text:
Maurice Duplessis

Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis, (April 20, 1890 – September 7, 1959), byname "Le Chef" ("The Boss"), was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 16th premier of Quebec. A conservative, nationalist, populist, anti-communist, anti-unionist and fervent Catholic, Duplessis and his party, the Union Nationale, dominated provincial politics from the 1930s to the 1950s. With a total of 18 years and 82 days in office, he remains the longest-serving premier in Quebec history.

Son of Nérée Duplessis, a lawyer who served as a Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Maurice studied law in Montreal and became a member of the Bar of Quebec in 1913. He then returned to his home town of Trois-Rivières, where he founded a successful legal consultancy. Duplessis narrowly lost his first campaign for the Trois-Rivières seat in the 1923 election, but managed to get elected in 1927 as a Conservative MLA. His rhetorical skills helped him become the leader of the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly in 1933 in the place of Camillien Houde. As opposition leader, he agreed to a coalition with Paul Gouin's Action libérale nationale (ALN), which they called the Union Nationale. It lost in 1935 but gained a majority the following year as Gouin retired from politics and Duplessis took over the leadership, thus breaking almost 40 years of uninterrupted rule by the Quebec Liberal Party. In addition to his premiership duties, Duplessis served as attorney general and briefly held other ministerial posts as well.

The first three years in government were difficult for Duplessis as the government struggled to respond to the ongoing hardships of the Great Depression. That term saw the introduction of several key welfare policies (such as the universal minimum wage and old-age pensions), but the effort to strengthen his rule by calling a snap election in 1939 failed as his campaigning on the issue of World War II backfired and his government left the economy in a poor state. However, the Conscription Crisis of 1944 propelled him back to power in that year's election. Duplessis then served as premier until his death. As was the general trend of the time, he presided over a period of robust economic growth due to the rising demand in resources, which the province used to develop Côte-Nord and rural areas. Duplessis was a strong proponent of economic liberalism and implemented pro-business policies by keeping taxes low, refraining from regulation and adopting pro-employer labour policies, in particular by cracking down on trade unions. "Le Chef" usually met the federal government's initiatives with strong resistance due to his convictions on provincial autonomy. In the social domain, Duplessis maintained and protected the traditional role of the Catholic Church in Quebec's society, notably in healthcare and education. He was ruthless to the perceived enemies of the Church or of the Catholic nature of the province, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, whom he harassed using his government's apparatus. Communists were persecuted under the Padlock Law, which Duplessis authored in 1937.

Duplessis's legacy remains controversial more than 60 years after his death. Compared to the Anglophones, the French Canadians remained worse off in the province where they constituted a majority just as his government was courting Anglophone and out-of-province businessmen to invest. This clientelist relationship with the business spheres often morphed into outright corruption. "Le Chef"'s authoritarian inclinations, his all-powerful electoral machine, staunch conservatism, a cozy relationship with the Catholic Church, the mistreatment of Duplessis Orphans and the apparent backwardness of his model of development were also subject of criticism. Thus his critics labelled the period the Grande Noirceur (Great Darkness), which stuck in Quebec's society in a large degree thanks to the efforts of those who led the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s. This was also the initial general opinion of historians and intellectuals, but since the 1990s, academics have revisited Duplessism and concluded instead that this assessment required nuancing and placement in the contemporary perspective and, in some cases, advocated outright rejection of that label.

Family
Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis was born on April 20, 1890, in Trois-Rivières to a religious family that was quite wealthy. He was the second child and only son of Nérée Le Noblet Duplessis, a Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec (MLA) for Saint-Maurice. Maurice's father, who came from a family of peasants residing in nearby Yamachiche, was a kind but busy man and spent little time with the family, which was typical at the time. Two of Nérée's sisters married politicians who would also sit in the Legislative Assembly. Maurice's mother was Berthe Genest, who had Scottish and Irish origins on her maternal side. The family of the future premier was well-disposed to Anglophones; Duplessis would even joke that he was "one of them".

At the end of the 19th century, the Duplessis family of Trois-Rivières was active in the political and religious life of the region, and the members of the family could often be found among conservative and ultramontanist sympathizers, with whom they would often debate current political events. Some of the influential figures of the time, including Louis-Olivier Taillon, Edmund James Flynn, Joseph-Mathias Tellier, Louis-Philippe Pelletier and Thomas Chapais, could be found there. Moreover, Maurice's father, a deeply pious person, maintained close relations with Louis-François Richer Laflèche, the bishop of the Diocese of Trois-Rivières, where he worked as legal counsel. The bishop supported his electoral bid for the Saint-Maurice seat in 1886, which Nérée won. Maurice was born during his father's reelection campaign, who chose to name his son for the electoral district he was the MLA for. The newborn boy was then baptized by Laflèche himself.

Studies
In 1898, Duplessis left his home city to study at the Collège Notre-Dame in Montreal, which was run by the Congregation of Holy Cross. There he met André Bessette (better known as Brother André), then porter of the college. He came to like young Duplessis and handed him over the task of finding students whom the rector wished to see. The relationship was so close that it was then that Duplessis developed the cult of Saint Joseph, which he carried for the rest of his life and which sometimes would influence his political choices. The future premier was a bright student, excelling in French, history, Latin and philosophy; at the same time, he was known to be playful and sometimes mischievous (a "scamp", as Conrad Black suggests), which would often lead Duplessis into trouble.

In 1902, Duplessis moved to the Séminaire de Trois-Rivières in order to pursue his study in a classical college. Maurice continued to excel in other subjects, including history, theology, Latin and Greek, which helped him become the best student in his year. In particular, he sharpened his rhetorical skills while attending the debate club at the college's Saint Thomas Aquinas Society. Maurice would, as Conrad Black wrote, "enjoy, almost wallow in, extravagant but thin treatises on the founders of French Canada", where he would show his attachment to and admiration of his roots, the rural lifestyle and the Catholic faith. He was especially fond of Louis Hébert, one of the first colonizers of the New France and a pioneer of farming in the area.

Duplessis's interest for politics appeared at a very young age. As early as at the age of ten, Maurice expressed strong interest in the electoral statistics of Quebec, and later in his adolescence, he was already engaging in political meetings and was speaking with the voters. The future premier was preparing for public life by working for a political organization of Joseph-Arthur Barrette, a Conservative serving as member of Parliament for Berthier. Duplessis understood from that experience that he preferred the practical aspects of politics rather than the theory.

When finishing school, Maurice Duplessis was thinking of either further engaging in public life or becoming a priest in the Catholic Church. Even though the clerical career was typical of the young people like Duplessis and it would give him influence, Maurice ultimately rejected the priesthood as he thought that this job bore too many constraints. He would later confide to his secretary that "sacerdocy [was] too much for me." He was not interested in becoming a businessman, either, because at that time English Canadians had much better conditions for pursuing that path. Thus, in autumn of 1910, he enrolled in the faculty of law at the Université Laval in Montreal, which is now a separate university called Université de Montréal. Finishing law school was then a standard way to get into politics. In parallel to his studies, he trained in the offices of Rodolphe Monty et Alfred Duranleau, two nationalist conservatives and friends of Duplessis's family, where Maurice was referred to by his father.

