In September 1805, a certain Jean-Baptiste Noreau from Saint-Constant landed in the port of Bordeaux. He has just crossed the Atlantic from New York aboard an American ship. Noreau represents a group of Canadians from the south shore of Montreal and delivers a letter to none other than Emperor Napoleon! A look back at this little-known episode in our history.

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In 1805 it was 42 years since New France was ceded to England after the Conquest. Since 1791, Canadians, descendants of the French, have lived in Lower Canada under constitutional law, where they constitute a clear majority. Nevertheless, the British minority in the colony retained power and disputes arose between this minority and the Canadian members of the assembly. These disputes gradually led to the uprisings of 1837–1838.

There have been many changes in France since the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The French Revolution of 1789 shook the country for around ten years before the emergence of a man who restored order while maintaining the essential revolutionary achievements: Napoleon Bonaparte! After the short period of the consulate, it founded the empire and then conquered Europe.

It is in this general context that Jean-Baptiste Noreau and eleven followers address a letter and petition to the French emperor. These documents represent one of the rare testimonies that clearly demonstrate the attachment and affection that certain Canadian residents felt towards the former motherland at the beginning of the 19th century.^e Century.

Inhabitant of Lower Canada, in 1837.

Public domain

“Shaking off the yoke of the English”

In this letter, kept in the archives of France’s Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and updated a few years ago by researcher Sylvain Pagé, the signatories ask the Emperor that France reconquer Canada so that Canadians “can once again bear the glorious name of the French.” “. .” According to them, the Canadian people were ready to return to the hands of France and all that was needed was “a good French general” to keep the English in check and drive them out of Canada. As a sign of their determination, the twelve signatories even say they are prepared to “pay the costs that this undertaking will require”. They end their letter to Bonaparte by saying that they are “ready to undertake anything at the first sight of the French, whom we always regard as our brothers.”

A futile attempt

We do not know whether this letter and this petition ended up in the hands of the emperor. When he arrived in Bordeaux, Jean-Baptiste Noreau was ill and had to stay in a hospice, where he was lost.

However, even if he had read it, it is very unlikely that Napoleon would have responded positively to the request of Noreau and his cronies. At least for now. While plans to restore the French colonial empire in North America were made during the consulate period, things were different in 1805.

Under Napoleon, France was an empire from 1804 to 1814 and briefly in 1815, with the return of Napoleon during the Hundred Days Episode. This painting entitled “Napoleon I, Emperor of the French” is the work of the painter François Gérard and is kept at the Palace of Versailles.

Public domain

Napoleon had just sold Louisiana to the United States and was too busy in Europe to think about Canada. The Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805 ended in defeat for the Franco-Spanish fleet, prompting the Emperor to concentrate on the European continent, where he prepared to win the Battle of Austerlitz in December, which would soon culminate achieved his dominion.

Nevertheless, a letter from Foreign Minister Talleyrand to the French ambassador in London in 1802 shows that Napoleonic France kept itself abreast of the Canadians’ colonial situation and their opinion of France. This suggests that the reconquest of Canada may have interested the emperor in a favorable geopolitical situation, but this situation will never happen…

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