of popular celebrations in rural French-speaking communities of North America between 1770 and 1870. It approaches the subject of festivals by looking more precisely at the festivity. The main objective is to highlight how the festivities, which we call popular celebrations, influence the functioning of North American francophone societies. What roles do popular celebrations play in the social life of the inhabitants of these societies? What impacts do they have on individual and collective identities? Do they retain the same characteristics from one society to another or do they adapt to different environments and contexts? How do they develop and evolve over time? What are the elements that influence their evolution? In order to answer these questions, the focus is on studying certain popular celebrations among four rural populations of French origin, namely the inhabitants of the St. Lawrence Valley, the Detroit region, the Illinois Country and Louisiana (more specifically, the inhabitants of Acadian origin). Based on published monographs, personal manuscripts, church correspondence, fictional literature and the work of folklorists, each of the five chapters represents a case study that shows how popular celebrations are influenced by the context in which people live and how festive sociability is involved in the construction of different social identities, such as those relating to race, gender and class. In the first chapter, a look at the weddings of Canadians and Louisianans of Acadian origin in the late 18th and mid-19th centuries reveals that food, drink, music and dance are very much in evidence, but above all that these festivities are the scene of many rites of passage for the new couple, and often more particularly for the wife, allowing the community to control the recognition and formalization of their social and sexual union. In the second and third chapters, the analysis of the guignolée, Epiphany and especially the carnival in Canada, Detroit and the villages of the Illinois Country shows that this festive period is influenced by the winter climate of the northern colonies and that it remains a key moment in the social life of the inhabitants. Among other things, it is synonymous in all three regions with meetings, dinners and balls during which residents determine who has the right to court with whom, that is, young people of the same social rank, and those who are an integral part of their community and those who are excluded from it, that is, poorer residents (St. Lawrence Valley) or Blacks and Indigenous people (Illinois Country). In the fourth chapter, the study of the evolution of the Sunday culture of Louisianans of Acadian origin highlights how, despite the success, over time, of the Catholic Church in its attempts to impose the sanctification of this day, house balls persist, being transferred to Saturdays, and contribute to the construction of this population’s racial identity. In the last chapter, an examination of the evolution of the May Day celebrations shows the effectiveness of reciprocal relationships in reinforcing and strengthening the social hierarchy in rural Canada, that is, between country people and a member of the local elite (seigneur or militia captain). This thesis enriches the existing historiography of festival in French America, which hardly addresses the subject of rural popular celebrations from the perspective of festive sociability. It shows that these celebrations are closely linked to the contextual aspects of each of the four regions studied, i.e. the demography, the presence of other ethnic groups, the climate, the geography, the gender relations, the economy, the political situation and the social hierarchy. Francophone inhabitants of rural areas adapt their popular celebrations to the particularities of their society, but those celebrations still preserve, sometimes until the 1870s, their regulatory functions of reproducing social, economic, gender and racial hierarchies. In other words, they are a tool that allows these Francophones not only to affirm their identity of French origin, but also to clearly identify the people who can or cannot claim this identity and the inequalities that are produced within this process.

This thesis examines the credit records between 1847 and 1872 of the Montreal branch of the Mercantile Agency, among the most important credit bureaus in 19th century North America. The 19th century saw the acceleration of transatlantic trade. Montreal, located between Great Britain and the United States, was at the crossroads of the economic expansion. In this period, commonly referred to as the transition to capitalism, the legal, commercial and financial institutions of the metropolis were forced to adjust. In the financial sector, the state was compelled to adopt bankruptcy laws to lessen the negative effects of bad debts and to encourage and support the spread of commercial credit. However, because of limited accessibility, and the complexity and costs of the procedure, the laws were unable to fully guarantee the recovery of loans and were deemed unsatisfactory by the business community. The thesis claims that the emergence of credit agencies responded to the needs of the business community to address problems of information asymmetry. These agencies, like the Mercantile Agency, established a type of self-regulation of commercial credit. They provided information on risk to lenders. To a large extent, the information gathered represented the opinion of the Montreal merchant community. The credit offices of the Mercantile Agency used this information to generate rankings of the credit worthiness of merchants. The information was disseminated to the Agency’s network of subscribers. In this fashion, the Agency contributed to the construction of an economy of reputations. The research, which is inspired by contributions to the new history of capitalism, explores the effects of the construction of the economy of reputations on the relationship between lenders and borrowers. I find that the structure of the relationship favored creditor over debtors. The chapters of the thesis describe the role of reputation in the creditor-debtor relationship, the determinants adopted to measure credit worthiness, and the tensions and conflicts that emerged in the economy of reputations.