While studying, he was noted for his liveliness, sharp responses and socializing. Duplessis, sitting in the opposition, was a local star within the model parliament organized by the university. Outside his field of studies and political engagement, he followed professional baseball standings and occasionally went to opera, but that was where his hobbies ended.

Law practice
After three years of studies, Duplessis was admitted to the Bar of Quebec in September 1913. Maurice returned to his home town to practice law at the, whose member he would stay until his death. He first worked together with his father, but this was cut short as on June 15, 1914, Nérée was nominated as judge of the Superior Court of Quebec. The future Premier then opened his own consultancy, Duplessis, Langlois & Lamothe, Avocats et Procureurs, on Hart Street, behind his parents' house. Langlois was an old friend of his from the Séminaire who became husband of Duplessis's sister, Gabrielle. Together with another lawyer from Trois-Rivières, Léon Lamothe, they formed a partnership which lasted well into the 1930s. Duplessis did not serve in the Canadian Armed Forces during World War I as he was exempt from conscription.

Practising civil law more than criminal law, Duplessis developed a large client base among the ordinary people, who were attracted due to his arguments in court that often proved persuasive. He was quickly recognized as a sociable and competent lawyer who approached his cases carefully, and thus became a popular figure in the town. The young lawyer engaged in various activities of his area, notably directing of a local baseball team, and became a fixture in high-end taverns of his town. His professional success, briefly interrupted by the death of his mother in 1921, let him buy a personal Winton on a loan (to great dismay of his father). Duplessis suspended his law career in early 1934 amid mounting duties in the Legislative Assembly, though he would still be mentioned as a member of the bar.

First electoral successes
Despite a promising start to his legal career, Duplessis did not lose sight from his political ambitions. He made his first attempt to get to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec in 1923 as a Conservative, seeking to oust the incumbent Liberal MLA, Louis-Philippe Mercier, from his Trois-Rivières seat. The campaign was a heated one. Mercier benefited from a well-organized political structure in the area directed by his mentor, Jacques Bureau, who at the time served as a member of Parliament for Three Rivers and St. Maurice and the federal minister of customs and excise. Maurice counted on the solidarity of his fellow lawyers, the good reputation among his clients as well as his father's acquaintances' support (notably Louis-Olivier Taillon). Some of them made speeches in Duplessis's favour. His campaign focused on the criticism of what Duplessis alleged was Premier Louis-Alexandre Taschereau's contempt towards provincial autonomy and municipal rights as well as of the mismanagement of the judiciary. Despite a rather close race, Maurice lost to the incumbent, 1,328 to 1,612 votes. Duplessis at the time did not expect to win the riding anyway, but hoped that his good initial showing would make him a viable candidate as the opposition leader in the region.

Four years later, Duplessis attempted a second run to the Legislative Assembly, campaigning among working- and middle-class families by paying personal visits to them. His resolve to get to the provincial parliament increased even further after his father died in 1926. At election time, Duplessis flipped the seat for the first time in 27 years, winning 2,622 to Mercier's 2,496 votes. This happened even as the Conservatives only captured 9 out of 85 seats. In his victory speech, Duplessis reportedly declared that "[here] stands before you a future Premier of Quebec".

At the time when Duplessis was elected, the Legislative Assembly was only in session for two months in a year, which allowed Duplessis to spend more time in his electoral district. Duplessis became immediately active on the parliament floor once the parliament convened on January 10, 1928. In his maiden speech on January 19, the Legislative Assembly freshman decried the overemphasis on industrial development, as opposed to rural and small-business interests and called to stop increasing taxes and to respect the religious nature of Sundays. He also proposed to make an inventory of the forest industry (it was suspected at the time that the resources were being overexploited) and to reorganize the provincial police. The first speech left Premier Taschereau impressed, who allegedly remarked that "this young man [...] [would] go far". Duplessis's rhetorical skills and the knowledge of the law on the books made him a rising star in the opposition. When Arthur Sauvé left the leadership of the Conservatives, it was suggested that Duplessis could take the steers of the battered party, but Duplessis refused as he was not ready yet. Camillien Houde, Mayor of Montreal, was nominated instead, but he often had to leave the parliament sessions because of his other demanding job. Therefore, Duplessis, whom the Conservative caucus already saw as a safe alternative to Houde should the leader's policies fail, was able to informally lead the caucus in Houde's absence.

Arthur Sauvé, in his resignation speech, asked his successor "to reestablish order in our ravaged ranks". Even though the new leader liked Duplessis, the future premier did not trust Houde's organizational capabilities, finding him "a verbose, blustering [and] impetuous man". He also said to his party colleague, Antonio Barrette, who would briefly serve as Premier in 1960: "You're going to see Houde get to the top of the mountain and then be over the hill". Conrad Black characterized his relationship with Houde, together with his political views, in the following way: "Maurice Duplessis was in many ways fundamentally conservative; he mistrusted the flamboyant and doubted the improbable. Family counted with him. So did a man's sense of process. Camillien Houde he considered an unmethodical multiple-bankrupt without background of family or profession, untried at everything except tubthumping; an extraordinary personality and an original character, but impulsive, self-indulgent, and superficial. He did not think that this endomorphic gadfly would prove a match for the crafty, magisterial, and thorough M. Taschereau." Later events seemed to confirm Duplessis's intuition. In the 1931 election, the Conservatives were again resoundingly defeated, winning only 11 seats out of 90 despite the fact that the Conservatives got a markedly larger share of votes provincially. Houde lost his own riding; Duplessis got reelected with a razor-thin margin of 41 votes (3,812 votes versus 3,771 for Liberal Louis-Philippe Bigué). Upon learning the results, Taschereau declared that "this outcome [meant] the end of Houdism".

Leader of the Official Opposition
The 1931 election saw the Conservatives' internal strife, already present in Sauvé years, intensify. The party members could not even agree to a common strategy of dealing with the results of the election. Houde wanted to challenge 63 electoral results in the province, but Duplessis was against this idea because of his thin margin. The plan was frustrated by the government because a change in electoral law made the recounts too expensive. The Conservatives increasingly grew fed up with Houde's performance, and since he was no longer an MLA, lost his Montreal mayorship election in April 1932 and had trouble maintaining his newspaper, he had little real power in the caucus. Therefore, when in an effort to appease the Anglophone community, Houde unexpectedly designated an ageing Charles Ernest Gault, his ally and long-time MLA from Montréal–Saint-Georges, as the new leader of the parliamentary caucus, the party overrode the decision. Thus, on November 7, Duplessis became leader of the opposition. This choice was formally confirmed during a party congress in Sherbrooke on October 4–5, 1933, when Duplessis got 332 votes of the delegates (including from 7 out of 10 MLAs and all but one federal minister from Quebec) to 214 cast for a more moderate Onésime Gagnon, an MLA from Dorchester. During the convention, Duplessis gained most support from young members advocating for provincial autonomy; federal and Anglophone Conservatives as well as supporters for Houde tended to vote for his opponent. The choice was well-received by the high clergy and Henry George Carroll, the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, but Houde was bitter at his ouster and would only reconcile with him after World War II.

