Les communards et le spectre de la Commune au Québec dans les années 1870

Abstract

This research note challenges the idea that Quebec was a land of exile for thousands of Communards after the repression of the Paris Commune, a thesis defended by Mathieu Houle-Courcelles in a study devoted to the history of anarchism in Quebec. Indeed, there is no documentary evidence to confirm the existence of such a migratory movement, which alone would explain the increase in French immigration to Canada in the early 1870s. However, if the absence of a community of outcasts is not in doubt, the spectre of the Commune is present in Quebec society as early as 1871.