Entre 1774 et 1815, la noblesse canadienne tente de stabiliser sa position sociale au sein d’une société canadienne désormais sous tutelle britannique. Pour cela, les nobles opèrent une redéfinition culturelle et sociale de leur idée de noblesse afin de s’adapter au nouveau régime. Grâce aux relations qui s’établissent entre les nobles restés dans l’Empire britannique, ceux l’ayant quitté et les nouvelles élites qui s’établissent dans la colonie au tournant du XIXe siècle, il est possible de mieux appréhender la façon dont la noblesse réinvestit son capital symbolique. L’étude des patrimoines matériels, sociaux et intellectuels ainsi que leurs modes de transmission permettent d’examiner les modalités d’adaptation de la communauté noble. Enfin, cette noblesse à cheval entre deux empires, dont les réseaux s’étendent sur de nombreux territoires, permet de mieux percevoir les évolutions qui s’opèrent à cette époque dans les sociétés coloniales et en particulier en Amérique du Nord et au Canada. En étudiant cinq familles emblématiques de la noblesse canadienne, cette thèse tente de répondre à la problématique et aux sous-questions suivantes : comment la noblesse francophone se renouvelle-t-elle et évolue-t-elle en tant que groupe social distinct au sein des élites impériales entre 1774 et 1815 ? Qui est noble ? Être un noble canadien après la Cession dans les empires français et britanniques, qu’est-ce que ça signifie ? Quelles sont les stratégies d’adaptation de la génération de la noblesse canadienne qui vit sa vie publique et adulte entre 1774 et 1815 ? Y a-t-il une « canadianisation » de la noblesse et, si oui, comment se caractérise-t-elle ? Les nobles canadiens s’adaptent-ils au nouveau régime ? Les élites influencent de façon importante la construction de la société dans laquelle elles évoluent : au XIXe siècle la société canadienne-française telle qu’on la connaît jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle commence à se développer ; elle a en parti été mise en place par et pour les nobles canadiens. Ma recherche a donc pour but de trouver les mécanismes de reproduction des élites coloniales. C’est-à-dire de comprendre comment, en particulier, les nobles continuent à exister sous le Régime britannique. Mon hypothèse est que les nobles réussissent à trouver une forme d’équilibre entre le besoin de renouvellement qui découle du changement de régime et leur fidélité à des traditions présentées comme séculaires. Ce sont des « caméléons sociaux » qui existent à travers trois paradoxes : un imaginaire transnational dans une réalité juridique nationale ; un désir d’éternité couplé à un besoin d’évolution constant ; une culture de la distinction affirmée à l’intérieur de frontières poreuses. La thèse cherche encore à mieux comprendre comment se vit une identité transatlantique et coloniale, se détachant progressivement, mais jamais totalement des pairs de la « vieille Europe » et à travers la formation d’une identité américaine au sein des empires. Elle démontre également l’ambiguïté qui existe entre l’identité noble coloniale, qui pousse au détachement par rapport à la métropole, et l’identité élitaire, qui, au contraire, ramène les nobles canadiens vers l’Europe et les caractéristiques de son élite. Between 1774 and 1815, Canadian nobility attempted to stabilize their social position within a Canadian society now under British reign. In that order, nobles operated a cultural and social redefinition of their idea of nobility to adapt to the new regime. Thanks to the relationships that nobles who remained in the British Empire developed with those who left it, and the new elites who settled in the colony, it is possible to better understand how Canadian nobility reinvested its symbolic capital. The study of material, social and intellectual heritages as well as transmission mode make possible to examine the modalities of adaptation of the noble community. Finally, this nobility straddling two empires, whose networks spanned many territories, allows us to better perceive the changes that took place at that time in colonial societies and, more specifically, in North America and Canada. By studying five emblematic families of the Canadian nobility, this thesis attempts to answer the following problematic and sub-questions: how the French-speaking nobility is renewing itself and evolving as a distinct social group within the imperial elites between 1774 and 1815? Who is noble? What does it mean to be a Canadian nobleman after the Conquest in both French and British Empires? What are the coping strategies of the generation of Canadian nobility who lived their public and adult life between 1774 and 1815? Is there a “Canadianization” of the nobility and, if so, how is it characterized? Are nanadian nobles adjusting to the new regime? The elites significantly influence the construction of the society in which they operate: in the 19th century French Canadian society as we know it until the middle of the 20th century began to develop; it was in part set up by, and for, Canadian nobility. My research therefore aims to find its reproduction mechanisms. That is, to understand how, in particular, nobles continued to exist under British rule. My hypothesis is that the nobility manages to find some kind of balance between the need for renewal that arises from regime change and its loyalty to traditions presented as secular. Noblemen and women are “social chameleons” that exist through three paradoxes: a transnational imaginary in a national legal reality; a desire for eternity coupled with a constant need for evolution; a culture of distinction asserted within porous borders. This thesis seeks to better understand how a transatlantic and colonial identity is experienced, separating itself gradually, but never completely from the peers of "old Europe" and through the formation of a North American identity within the empires. It also demonstrates the ambiguity that exists between the noble colonial identity, which encourages detachment from the metropolis, and the elite identity, which, on the contrary, brings the Canadian nobles back to Europe and the characteristics of its elite.

Cette thèse s’intéresse à l’évolution du rapport à l’histoire et de la conscience historique dans la société canadienne de la première moitié du XIXe siècle et propose une analyse métahistorique de deux principaux corpus de sources : le matériel pédagogique employé dans les collèges classiques, ainsi que les ouvrages historiographiques et politiques marquants pour l’élite canadienne, des réflexions du politicien Denis-Benjamin Viger au Rapport Durham et aux écrits de William Smith, Michel Bibaud et de François-Xavier Garneau. En analysant ces sources à la lumière d’un outillage théorique issu de l’historiographie de la représentation du temps, je propose une relecture de la constitution d’une conscience historique nationale au Canada français. Je démontre que la « nationalisation » de l’histoire est un phénomène graduel qui s’est échelonné sur l’ensemble des trois premiers quarts du XIXe siècle. Si l’histoire nationale a mis du temps à s’imposer, c’est parce que la conscience historique du monde intellectuel canadien au tournant du XIXe siècle était modelée sur les principes philosophiques universalistes de l’humanisme et du christianisme. Loin d’être spécifique aux Canadiens, cette mutation de la représentation de l’histoire s’insère dans un large mouvement occidental qui a été abondamment observé et commenté par l’historiographie. Enchevêtrées dans une histoire commune avec la « disciplinarisation » de l’histoire, la catégorisation des peuples et leur projection dans le temps n’est ni une évidence ni une nécessité, mais plutôt le produit d’une évolution culturelle partagée à travers le monde atlantique.