DANIEL-RAYMOND NADON
Ramon Hathorn's Our Lady of the Snows is foremost a fairly detailed history of Sarah Bernhardt's Canadian (and most especially Québécois) tours. In addition, it serves, in part, as biography and cultural study. In his prologue, Hathorn describes:
The major thrust of our findings point to Sarah's special relationship with French Canada from 1880 to 1917, during which time she enjoyed [twice] the most condemnatory clerical receptions of her career, public tributes in song and poetry, rotten eggs and ice-filled snowballs, police protection for a week against a threat of murder and at the end, an ignominious boycott of her final appearance in Montreal. (3)
The thrust of the book details the limited number of trips that Bernhardt took to Canada. These trips were more eventful and controversial but far less numerous than her trips to the United States. Mostly the book chronicles the unlikely relationship between three individuals: Bernhardt, Louis Fréchette (the anti-clerical poet laureate of French Canada) and American born Jules-Paul Tardival (the reactionary convert to Catholicism and editor of the conservative periodical La Verité). The latter two caused a ruckus in the Québecois press as well as Montreal society over their differing views on the relationship between theatre and Catholicism.
Fréchette was Bernhardt's sponsor and champion in Canada, Tardival, her nemesis. While Fréchette was composing poetry in her honour, Tardival was damning her in the press and pulpit. Between 1880 and 1905 the two writers attacked each other constantly, Bernhardt's regular visits providing fresh inspiration for La Verité's editor and Sarah's sponsor to engage in animated combat; as a pair, Fréchette and Tardival personified the two extremes of the ideological, and at times, theological rift that had been slowly splitting the French Catholic intellectual community of Montreal for many years. It was this quarrel that created such intense interest in Bernhardt's performances. Hathorn postulates in this book that Bernhardt may have purposely fueled this rivalry for marketing purposes.
Throughout the book, Hathorn describes the non-violent revolution in the Roman Catholic Church which formed the backdrop for Bernhardt's visits and the resulting controversy. The Ultramontanes, those loyal to the Church of Rome, and the more liberal French National Church defined the battle for the soul of the Church. Bernhardt was but one artist who was caught in this battle. According to Hathorn:
The institutional concerns of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in French Quebec about this non-violent revolution and its implications for their influence come together in a striking way with the 1880 arrival of Sarah Bernhardt in Montreal; the reasons for shunning her presence derive directly from the Ultramontane Weltanschaung, perceiving her on moral and social grounds as a threat to the national edifice. (253)
The book also includes, in a pseudo-diary format, a detailed account of each tour which includes information on marketing strategies, personal anecdotes, newspaper reports and reviews and detailed descriptions of the theatres in which she played. These details, though evidently thoroughly researched, are far less interesting than the cultural study. However, true Bernhardt fans will appreciate the careful attention to detail. The book, however, holds little information on Bernhardt's acting style or the subtleties of her performances.
The epilogue, subtitled "The Bernhardt Legacy," describes those individuals and theatres in Quebec that she has influenced. This chapter oversells Bernhardt's contribution to Quebec theatre, seemingly attributing everything from the rise in French language theatre to Michel Tremblay's landmark plays to Bernhardt's visits to Canada. However, two valuable chronicles appear here: a detailed history of plays in which Sarah Bernhardt appears as a character and a listing of conferences that were concerned with the study of her life and works. The appendices include much correspondence between Bernhardt, Laurier and Fréchette as well as Fréchette's poetry.
The book serves as a clear historical chronicle on a very specific topic. As such, it holds limited appeal. However, for sincere Bernhardt fans and other historians, the book will prove to be a valuable source of information and an interesting read.
Hathorn's book is included in the series entitled Currents in Comparative Romance Language and Literatures. It includes an extensive list of supplemental materials including illustrations (6), Appendices (11), detailed notes, as well as a Bernhardt chronology and a listing of Bernhardt's Canadian Dates in Repertory. The bibliography, also extensive, is divided into four parts: Archival Materials, Newspapers, Articles and Books by/about Bernhardt, and Articles and Books on Canadian Theatre/Other Topics.