The governing Liberals also had problems of their own. Quebec was in the midst of the Great Depression, which left Canada's economy declining. The Liberal Party, which had been in power for more than 35 years, was suffering from internal tensions, too, but also from the laissez-faire economic policies that proved inadequate for the crisis. Conrad Black additionally attributed the party's woes to its inflexibility and population's weariness of the government that had been in power for too long (by the 1935 election, Taschereau had been ruling the province for 15 years). Duplessis repeatedly questioned the government on its failure to make a turnaround. He pointed to the overcapitalization of companies and to the general chaos in the province's industry and resource exploitation. Duplessis further alleged unjust treatment of municipalities, lack of respect for traditions and unnecessary confrontations with the federal government. The leader of the opposition also decried the government's policy of prioritizing big business interests instead of developing rural areas. Some of the Liberal MLAs eventually became disillusioned with Taschereau and created a new party, the Action libérale nationale (ALN).

Coalition with the Action libérale nationale
The new party, which in particular despised the big business's interests in the province, consisted of nationalist and progressive MLAs led by Paul Gouin and included some other figures, such as Philippe Hamel, Joseph-Ernest Grégoire and Oscar Drouin. The members of the new political force drew heavily from the Programme de restauration sociale, a social policy document drafted by the Catholic clergy in 1933. It advocated corporatism as an alternative for capitalism and communism and sought to improve the position of French Canadians in the province by expanding the social welfare net, breaking (and, if needed, nationalizing) business trusts and revitalizing rural areas. In particular, the party was critical of the energy trusts and advocated for bringing the hydroelectricity companies under state control.

Initially, Maurice Duplessis was skeptical of the third political force, saying that "two [parties] are enough: one good and one bad". He was then preparing for the upcoming 1935 election, starting a tour across the province more than a year before the voters were to go to the ballots. To a large extent, Duplessis's arguments during the campaign mirrored those of the ALN even if Duplessis tried to assure that the Conservatives were less extreme and that "honest" capital would remain untouched in the province. Still, Duplessis remained distrustful of the ALN members, seeing them as unreliable men who would join the Liberals after the election and ruin his dream of heading the government himself. For that reason, he resisted all efforts to sign a coalition agreement with them, but was forced to yield on November 7, 1935. Several factors played a role. In October, the Liberals had an impressive showing in that year's federal election, and Taschereau called a snap provincial election in November to capitalize on this victory. Vote splitting issues in the first-past-the-post system also contributed to the overwhelming support for a coalition among party members and donors. Under the agreement, the Conservatives ran on the ALN's platform, joined a coalition called the Union Nationale and ceded two-thirds of ridings to the breakaway Liberals. The coalition narrowly failed to displace the Liberals from power, gaining 42 out of 90 seats (of which 16 were Conservative), but it managed to severely reduce the governing majority. Duplessis got safely reelected with a margin of 14 percentage points (1,202 votes).

Ascendancy of the Union Nationale

Maurice Duplessis continued his offensive in spring 1936, when he succeeded in having the parliamentary public accounts committee start an inquiry into the management of public funds by the Taschereau government. Numerous irregularities were uncovered as various Liberal government officials acknowledged having used the public money inappropriately. For example, Antoine Taschereau, premier's brother and accountant of the Quebec Legislature, was forced to resign when he admitted having pocketed interest from the government's bank deposits. The fact that the newspapers reported on all the smallest details of the inquiry made the committee job a political goldmine for Duplessis. Taschereau resigned amid the corruption scandals on June 11, 1936, and handed over the premiership to Adélard Godbout, who was forced to call an election on August 17.

The political situation during that year changed dramatically. Even though Duplessis entered the election as a junior coalition partner, his charisma, rhetorical skills and grilling of the Liberal officials has earned him support from most of ALN deputies, which could not be said of Gouin. On the organizational level, the Conservatives succeeded in capturing the Union Nationale brand for them. Moreover, the corruption inquiry severely weakened the governing party, which gave Duplessis a chance to single-handedly win the premiership. Therefore, on June 17, Duplessis announced his refusal to renew the coalition agreement even though the election writs had already been issued. Despite Gouin trying to campaign independently of Duplessis, 35 out of 42 Union Nationale coalition MLAs at a caucus meeting in Sherbrooke backed Duplessis's takeover of the coalition, and most of ALN's members joined the newly created Union Nationale party. Eventually, Gouin announced his "temporary" retirement from politics, which confirmed Duplessis's leadership. When the voters came to the polls, they delivered a landslide victory for the Union Nationale, handing it 76 out of 90 seats and ending the Liberal rule over Quebec that lasted for 39 years.

First term (1936–1939)
Duplessis immediately embarked on fulfilling some of the electoral promises. Among the programs that are credited with the longevity of the Union Nationale is the creation of the Farm Credit Bureau, which sent low-interest loans to rural areas and which proved popular with what would be the electoral base of his party. However, Duplessis emphatically refused to nationalize the producers of electricity and largely continued the economical policies of his predecessor. This provoked an exodus of former ALN members but it did not threaten Duplessis's majority.

Duplessis first rose to the highest office in the province in a difficult time, as the Great Depression ravaged through the province, leaving hundreds of thousands of people unemployed. Increased expenditures on social programs and lack of growth in the 1930s caused a severe budgetary crisis, as debt nearly doubled within his three years in office. The federal government started intervening in the province's finances to stabilize them, but Duplessis resisted these attempts as he thought they violated the principle of the provincial autonomy.

The Quebec government started handing out old-age pensions and approved workplace accident protections in its first year in office. Public works projects, such as the completion of the Montreal Botanical Garden, were also initiated. It was during this term that the legislation first recognized the right to a minimum salary for everyone (the "fair wage" standard, as it was known back then, previously applied to women only), but this law saw several problems in its implementation due to lack of uniformity and reluctance of trade unions to embrace it. In line with the Church's teaching, Duplessis launched a program of assistance to needy mothers (but not unwed, divorced or separated women), as well as to the blind and the orphaned. This cabinet saw the first Ministry of Health in Quebec, and it also financed the new, a research facility similar to Paris's Pasteur Institute.

The themes that unite both the pre-war and the post-war administration were anti-unionism and anti-communism. Duplessis introduced and had the Legislative Assembly pass the so-called Padlock Law. It granted Duplessis, in his capacity as Attorney General, the right to prosecute those arranging for, distributing or promoting communist materials and propaganda and lock down their properties. Due to the law's vagueness, it often was arbitrarily used against anyone considered an enemy of the administration, such as trade unions. Another law granted Duplessis's government the right to unilaterally amend any contract between the trade union and the employer, and yet another regulation banned closed shops and union shops.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland in what is commonly recognized as the beginning of World War II. Duplessis decided to seize that opportunity and announced a snap election to cement his grip on power by rallying the population around the fears of conscription (which French Canadians overwhelmingly opposed in World War I). However, his gamble failed as the Liberals, whom he accused of wanting to send French Canadians to the frontline, declared their opposition to the plan. As the Union Nationale was also seen as unable to implement a coherent set of policies and it disappointed voters with the lack of reforms, the party's representation shrank to 15 out of 86 seats.

