1. Transcript of conversation with McTaggart, George, Saint-Blaise, , Québec, , 13 08 1995.Google Scholar

2. The authors should like to acknowledge the assistance of the Canadian Embassy, which provided a research grant in 1995. In addition, Randall, Catharine wishes to thank the organizers of the Association canadiénne-française pour l'avancement des sciences (ACFAS) for inviting her to give the keynote address at the annual meeting in Trois-Rivières, Québec, 12–16 05 1997. The conference was organized around the theme “Identité des protestants francophones au Québec, 1834–1996.” A substantial amount of the research for this article was completed owing to that organization's interest in this project and, most especially, to the enthusiasm voiced by Dr. Denis Remon of the Université Sainte-Anne, Nova Scotia. Her talk for ACFAS was entitled “Parole humaine, parole divine: Quelques méditations sur Henriette Feller et le rayonnement du protestantisme français au Québec.”Google Scholar

3. Quoted by McTaggart, , conversation, 13 08 1995. All translations from the French are by Catharine Randall.Google Scholar

4. We felt that it was important to combine a traditional historical narrative and academic exploration of the issues salient to French Protestantism with an untraditional—although increasingly more common—“ethnographic” approach to our subject, precisely because one of the biggest issues—that of the lack of a French Protestant “voice” (both in academic circles and in Canadian culture as a whole)—calls for redressing on its own terms. By interviewing, visiting sites, and using anecdotal information as well as conventional scholarly sources, we have tried to encourage the audition of such a voice.Google Scholar

5. “Il me paraît que la chance désormais ouverte ne sera saisie que si le protestantisme sort de tout ghetto.” Gisel, Pierre, “Préface,” in L'Identité des protestants francophones au Quebéc: 1834–1997, ed. Remon, Denis (Montréal: ACFAS, 1998): Les cahiers scientifiques 94 (1998): vi.Google Scholar

6. “Au Québec, le protestantisme est minoritaire. Très minoritaire mêne. Et méconnu.” Gisel, Pierre, “Préface,” L'Identité des protestants francophones, iii. Gisel makes the point that, even in academic circles, French Protestants have felt excluded from significant discussions of religion. He refers to “un ghetto” of French Protestant academics, which he finds only recently to be incorporated into the larger framework of academic examination.Google Scholar

7. Correspondence of Feller, Henriette, dated 17 08 1835, quoted in R.-P. Duclos, Histoire du protestantismefrangais au Canada et aux États-Unis, 2 vols. (Montréal: Librairie Éivangélique, 1913), 1: 112: “Cher père, n'accusez personne de m'avoir engagée dans cette voie; il n'était en la puissance d'aucun être humain de remplir mon âme; l'amour pour mon Sauveur l'absorbait tout entière… Ne m'accusez done pas de fanatisme, puisque ce n'est que le service raisonnable que nous devons au grand Maitre.”Google Scholar

8. Wyeth, W. N., Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission: A Memorial (Philadelphia: W. N. Wyeth, 1898), 17. Many of Feller's own writings, housed in disparate areas throughout Canada, are quoted extensively in Wyatt, which makes him a valuable source for a personal portrait of Feller, as well as his own interpretation.Google Scholar

9. Her daughter Elise died at the age of three. Before she died, she is said to have begged her mother, “O Mama, show me God” (Duclos, Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 22).Google Scholar

10. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 37.Google Scholar

11. Aubigné, Jean Henri Merle d' (1794–1872) was born in Geneva of French Protestantrefugees, descendants of the great Calvinist epic poet and prose-writer, Agrippa d'Aubigné. He was pastor in a French congregation in Hamburg, a court preacher in Brussels, and a professor in the theological school at Geneva. His five-volume study, History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, was begun in 1835; the final volume appeared in 1853.Google Scholar

12. Aubigné, J. H. Merle d', Preface to History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (1846; reprint, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1987).Google Scholar

13. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 39.Google Scholar

14. “Dans une réunion de prières tenue à Lausanne, M. Olivier, poussé par le Saint-Esprit, demanda à Dieu d'ouvrir les voies pour le Canada” (Duclos, Histoire du protestantisme frangais, 1: 108).Google Scholar

15. Black, Robert Merill, “Different Visions: The Multiplication of Protestant Missions to French Canadian Roman Catholics, 1834–1855,” in Canadian Protestant and Catholic Missions, 1820s–1960s: Historical Essays in Honour of John Webster Grant, eds. Moir, John S. and McIntire, C. T. (New York: Peter Lang, 1988), 54.Google Scholar

16. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 44.Google Scholar

17. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 45.Google Scholar

18. Quoted in Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 47.Google Scholar

19. One contemporary recalls in his memoirs, “[J]e revois en écrivant ces souvenirs, cette excellente Madame Feller installée dans un gros 'waggon' traîné par deux chevaux que conduisait Raphaël, son serviteur dévoué … voyageant toute une journée et passant [ses] soirées en des entretiens qui se prolongeaient souvent très tard dans la nuit” (quoted in Duclos, Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 207).Google Scholar

20. Feller's correspondence, quoted in Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 59.Google Scholar

21. Quoted in Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 49.Google Scholar

22. Rudel, Daniel-Thierry, Le protestantisme français au Québec, 1840–1919: Images et témoignages (Ottawa: Musée national de l'homme, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. For more on Québecois Baptist theology, see Haykin, Michael, “The 1689 Confession: A Tercentennial Appreciation,”Reformation Canada 13 (1990): 13–28.Google Scholar

24. Rocher-Caron, Marie-Claude, “L'Ensemble Feller: traces d'un monde—Un monde de traces,” in l'Identité des protestants francophones, ed. Remon, Denis, 112.Google Scholar

25. Thompson, N., “To the visitors of Feller Museum, Saint-Blaise, Québec,” a pamphlet distributed at the museum: “In 1835, Madame Henriette Feller, a widow of 35 years of age, came to Canada from Lausanne, Switzerland. She was accompanied by Louis Roussy, a pastor twelve years younger than herself. They were sent by the Lausanne Missionary Society. They disembarked at New York and took a steamer up the Richelieu River to St. Jean d'Iberville, arriving there on October 31st. Madame Feller spent the winter with her fellow countrymen, the Rev. and Mrs. Henri Olivier, distributing Bibles and speaking of Jesus to anyone ready to receive her witness.”Google Scholar

26. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 53.Google Scholar

27. “Nous rencontrons, hélas! L'ignorance du sauvage alliée aux vices de la civilisation. Là où l'on sait lire, on est généralement disposé à acheter les Saintes Éicritures, mais dès que cela vient à la connaissance du prêtre, on reçoit vite l'ordre de les brüler. On a défendu du haut des chaires de me recevoir ou de m'écouter” (Duclos, Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 113, citing Feller's correspondence).Google Scholar

28. Subsequently, during the 1840s, churches were built in Saint-Pie, Sainte-Marie-de-Monnoir, and Saint-Georges-d'Henryville, the field of operations of the colporteurs extending as far as Milton, Roxton, Ely, and Stukely. See Hudon, Christine, “Le prêtre, le ministre et l'apostat. Les stratégies pastorales face au protestantisme canadienfrançais au XIXe siècle,” Études d'histoire religieuse 61 (1995): 83–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Paquin, René, “Les protestants canadiens-francais et le 'réveil' catholique dans le Québec du XIXe siècle: brève histoire d'une concurrence,” in L'Identité des protestants francophones au Québec: 1834–1997, ed. Remon, Denis, 75.Google Scholar

30. See also the Register, publication of the Evangelical Society of Ligne, La Grande, 03 1866, and the Report, published by the French Canadian Missionary Society (Montréal, 1842–60), and the Memoir of Madame Feller, with an account of the origin and progress of the Grande Ligne Mission, trans, and ed. Cramp, J. M. (London: E. Stock, 1876).Google Scholar

31. The society bought land for the Institut de la Pointe aux Trembles—105 arpents for a total cost of $3100—and began by building a four-storey brick house forty feet by ninety feet.Google Scholar

32. Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 151.Google Scholar

33. One neighbor made this statement: “Ce que j'ai entendu dire là-bas me fait croire que son fils Jésus est encore plus sympathique, puisqu'il ne repousse pas le pécheur qui vient à lui, au contraire, il l'invite. M'est avis que s'il a consenti à mourir pour nous, pour nous sauver, il doit être heureux de nous voir aller à lui, d'écouter nos prières et d'y répondre… Je crois que nos curés nous trompent; toute cette boutique, c'est de la blague” (quoted in Duclos, Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 159).Google Scholar

