World War II

World War II is recalled through two accounts of refuge in Quebec: Zita, the last empress of Austria, lived there during and after the war, and Poland’s national treasures were sheltered in Canada before being moved to Quebec. Told by Loïc to the Albignacs, these histories present the province not just as a distant setting for global events but as a place where exile, religious allegiance, and political autonomy shaped the fate of people and cultural objects.

Zita in exile

Loïc tells the Countess that Zita found refuge in Quebec during the war. From 1942 until the end of the decade, a religious community provided her with a rustic house in the suburbs of Quebec City. She lived there with some of her children, who attended Laval University, in circumstances Loïc describes as close to poverty. He also emphasizes her Bourbon-Parma lineage and its connection to the kings of France, placing an exiled European imperial family within Quebec’s wartime history.

The account extends beyond the war’s end: Zita’s residence continued through the end of the 1940s. Her story is therefore one of prolonged displacement rather than a brief wartime visit. The Countess receives it with interest, as Loïc turns from the fate of European royalty to another, less familiar history of refuge in the province.

The Polish treasures in Quebec

The Polish government in exile in London sent its country’s treasures to Canada for safekeeping in 1940. They remained in Ottawa for an extended period, but after the Canadian government recognized the pro-Soviet regime in Warsaw, their custodians judged Ottawa less secure. The collection was secretly transferred to Quebec, first to the crypt of the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré and then to the vaults of Hôtel-Dieu de Québec.

In 1948, when the hospital’s Mother Superior was pressed to return the treasures, she appealed to Maurice Duplessis. A fervent Catholic, Duplessis arranged for the crates to be moved under guard to the provincial museum. They contained tapestries, medieval armor, and manuscripts by Chopin. Meanwhile, petitions, demonstrations, and protests in Poland called for the return of the Wawel Castle treasures. In Quebec, their protection acquired a religious and national meaning: Loïc recounts that they became nearly a symbol of resistance to communism, and of provincial autonomy in the face of Ottawa’s inability to compel their return.

The custody was not permanent. The treasures were returned to Poland in 1962 under the Lesage government. Their route—from Canada to Quebec and eventually back to Poland—makes the story one of contested safekeeping, in which political loyalties and religious identity affected where cultural heritage could be held.

The postwar years in Touladi

The novel also places the wartime recollections against the later political conflicts of Touladi, without presenting those conflicts as consequences of the war. In a subsequent provincial election campaign, Maurice Duplessis cast himself as a defender of Quebec against Ottawa. Roland Bolduc and his allies campaigned for the Blues, while Clovis Lacroix, whose mother was a D’Anjou, organized young supporters of the Reds. Threatened with the loss of his teaching post for political activity, Clovis resigned rather than abandon the campaign.

On election day, the young Red militants barricaded themselves inside Roland’s garage. Their aim was to stop the Blues from getting voters drunk to influence their votes; they planned to vote only at the end of the day, after that tactic could no longer affect them. The confrontation had lasting consequences for Clovis. Arrested the following day on an attempted-murder charge, he spent several months in the penitentiary at Rimouski. He missed the 1952 school opening, and despite efforts to keep a criminal record from following him, the doors to a teaching career remained closed. These events belong to the postwar political chronology, distinct from the wartime refuge stories Loïc recounts.

History as conversation

Loïc’s account of Zita and the Polish treasures is delivered in conversation with the Albignacs. The Countess responds with surprise and praises his historical knowledge, even suggesting that he should appear on television like Professor Guillemin. This framing makes the past part of a social exchange: Loïc does not simply recount familiar military history but brings forward less widely known episodes in which Quebec became a place of shelter and a site of political dispute.