Return to the Official Opposition
The defeat of the Union Nationale meant that Duplessis's leadership was in danger. Some of his fellow MLAs were mad at his starting the election in an unfortunate moment, and the party was at the brink of implosion. Joseph-Damase Bégin called to convene a caucus meeting to consider changing the leader, with Onésime Gagnon and Hormisdas Langlais as possible contenders, but Duplessis successfully quashed the effort. Another challenge to his leadership came in 1942, when Duplessis was criticised for his alcoholic tendencies, as he would sometimes participate in parliamentary debates while completely drunk. That challenge was rebuffed as well as after his surgery on strangulated hernia in 1942, the leader of opposition decided to quit drinking altogether on his doctor's advice.

The Liberals introduced some progressive policies during their five years in power. In 1940, the Godbout administration granted women suffrage in provincial elections, which they already had on the federal level since 1917. Duplessis had previously considered the issue several times, but, unlike some of his colleagues, largely avoided discussing it and generally either abstained on the legislation or opposed it by voting "nay" or by trying to block the bill in committee. The 1940 vote was no different. Duplessis and most of his caucus voted "nay" as the leader of the Union Nationale aired concerns about an increase in government expenditures and electoral fraud that he connected to women's suffrage. He also accused Godbout of hypocrisy, as the Liberal leader previously opposed similar bills seven times.

Another landmark policy of the Liberals, the introduction of compulsory schooling from age six to fourteen in 1943, was prompted by a report noting high dropout rates after four years of formal schooling. As with the women's suffrage, the Union Nationale opposed the bill (only Camille Pouliot voted with the Liberals) and later on would not enforce its provisions during Duplessis's fifteen years in power. Finally, in 1944, Godbout created Hydro-Québec from the nationalization of Montreal Light, Heat & Power and its subsidiary Beauharnois Power, but Duplessis again opposed the initiative, saying that its timing just before the 1944 election suggested that it was a political campaign trick. He further disagreed with the details of its implementation – in his opinion, the takeover should have been made by Montreal rather than the provincial government. He also did not want to allocate taxpayer money to the nationalization and believed that negotiating prices between the government and the electricity companies was a better way to decrease them than assuming state ownership.

1944 election
Just as with the 1935 elections, a third political force wanted to enter Quebec politics: the anti-conscriptionist Bloc populaire. It was a brainchild of such figures as Lionel Groulx and, the editor-in-chief of Le Devoir, and centered around André Laurendeau and Maxime Raymond, who were instrumental in what was effectively the defeat of the 1942 conscription plebiscite. A nationalist formation, it supported the nationalization of hydroelectricity and argued for more autonomy for Quebec; at the same time it drew inspirations from Catholic social teaching, corporatism and syndicalism. The party thus sought to compete for nationalist and anti-war votes with the Union Nationale, but at the same time advertising itself as a reform party to get Liberal votes.

Duplessis based his campaign on portraying the religious minorities, the federal government and the trade unions as threatening the province's interests, autonomy, traditions and identity. He also attacked Godbout's reforms as threatening the Church and the Catholic faith (Cardinal Villeneuve indeed disapproved of the legislation). During the campaign, Duplessis floated a false anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that asserted that the federal government, ruled by the Liberals, and the Quebec Liberals struck a secret deal with the so-called "International Zionist Brotherhood" to settle 100,000 Holocaust refugees in Quebec in exchange for campaign contributions. While Max Beer argues that this story did not influence the election result very much, the public and the press was enthusiastic about a leader who would not let any refugees arrive in la belle province. The business community, in its turn, was assured by his pledge to pursue development driven by private investments and opposition to state takeovers of companies. In the 1944 election, the Union Nationale received just over 38% of votes – the smallest share of votes in any election during his leadership – and finished behind the Liberals in the popular vote count. Still, Duplessis was able to form the government as vote splitting between the Bloc populaire and Godbout's party let the Union Nationale win 48 out of 91 seats.

Second to fifth terms (1944-1959)
Even though the majority of the Union Nationale seemed tenuous to his Liberal opponents, it eventually led to 15 years of uninterrupted rule over the province. This was common in post-war Canada as the incumbent governments were able to take credit for the strong economic performance and were often reelected on this basis. Several other factors specific to Quebec also helped in the longevity of his rule. The first was his personal charisma, which was so strong that the figure of Duplessis mattered much more than the party he represented. Another reason was his media-savvy team of talented campaign managers led by Joseph-Damase Bégin, his minister of colonization. The fact that the party secured a steady source of income from kickbacks from business entities helped implement the lavish campaign styles that the managers proposed. Threats to withdraw funds if the riding did not support the Union Nationale's candidate, malapportionment in favour of rural areas, which were the party's stronghold, and support from the high clergy further cemented the long reign of Duplessis.

The reign itself had some authoritarian tendencies. Even though the Legislative Assembly deliberated with all the usual organs, Duplessis was the de facto rulemaker in parliament. "Le Chef" enforced party discipline very strictly and, with very few exceptions, decision autonomy in the cabinet or in the Legislative Assembly was nonexistent. Duplessis, in his capacity as Attorney General, enforced censorship of creations deemed immoral, whether by statutory authorization or simply at his will. Media outlets suspected of sympathizing with the communists would be closed down and the property confiscated by virtue of the Padlock Act. As for newspapers, they would be ordered not to report on the Union Nationale's wrongdoings for fear of retribution from Duplessis. In order to appeal to the Catholic majority, Duplessis also engaged in a fight against Jehovah's Witnesses, whom he equated to Communists and the Nazis, though he ultimately lost court cases connected to them in the Supreme Court of Canada, notably Roncarelli v Duplessis.

Duplessis's rule was socially conservative. The regime generally enjoyed strong support from the high echelons of the Catholic Church, though lower-tier priests did not necessarily endorse him. The Church played an outsized influence in the lives of Quebeckers since it provided most healthcare and education services, something that would only change after 1960. A very able speaker who resorted to populism when necessary, he emphasized the importance of the preservation of what he believed were French Canadian values: the Catholic faith, the local traditions and the French language. In order to preserve them, he argued, Quebec had to defend its provincial autonomy from the encroachment of the federal government. It was usually done by means of refusing to participate in federal-provincial programs, which at that time mostly consisted of new welfare policies, but also through asserting its power to taxation, which Duplessis successfully did in 1955.

The post-war economic expansion defined the economic development of Quebec under Duplessis. Full employment stayed in the province for over a decade and average wages rose slightly faster than in the rest of Canada. GDP growth was fairly strong and was in a large degree as a result of a large stream of investment and general improvements in efficiency. The way Duplessis solicited the investments was consistent with economic liberalism. Quebec refused state intervention in resource extraction itself and thus relied heavily on out-of-province (English Canadian or American) capital to develop its rich natural resources. Duplessis attracted the money by using a combination of low taxes, low regulation and pro-employer labour policies. Trade unions in particular were a target of Duplessis's interventions. Duplessis had a consistent position of disincentivizing collective bargaining by passing unfavourable regulations for organized labour, which at the time was unique in Canada. When strike action did occur, the police were immediately deployed to break it (as was the case in Asbestos in 1949).