34. Feller, , quoted in Wyeth, Henrietta Feller, 59.Google Scholar

35. Quoted in Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 98.Google Scholar

36. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 98.Google Scholar

37. Rocher-Caron, , Un autre son de cloche, 22.Google Scholar

38. Correspondence of Feller, , quoted in Wyeth, Henrietta Feller, 67–68.Google Scholar

39. Thompson, N., “Aux visiteurs du musée Feller.”Google Scholar

40. Smith, Glenn writes, “Feller stated that the evangelization of French Canadians should start with school… In its fight against ignorance, French Protestantism in Canada understood … that the education of the young should go hand in hand with moral and spiritual uplifting of the parents” (“The History of French Protestantism in Québec,” Ecumenism 120 [1995]: 16–22).Google Scholar

41. The Reformers decried representational ornament, particularly representations of the divine, as blasphemous, and they tended to oppose other aesthetic adornment as well, preferring the “plain style” of the Scriptures as a standard for all of life. See Randall, Catharine, Building Codes: Calvinist Aesthetics in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999);Google ScholarMiquel, Pierre, Les Guerres de religion (Paris: Fayard, 1980);Google Scholarand Reid, W. Stanford, John Calvin: His Influence on the Western World (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982).Google Scholar

42. Monter, William, Calvin's Geneva (New York: Wiley, 1967).Google Scholar

43. See Prospectus of Feller Institute, Ligne, Grande, Province of Québec (Montréal: D. Bentley & Co.), 6–7Google Scholarand Rocher-Caron, Marie-Claude, Les protestants francophones au Québec, XIXe siècle: Une expérience de communication de l'histoire par l'exposition en musée (Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1994).Google Scholar

44. The archives at the Musée Feller document this transition, as does an examination of the genre of the school photograph. Increasingly, the mottos that each class chose as representative were in English; more and more of the student body had anglophone names, as did some of the teachers.Google Scholar

45. Traditional Québecois identity was staunchly Catholic and parish-based. See Farley, Paul, Histoire du Canada (Montréal: Leméac, 1987), 33–46.Google Scholar

46. Transcript of a conversation with Rocher-Caron, Marie-Claude in which she quotes Madame Paradis, Québec, 14 08 1995.Google Scholar

47. See Rocher-Caron, , Un autre son de cloche, 33–35.Google Scholar

48. Quoted in Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 268–9: “Rongée par une ardente fièvre, elle avait souvent le délire; dans ses moments lucides, son grand souci était pour ses garçpns, comme elle appelait les élèves—elle aurait voulu les engager encore à chercher Jésus, à s'assurer en lui, et répétait souvent ses mots: ‘par la foi seulement, par le sacrifice de Christ seul.’ ”Google Scholar

49. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, passim.Google ScholarSee also Hardy, René, s.v. “Odin,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 9 (1861–1870) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 609. Feller did actually give birth to a daughter who died of typhoid fever in 1823 or 1824, within two years of Feller's marriage (Dictionary, 609).Google Scholar

50. Quoted in full above. Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 269.Google Scholar

51. Rocher-Caron, , Un autre son de cloche, 32.Google Scholar

52. pastorale, Lettre, 28 05 1870, Mandements, lettres pastorales et circulaires des évêques de Saint-Hyacinthe publiés par I'abbé A.-X. Bernard, 3: 303–11.Google Scholar

53. Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 129.Google Scholar

54. See Côté, Cyril, Memoir of the Rev. C. H. O. Côté, M.D., with a Memoir of Mrs. M. Y. Côté and a History of the Grande Ligne Mission (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1852), 32 and passim.Google Scholar

55. Such disagreements and “acting out” were not uncommon among parishes at the time, either. For instance, Hudon, Christine relates the story of twelve parish families in Saint-Valerien-de-Milton who converted to Protestantism in order to express their opposition to a building project underway with the Catholic Church; Hudon, “Le prêtre,” 85. See also The Register of the Evangelical Society of Grande-Ligne (03 1870).Google Scholar

56. In MESH, 2 09 1882, 7:15–16, the bishop threatened with excommunication anyone who read Bibles obtained in this way, kept them in his house, had them printed, or in any way defended their distribution.Google Scholar

57. “… ne sachant pas l'anglais, il n'avait pu pénétrer dans la vie Chrétienne des Américains… De retour au pays, il entendait parler de la maison protestante, nouvellement érigée … il réalisa qu'il était un nouvel homme, et il demanda à rester … (Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 126).Google Scholar

58. Among them, Roussy, Louis and Tétreau, M..Google Scholar

59. See LeSuisse méthodiste confondu et convaincu d'ignorance et de mensonge (Montréal, 1851), an anonymous polemical work published by Chiniquy or supporters. It is worth noting that Chiniquy, an ardent critic of Protestantism, eventually himself converted.Google Scholar