Quebec's management of the budget was fiscally conservative. The budget was balanced and provincial debt was decreasing. Even though the size of the budget increased substantially, "Le Chef" derided most attempts at welfare state in Quebec as "Anglo-Saxon and Protestant socialism"; instead, he called for charity to fill in the gaps. Ironically, by the end of Duplessis's rule, it was the federal government which footed most of the welfare bill in Quebec. The main investments of the era were the construction of hospitals and schools across the province, the increase of electricity supply via Hydro-Québec and development in rural areas (particularly through the Rural Electrification Office). Despite these investments, rural areas remained much poorer and less developed than urban areas, so Duplessis oversaw an exodus of rural population towards Montreal. Additionally, the situation of majority French Canadians still remained worse than that of the Anglophone minority. The reason was that the Anglophones dominated the business world of Montreal, the financial centre of Canada at the time, took most of the top jobs available and had substantial autonomy within the province.

Death, funeral and the end of the dominance of the Union Nationale
Duplessis suffered from numerous health problems throughout his life. He underwent two surgeries for a strangulated hernia in 1930 and 1942, which each ended in several-month-long stays in the hospital due to complications or other diseases slowing down his recovery. Duplessis was also hospitalized for a shorter period in 1929 for injuries he had sustained in a car accident. Duplessis had also been a heavy drinker, but on the advice of his doctor, pressure from his party and Adélard Godbout's suggestion that this "weakness was going to ruin [Duplessis]", became a teetotaller after his second surgery. Also in 1942, doctors diagnosed Duplessis with diabetes, which particularly caused trouble in the last years of his life. By the end of 1958, in the middle of his fourth term, Duplessis's health started to deteriorate significantly and he struggled to keep on with the prior habits of his premiership. Doctors warned him that he was overstretching himself and needed some rest, but "Le Chef" went on with his duties. Sometime before September 2, 1959, Duplessis accepted an invitation from Quebec Iron, a subsidiary of the Iron Ore Company of Canada, to travel to Schefferville to see its mines. The flight to Sept-Îles and then the mining town was uneventful, but at about lunch time on September 3, while staying in the company's guesthouse, Duplessis suffered a bleeding stroke, which paralyzed his right leg and arm and sent him into a barely conscious state; three more strokes occurred by September 4. After balancing on the verge of life for two more days, Duplessis died on September 7 at 12:01 AM EDT.

The body was placed in a coffin covered by the flag of Quebec, which he had introduced by an Order in Council in 1948. The coffin arrived to Quebec City by plane at 6:10 am. Duplessis's body was then embalmed and laid in state in the building of the Legislative Assembly. About 100,000 people arrived to pay homage for the late premier until September 10, when the body was transported to his hometown of Trois-Rivières. The funeral service in the Assumption Cathedral of that city, officiated by Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger, Archbishop of Montreal, and Archbishop Maurice Roy of Quebec, was attended by eleven members of the federal cabinet, including Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, all of the provincial cabinet and the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, three fellow premiers, nine bishops and archbishops and other high officials. Another 50,000 people paid respects to Duplessis in his hometown, after which he was buried alongside his parents.

On the evening of September 10, 1959, the caucus of the Union Nationale proposed to the Lieutenant Governor that Paul Sauvé be sworn in as premier, which he was on the morning of the following day. The time of his rule is widely known as that of "désormais" (from now on) and seen as a break from his predecessor. That said, despite the several reforms that have been implemented in the short "100 days", as the period is also known, Sauvé stressed his loyalty to the legacy of Duplessis and portrayed his rule as the continuation of what Duplessis was doing. Antonio Barrette, who succeeded Sauvé after the latter's death in January 1960, also continued the same policies. However, the frequent changes of power threw the Union Nationale into disarray just before the planned election in June, which Jean Lesage's Liberals won. This defeat of the Union Nationale started the Quiet Revolution.

Private life
Duplessis was a lifelong bachelor and had no children. In fact, "Le Chef" would tell people that he had no family and that his only responsibility was the welfare of his province, to which he said he belonged. For most of his political life, Duplessis lived alone in Château Frontenac. Conrad Black suggests that during World War I Duplessis courted Augustine Delisle, a daughter of a prosperous coal trader, but his family disapproved of a connection that would unite them with a family of merchants. This upset him and it was probably then that he decided never to marry anyone. Duplessis still remained close to his sisters as well as their husbands. He also became a godfather to a daughter of Antonio Talbot, the minister of roads in his post-war government.

In his later life, his relationships with other women were quite idiosyncratic. He believed that he had to behave in a strictly aristocratic and gentlemanly manner towards them but his convictions did not prevent him from making risqué comments about women in their presence. In general, Duplessis would more and more feel as if he were part of aristocracy and behave and dress accordingly even though he had no blood relation with it. Conrad Black suggests that hypospadias could also have affected his relationships with women.

Despite a populist image "Le Chef" created in public and rumours that persisted even after his death, his hobbies included opera and literature. He enjoyed historical or political books the most, but he also read classical French or English-language authors, such as Rudyard Kipling, Tennyson and Shakespeare. Later in his life, Duplessis developed a taste for paintings and started collecting them. At his death, his sister Jeanne-L. Balcer-Duplessis inherited the works of art, which she donated to the provincial government in exchange for the cancellation of the inheritance tax. Most of the paintings, including those by Clarence Gagnon, Cornelius Krieghoff, J. M. W. Turner, Auguste Renoir, Charles Jacque, Cornelis Springer and Johan Jongkind, are stored in the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec. On the other hand, his love of sport was not unequivocal. In fact, Duplessis has not practised any in his life, except for croquet. However, he was a fan of the Montreal Canadiens and was also an avid supporter of the New York Yankees.

Historical debate
Duplessis is recognized as one of the most colourful, if controversial, people in Canadian politics. His figure already polarized the political landscape of Quebec during his life, and it continued to do so well after his death. Even today, few politicians dare to emphasize the continuity of their policies with those of Duplessis for fear of being ridiculed as the rule of Duplessis generally has negative connotations in Quebec society. Opinions about him are so strong that being compared to Duplessis may be considered an insult. This was already the case shortly after the Union Nationale's downfall in 1960, when Léon Dion urged the province to reject its heritage and undergo a revolution. The new generation of adults which emerged in the 1980s, who did not have appreciable contact with either Duplessis or the events of the 1960s, associated Duplessis with negative phenomena much more than the positive ones.

Duplessis as the incarnation of the Grande Noirceur
Intellectual circles were not kind to Duplessis, even during his life. Pierre Trudeau would write in Cité Libre that Duplessis did not tax enough on the provincial level and this enabled the federal government's invasion of provincial autonomy and deprived Quebeckers of the needed social services. In Le Devoir, André Laurendeau penned an editorial, La théorie du roi nègre (The Theory of the Negro King). It posited that foreign capital allowed Duplessis to stay in power so that he could officially allow to ruthlessly exploit the province of Quebec. The role of Duplessis was along the lines of the "Negro Kings", the local chieftains whom the British allowed some control over their area but who had to recognize the supremacy of their overlords.

Criticism of "Le Chef" intensified following his death. Shortly before the 1960 elections, Pierre Laporte published the first biography after Duplessis's death, which portrayed him as an intelligent but ruthless politician who would stay in power through corruption and repression of political opponents. Leslie Roberts' book outright called Duplessis a "Latin-American dictator" who would cater to the simplistic desires of French Canadians but failed to lift them from the state of inferiority with respect to the Anglophones. The Quiet Revolution was viewed as an enlightened response to the politics embodied by Duplessis, to the degree that the Duplessis era is associated with the label Grande Noirceur (Great Darkness).

Interpretations behind the label and even the dates of the beginning of this "shameful" period vary, but generally revolve around the criticism of defending a regressive model of society, blocking progress and leaving patronage and corruption entrenched. In defending the label, Jacques Godbout described the period of Duplessis as that of "perverse control of sexuality, contempt for the industry, art, economy and rejection of the scientific thought" and said that in intellectual circles, the Grande Noirceur was also a period of grande silence (great silence) and of grande peur (great fear). Among other supporters of this interpretation were trade unionist Madeleine Parent, who was imprisoned for her advocacy in 1955 and ultimately acquitted of the charge of "seditious conspiracy"; Gérard Pelletier, also a union organizer, who described Duplessis's views as those of a "19th-century rural notary"; and Jacques Hébert. Yves Vaillancourt, who analyzed the period from the perspective of administration of welfare, stated that social justice was in disrepair and that the government of Duplessis was at fault for causing this problem. The Grande Noirceur view is also present in some English-language scholarly books that describe that era.

Challenging the Grande Noirceur label
In the 1970s, despite an overwhelmingly negative coverage of "Le Chef", two biographies cast him in a very positive light. Robert Rumilly, who defended Duplessis's policies throughout his life, including by writing propaganda pieces on the Union Nationale's behalf, penned a biography of Duplessis published in 1973. Conrad Black's biography, published in 1977, just like Rumilly's, received substantial criticism from the historians of the time. However, with time, the 1977 biography became more and more accepted. Today, the books are either considered reliable even if they are biased and have some methodological issues, or, alternatively, flawed but usable, particularly given that no historian wrote a similar biography after them. In short, Rumilly praised his devotion to the Catholic Church and defended his fight against "subversive" organizations, such as trade unions. Black, on the other hand, believed that Duplessis was an able politician who managed to modernize the province even while defending traditional values; the latter then further clarified that in his view, the Québécois owe their prosperity to Duplessis as he used the money saved from underpaying teachers and nurses to make infrastructural investments.

The next wave of change came with the researchers of the 1980s and the 1990s, who challenged the then dominant idea of Duplessism as something awful and to be avoided, which was how historians who personally witnessed the Quiet Revolution often viewed it. The movement did not want to revise history as in rewriting the facts about that period, but rather changing the perspectives on it, giving different interpretations and assigning different weights to the events. This started with the publication of the synthesis of the history of Quebec by Linteau et al. (named Quebec Since 1930 in the English edition). It emphasized that Quebec, in fact, was developing in line with the rest of North America and the West in general; issues specific to Quebec, like the dominant influence of Catholic Church, were not as important as previously assumed or reported. In 1994, Bourque et al. published another book that argued that, contrary to common belief, the Duplessis government was actually liberal in its outlook as it embraced economic progress and modern capitalism and did not oppose liberal democracy, all while pushing back against the welfare state and staying within traditional values of Quebec. This interpretation was challenged by numerous historians, who variously argued that the regime was conservative if not illiberal in its nature. Among those who changed their opinion of the regime in the course of the years was Léon Dion, who wrote in 1993 that the assessment of the period as the Grande Noirceur (as he and like-minded scholars proposed in the 1960s) was unreasonably harsh and his policies on the economy, such as the development of Northern Quebec, were reasonable or at least justifiable. He also argued that the blame for the regime's regressiveness should be also laid on the Catholic Church and on society, which wanted order and security and thus tolerated oppression. Dion also tends to agree on the validity of Duplessis's defence of provincial autonomy, in line with other historians, such as Yves Vaillancourt and Xavier Gélinas.

In today's historiography of Quebec (at least since the 1990s), most scholars express the opinion that the notion of Grande Noirceur was a myth invented by those who embraced or spearheaded the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s. Alexandre Dumas writes that the notion of the Quiet Revolution can only live with the "anti-hero" Duplessis and the association with the Great Darkness. Michel Sarra-Bournet and Gérard Bouchard suggested that the portrayal of Duplessis's era as a Great Darkness unique to Quebec may be unjustified as contemporary governments of Ontario, Manitoba and New Zealand shared many characteristics with Duplessis's rule, such as resistance to the welfare state, anti-communism, corruption scandals and the focus on rural development. A similar opinion was expressed by Jocelyn Létourneau. Yet other historians emphasize in their opinions that the "rupture" between the Quiet Revolution and Duplessis is not present in every aspect of Quebec's life, is generally exaggerated or even artificially created, or else that it should be better thought of as a transitionary period. Some authors go as far as rejecting the label altogether as a "gross caricature", framing this period as that of the "Great Catch-Up", in comparison to the "Quiet Decline" that followed the death of "Le Chef", or even, as in the case with Éric Bedard, merging the periods of Duplessis and that of the Quiet Revolution into a single "Quiet Reconquest".

Attempts at comparison
The ideology of Duplessis and the Union Nationale between 1936 and 1959 was subject to numerous studies, and several comparisons have been proposed. A 1984 paper by George Steven Swan found many similarities between the policies of Duplessis and those of Huey Long, a left-populist American politician from Louisiana, and of Juan Perón of Argentina, in particular as they related to authoritarian practices. Léon Dion, in some similarity to Leslie Roberts, argued that his rule could be compared to that of Latin American dictators, though occasional comparisons to fascism, in his opinion, were wrong. Frédéric Boily dismissed that reasoning as simplistic, because it implied that Duplessis was a populist along the lines of Perón and Brazil's Getúlio Vargas. Instead, he argues that Duplessis was not truly populist but simply made good use of populist rhetoric. Jean-Philippe Warren wrote that his style of governance could be compared to a type of regime called "authoritarian democracy". However, Gilles Bourque opined that the comparison is inaccurate as the rule of Duplessis bears little similarity to the regime of Vladimir Putin in Russia, which would also be an "authoritarian democracy" under Warren's definition. Catherine Frost saw many similarities between Duplessis and Éamon de Valera in comparing the nationalism in Ireland and that of Quebec. Greame Orr and Ron Levy found that Duplessis's and Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen's regimes have so much in common that they suggest that Bjelke-Petersen might have studied Duplessis's politics before implementing his policies in that Australian state. They noted the heavy-handed approach both used for trade unions and communists, their strong anti-federalist rhetoric (even if Duplessis stopped short of advocating separatism) and extensive malapportionment that they conclude was gratuitous. With respect to Duplessis's staunch anti-communism, his policies were also likened to those of US Senator Joseph McCarthy.

In the context of Quebec, some historians compared Mario Dumont, with his Action démocratique du Québec (ADQ), to Duplessis. Among the suggested similarities were the party's program mirroring that of the Union Nationale, ADQ's emphasis on provincial autonomy and the (rather successful) usage of populist rhetoric at times when the electorate was tired of the prior state of politics. Dumont himself said he was flattered by the comparison, though he also suggested that he preferred Jean Lesage references. More recently, the current premier of Quebec, François Legault, has been compared to Duplessis, and his Coalition Avenir Québec party to the Union Nationale. In fact, in 2014, Legault underlined that his party bore resemblance to the Union Nationale, though he assured voters they would not be returning to the grande noirceur. When CAQ won a majority of seats, Legault participated in a heated parliamentary debate defending Duplessis's legacy. In this incident from 2021, the co-leader of the left-wing Québec solidaire party, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, meant to demean the leader of the CAQ by comparing him to Duplessis and accused Legault of excluding those Quebec residents who opposed Bill 21 from the definition of who is Québécois and of assuming the role of "the father of the Quebec nation". The premier retorted that while, in his opinion, Duplessis had many faults, he defended Quebec, unlike the "woke" Nadeau-Dubois.