60. A list of such reproaches would include, on the Protestants' part, criticism of the Latin mass and of clerical celibacy, questioning of priests' morality, criticism of the church hierarchy and its wealth, and a refutation of the Catholic Church's claim to universality through its use of the term “catholic.”Google Scholar

61. Correspondence of Feller, , Duclos, Histoire du protestantisme français, 1:90. “Quand nous nous séparerons d'une telle église, nous ne commettons point de schisme; au contraire, nous gardons l'unité de l'Éiglise.”Google Scholar

62. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 29: “Conversion to the evangelical faith on the part of … Madame Feller was entirely independent of church relations.”Google Scholar

63. Hardy speaks of her mysticism in s.v. “Odin,” Dictionary, 608, stating that her “ardent faith [was] characterized by mystical impulses which her associates attributed to her morbid imagination and indeed even to a neurosis resulting from the successive deaths … of her daughter … husband, sister and mother.” Marie-Claude Rocher- Caron asserts that, generally, Catholics try to label Feller as a mystic in order to imply that she was a fanatic and not in touch with reality, perhaps even deranged. Rocher-Caron insists on Feller's strong sense of mission, ever coupled with level-headedness. Conversation with Rocher-Caron at Longueil, 14 08 1995.Google Scholar

64. Hardy, , s.v, “Odin,” Dictionary, 609.Google Scholar

65. See Thompson, Nelson, “Aux visiteurs.” There is some contradictory information on this point. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, without quoting sources, asserts that as early as 1825 Feller had become convinced that baptism could only be administered to believers, and she herself experienced a rebaptism by “sprinkling.” This seems unlikely, since no documentation supports it and other scholars contradict the claim. In addition, had Feller already been “sprinkled” as an adult, she would not have needed to be baptized by immersion, as we know she was, later in her life. See Dictionary, 608.Google Scholar

66. Black, , “Different Visions,” 63.Google Scholar

67. Feller may also have faced increasing opposition as a woman preacher. As Protestant activity in Québec moved from mission to institutionalization over the course of the nineteenth century, women preachers faced more and more opposition. See Muir, Elizabeth Gillian, “Beyond the Bounds of Acceptable Behaviour: Methodist Women Preachers in the Early Nineteenth Century,” in Changing Roles of Women within the Christian Church in Canada, eds. Muir, Elizabeth Gillian and Whitely, Marilyn Färdig (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 161–82.Google Scholar

68. Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 217.Google Scholar

69. “La variété des sectes était un des thêmes [sic] favoris des ecclésiastiques qui, en parallèle, insistaient sur l'unicité catholiques. Ces attaques fréquents expliquent sans doute la propension de certains protestants à faire peu état, dans leurs écrits, des différends qui les opposaient les uns aux autres” (Hudon, “Le prêtre,” 90).Google ScholarSee Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 288–92.Google Scholar

70. Quoted in Black, , “Different Visions,” 70, n. 20.Google Scholar

71. Feller, Henriette, quoted in Duclos, Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 124. “O Dieu, fais-moi voir, avant ma morte, une assemblée de Canadians touchée par amour de Toi et engagée par Ta Parole!”Google Scholar

72. Rocher-Caron, , Un autre son de cloche, 12–14.Google Scholar

73. Hardy, , s.v. “Odin,” Dictionary, 609.Google Scholar

74. Cramp, , Memoir, 34. “Jésus devint le seul objet de sa foi, de son adoration et de son amour. II était son Sauveur, sa force, sa vie, son tout.” Also cited in the “Au visiteurs du Musée Feller,” the French-facing side of the pamphlet distributed at the Musée Feller.Google Scholar

75. McTaggart, , conversation, 13 08 1995.Google Scholar

76. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 140: “[Cette société] avait pour but de pourvoir aux moyens de répandre la connaissance de l'Evangile du Christ parmi les Canadiens de langue françhise.”Google Scholar

77. In 1832 the mission consisted of ten converted families. By 1860 the mission included over 700 members located in several different communities south of the St. Lawrence River. Hardy, René, “La rébellion de 1837–1838 et l'essor du protestantisme canadienfrangais,” Revue d'histoire de l'Amérique française 29 (1975): 165–89.Google Scholar

78. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 99.Google Scholar

79. Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 229. The Protestants were known for their loud and ardent singing. These hymns, penned by the new breed of preacher-pastors such as Malan, travelled from France over to the St. Lawrence and into French Canada.Google Scholar“… [c'étaient] des cantiques qu'on devait, quinze ans plus tard, chanter sur les rives du Saint-Laurent… [elles] sont l'expression d'expériences plus personnelles … qui résultent d'une communion intime avec Dieu” (Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 90).Google Scholar

80. “Toward the end of her life, Madame Feller suffered much pain and was often delirious. Her mind was wandering and she was talking much” (Wyeth, , Henrietta Feller, 143).Google Scholar

81. Quoted in Rocher-Caron, , Un autre son de cloche, 27.Google Scholar

82. The quotation in the original reads: “il y a deux dangers contre lesquels vous devez prémunir vos gens: … ce sont les manages mixtes et les écoles protestantes” (quoted in Rocher-Caron, Un autre son de cloche, 1).Google ScholarChristine Hudon examines similar attitudes and pronouncements in the highly polarized parish of Saint-Hyacinthe in her article, “Le prêtre, le ministre et l'apostat. Les stratégies pastorales face au protestantisme canadien-français au XIXe siècle,” Etudes d'histoire religieuse 61 (1995): 81–95. She notes: “Au diocèse de Saint-Hyacinthe, [par exemple], la stratégic catholique à l'égard du protestantisme canadien-français … condamn[ait] vigoureusement la Réforme et les réformés… exaltait l'institution catholique, sa hiérarchie et ses rites et tenait, en paralèle, un discours intransigeant, et même intolérant, envers les protestants” (81).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83. For instance, the Catholic polemicist Charles Chiniquy, who later converted to Protestantism, sneered at Louis Roussy, claiming that Roussy only knew of the Bible what his grandmother had taught him. Roussy, Louis, Récit de la discussion entre M. Chiniquy et M. Roussy au village de Ste-Marie-de-Monnoir, le mardi 7 Janvier 1851 (Napierville: Imprimerie du Semeur Canadien, 1851), 30.Google Scholar

84. Dobrowolskyj, Jean-Philippe, “Deux homme, deux journaux, deux pays,” in L'ldentite des protestants, 96.Google Scholar

85. L'ldentité des protestants, 98. One of the most important was founded by Rivard, Laurent, born in Québec in 1832. He moved to Rutland, Vermont, where he became a Congregationalist minister and founded the journal Aurore in 1868.Google Scholar

86. Rocher-Caron, Marie-Claude, curator of the exhibit “Un autre son de cloche” at the Séminaire de Québec, from an interview in 1994.Google Scholar

87. Rousseau, Louis, “Le va-et-vient entre le centre et la marge: trois siècles et demi de catholicisme franco-montréalais,” an address given at the colloquium entitled Société, culture et religion dans le Montréal métropolitain, 20–21 05 1992.Google Scholar

88. See the summaries of the sermons of Saint-Hugues, Louis Archambault de in the Journal of Angélique des Rivières (McGill University Library), cited in Hudon, “Le prêtre,” 88.Google Scholar

89. See Dompnier, Bernard, Le venin de l'hérésie: Image du protestantisme et combat catholique au XVIIe siécle (Paris: Le Centurion, 1985), for historical precedents for such attacks.Google ScholarFor contemporary attacks, see, for example, Pouliot's, Le pèreLa Réaction catholique de Montréal (Montréal: Imprimerie du Messager, 1942).Google Scholar

90. Explained by Rocher-Caron, Marie-Claude in an interview in 1994.Google Scholar

91. One colporteur on the verge of death said, “[J]e suppose que le prêtre va refuser à mon corps le repos dans le cimetière de la paroisse; peu m'importe où l'on m'enterre, je sais que Jésus m'a pardonné; je n'ai pas besoin du ministère du prêtre pour mourir” (quoted in Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 152).Google Scholar

92. See Balmer, Randall, A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), esp. chap. 4.Google Scholar

93. This is the central argument of Black, “Different Visions.”Google Scholar

94. Quoted in Duclos, , Histoire du protestantisme français, 1: 226.Google Scholar

95. On this pattern, see “Protestantisme et Temps modernes. Une mise ne perspective historique problématisante,” in Daniel, , Le protestantisme et son avenir, eds. Marguerat, and Reymond, Bernard (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1998), 9–25,Google Scholaras well as Monteil, Pierre-Olivier, La grâce et le désordre: Entretiens sur le protestantisme et la modernité (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1998).Google Scholar