In culture and collective memory of the Québécois
Immediately after the death of Duplessis, provincial politicians took pains to preserve the memory of "Le Chef". A provincial riding was created in 1960 from parts of Saguenay (now René-Lévesque) electoral district. The following year, Boulevard Champigny, a major thoroughfare in Quebec City, was renamed after Duplessis, and is now alternatively known as Autoroute 540. Boulevard Maurice-Duplessis in the northeastern part of the Island of Montreal was named that way in 1967. The government was also interested in building a monument, but it did not go according to plan. In December 1959, Paul Sauvé passed a law in the Quebec Legislature that envisaged building a monument to Maurice Duplessis and placing it somewhere in the city of Quebec. This was unusual at the time as before 1980, it was the government (via the Ministry of Public Works) that decided on the decorations next to the Parliament Building, and also since Honoré Mercier was the only provincial politician with a statue in front of the Legislative Assembly. By summer 1961, Joseph-Émile Brunet, who had already sculpted a bust of Duplessis, made the monument ready, but the government of Jean Lesage ordered to hide it. When journalists inquired about the statue, the government asserted that this was an effort to avoid political tensions. Therefore, the first statue of Le Chef was unveiled in 1964 in Trois-Rivières by the Société des amis de Maurice L. Duplessis, a private organization dedicated to the preservation of Duplessis's heritage. The Society was then commemorating the fifth anniversary of his death.

Government commemoration of Duplessis lost steam as the Quiet Revolution progressed and the general populace evolved a negative view of the Duplessis's reign. By the time Jean-Jacques Bertrand, also of the Union Nationale, became premier in 1968, even the party's supporters relegated Duplessis to the subconscious. "Le Chef" came again under the spotlight in the 1970s, with numerous books about his rule for academic and general public circulation alike (including the two biographies by Rumilly and Black). A very successful play called by John Thomas McDonough, describing the Asbestos strike, appeared in Quebec City's theatres in 1971. Denys Arcand treated him extensively in his early film career: in 1972, he directed Québec: Duplessis et après for the National Film Board of Canada, and, six years later, he was a screenwriter for the TV series Duplessis, which was released on the screens of Radio-Canada. Both proved quite sympathetic to "Le Chef" and minimized the supposed rupture between Duplessis and the events that happened after his death. In 1974, Parks Canada designated Duplessis as a Person of National Historic Significance. Three years later, and 18 years after the Legislative Assembly decreed so, Premier René Lévesque retrieved Brunet's monument from storage and unveiled it next to the Parliament Building. Lévesque's Parti Québécois held this event to attract Union Nationale supporters. The preparation copies of the monument are stored in the Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec.

In the 1980s, the negative coverage of Duplessis in the arts still continued. Among these works was a collection of feminist articles by Andrée Yanacopoulo, Au nom du père, du fils et de Duplessis, and a TV series called Asbestos. Michel Tremblay's Le gars de Québec (1985), set in 1952, draws inspiration from Gogol's The Government Inspector and has rather critical references to the era. In the words of Pierre Berthelot, a simple mention of his name was enough to create his invisible yet oppressive presence that made characters stuck in their hardships and which treated them to government agents' abuses. Quebec did not become interested in Duplessis's heritage in the 1980s despite the otherwise favourable climate for conservative politicians. The Union Nationale, then under the stewardship of Roch La Salle, distanced itself from the heritage of Maurice Duplessis and lost all seats in the 1981 election. After that, the party maintained a nominal presence in provincial politics before being finally disbanded in 1989. The 1990s proved even worse for his memory as a documentary in 1997, Les Orphelins de Duplessis, made the abuses committed against the Duplessis Orphans known to a wide public and further entrenched the image of Duplessis's era as that of the Great Darkness.

In the 21st century, with the exception of some non-scholarly authors like Martin Lemay, a former Parti Québécois member of the National Assembly, the negative image of the era persisted. The student protests of 2012, often known as "Maple Spring", were a manifestation of that trend. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, then one of the leaders of the protests, suggested that the government's Bill 78, which aimed to suppress protests, was a return to the times of Duplessis. Participants in the demonstrations also painted a graffiti saying, in rough translation: "Come back Duplessis, you've left your pigs!", in protest against the use of riot police. A microbrewery called Dieu du Ciel! of Saint-Jérôme produces a variety of dark beer called Grande Noirceur with suggestive imagery – a caricature appearance of "Le Chef" manipulating the assembled population with strings (as if they were puppets), with church towers behind him.

Honorary titles
Duplessis held some top positions in relation to his law career. On December 30, 1931, he received the title of King's Counsel due to his achievements in the field of law. In addition to that, he was elected President of the Bar of Quebec and President of the Bar of Trois-Rivières for the 1937–1938 term, which, in addition to conferring prestige to the Premier, gave him some influence over the internal order of the bar. Several universities granted him honorary degrees, including Université Laval (three times: apart from a law degree in 1937 and forestry sciences in 1955, a general honorary doctorate was granted in 1952), McGill University (law, 1948), Université de Montréal (law, 1953), Université de Sherbrooke (law, 1956), as well as from Bishop's University and the University of Caen in France.

Maurice Duplessis also received several decorations. In 1948, Argentine President Juan Perón gave Duplessis the highest decoration, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Liberator General San Martín, which provoked a minor diplomatic incident as the government of Canada had advised foreign emissaries not to give any such distinctions to its citizens. Other awards that "Le Chef" received include a golden star of the Ordre national du mérite agricole (1946), a provincial order for people who contributed to the development of agriculture, and the induction in the Commonwealth's Order of Saint John.

In English

In French

 * (vol. 1: 1890–1944, vol. 2: 1944–1959)

Audiovisual materials

 * – the visit of the Royal Family connected with the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway
 * Duplessis, a seven-episode series by Denys Arcand (1978)
 * Two series from the documentary  (1997), in French:
 * Finally, the war (1929–1945)
 * The times of Duplessis (1945–1959)
 *  (1997), a documentary about the origins of Hydro-Québec from Radio-Canada, with first two series covering Duplessis's era, in French
 * Les Orphelins de Duplessis (TV series) (1997), a two-part documentary about the Duplessis Orphans, Radio-Canada, in French
 * Three episodes from the documentary  [30 days that have shaped Quebec], 2000, in French:
 * Maurice Duplessis gets to power – August 17, 1936
 * Maurice Duplessis's revenge – August 8, 1944
 * The beginning of the Asbestos strike – February 13, 1949
 * Les Orphelins de Duplessis (2003), a documentary by, in French
 * The Premiers, a documentary on provincial leaders, with an episode on Duplessis: part 1, 2, 3
 * Les Orphelins de Duplessis (2003), a documentary by, in French
 * The Premiers, a documentary on provincial leaders, with an episode on Duplessis: part 1, 2, 3

title: Maurice Duplessis


text:
Adducted thumb syndrome

Adducted thumb syndrome recessive form is a rare disease affecting multiple systems causing malformations of the palate, thumbs, and upper limbs. The name Christian syndrome derives from Joe. C. Christian, the first person to describe the condition. Inheritance is believed to be autosomal recessive, caused by mutation in the CHST14 (carbohydrate sulfotransferase 14) gene.

Signs and symptoms
This syndrome is characterised by typical facial appearance, slight build, thin and translucent skin, severely adducted thumbs, arachnodactyly, club feet, joint instability, facial clefting and bleeding disorders, as well as heart, kidney or intestinal defects. Severe psychomotor and developmental delay and decreased muscle tone may also be present during infancy. Cognitive development during childhood is normal.

Diagnosis
The syndrome is associated with microcephaly, arthrogryposis and cleft palate and various craniofacial, respiratory, neurological and limb abnormalities, including bone and joint defects of the upper limbs, adducted thumbs, camptodactyly and talipes equinovarus or calcaneovalgus. It is characterized by craniosynostosis, and myopathy in association with congenital generalized hypertrichosis. Patients with the disease are considered intellectually disabled. Most die in childhood. Patients often have respiratory difficulties such as pneumonia, and from seizures due to dysmyelination in the brain's white matter. It has been hypothesized that the Moro reflex (startle reflex in infants) may be a tool in detecting the congenital clasped thumb early in infancy. The thumb normally extends as a result of this reflex.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Adducted thumb syndrome


text:
Jean Lesage

Jean Lesage (June 10, 1912 – December 12, 1980) was a Canadian lawyer and politician from Quebec. He served as the 19th premier of Quebec from July 5, 1960, to June 16, 1966. Alongside Georges-Émile Lapalme, René Lévesque and others, he is often viewed as the father of the Quiet Revolution. Quebec City International Airport was named in his honour on March 31, 1994, and a provincial electoral district, Jean-Lesage, was named for him as well.

Early years
Lesage was born on June 10, 1912, in Montreal, Quebec, one of six children of Xavéri Lesage, a district manager of the insurance company Les Prévoyants du Canada, and Cécile Côté. Lesage began his education at the kindergarten Saint-Enfant-Jésus Montréal. In 1921, the family relocated to Quebec City, where Xavéri Lesage was appointed as assistant manager by his brother Antoni in the headquarters office.

Education
Lesage enrolled as a day student in the private boarding school École Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague and, in 1923, he was admitted to the Petit Séminaire de Québec for an eight-year program which eventually led to the baccalaureate. He was a talented and bright student who ranked highly in courses, especially in religion, French, Latin, Greek and philosophy.

He enrolled in the Faculté de droit de l'Université Laval, where his natural quick wit, his facility in expressing himself, and his argumentative nature assured him success in the field of law. During his years as a student, Lesage was an active Liberal, and he became interested in having a political career. He graduated with a law degree in 1934.

In 1965, he received an honorary doctorate from Sir George Williams University, which later became Concordia University.

He was a student and a supporter of the New Left movement of the 1960s and his education was strongly influenced by figures such as Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Legal career
He practised law in Quebec City with Paul Lesage in 1934, then with Charles Gavan Power, Valmore Bienvenue, Paul Lesage, and Jean Turgeon. He married Corinne Lagarde, a singer and the daughter of Alexandre Lagarde and Valéria Matte.

He was made a Crown attorney for the Wartime Prices and Trade Board from 1939 to 1944. He served in the Canadian Army Reserve from 1939 to 1945.

Federal political career
Lesage was elected as a federal Member of Parliament for the riding of Montmagny-L'Islet as a Liberal for the first time in the 1945 general election. After his re-election in 1949, he was first named Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary of State for External Affairs from January 25, 1951, to December 31, 1952. He was then named Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Finance from January 1, 1953, to June 13, 1953.

Following his re-election in 1953, Lesage was appointed as Minister of Resources and Development from September 17, 1953, to December 15, 1953, and then Minister of Northern Affairs and National Resources from December 16, 1953, to June 21, 1957.

He survived the Progressive Conservative ascendancy and was re-elected in both 1957 and 1958. However, he resigned from his seat on June 13, 1958, following his election as leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec on May 31, 1958.

Premier of Quebec (1960–1966)

On June 22, 1960, Lesage's Liberal Party won the Quebec general election with 51 of 95 seats and 51 percent of the popular vote. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Quebec with the slogans l'équipe de tonnerre ("the terrific team") and C'est le temps que ça change ("It's time for change"). His electoral success ended the Union Nationale and Maurice Duplessis's conservative reign since 1944.

Lesage became Premier, President of the Executive Council, and Minister of Finance from July 5, 1960, to June 16, 1966. He was also Minister of Federal-Provincial Affairs from March 28, 1961, to June 16, 1966, and Minister of Revenue from May 30, 1963, to August 8, 1963.

His election ushered in the Quiet Revolution, which was the rapid and drastic change of values, attitudes, and behaviours in Quebec society also characterized by a surge in Quebec nationalism. In the previous decade, it had already ended its affiliation with the Liberal Party of Canada.

In 1962, the Liberal Party of Quebec won re-election with a campaign promising the nationalization of hydroelectricity, with the slogan Maîtres chez nous (Masters in Our Own Home).

The Lesage government’s rule significantly contributed to environmental, legal, social, economic and political changes in Quebec society, and strengthened the Québécois identity during the Quiet Revolution. The modernization of Quebec was Lesage’s main nationalism.

During his time as premier, Lesage achieved many great changes in Quebec. Lesage believed that French Canadians could very well develop as a modern people within Canada without losing their identity.

One of the major and most successful changes made by the Lesage government was the secularization of Quebec from the Catholic Church. Education reform was one of the most prominent examples of this secularization. Lesage rejected the role of the Catholic Church, which had previously controlled the school system, and modernized it. He wanted the Quebec provincial government to provide education for everyone and instill in them Québécois values as well as produce a better skilled labour force.

The mandatory schooling age was also increased from 14 to 16. The Ministry of Education was created in 1964 with Paul Gérin-Lajoie becoming Quebec’s first Minister of education.

Another major success was the establishment of Hydro-Québec and the nationalization of the province's hydro-electricity. "The nationalization of electricity was 'a logical extension' of the government’s goal of growth... based primarily on the promotion of the French-Canadian people."

With much assistance from René Lévesque, the 11 remaining private power companies were bought out, and Hydro-Québec began supplying, distributing, and transmitting the entire province's energy. The Lesage government’s success of Hydro-Québec represents strength, determination, and initiative.

Other major economic accomplishments included the creation of the Société générale de financement to encourage Quebecers to invest in their future and provided capital for private and mainly Francophone enterprises; the creation of public companies like the Société de Montage Automobile (SOMA) to assemble French automobiles in Quebec; the Société Québécoise d’Exploration Minière (SOQUEM) to ensure that mining resources would be developed in the interests of Quebecers; and Sidérurgie Québécoise (SIDBEC) which was established as an integrated steel plant.

Furthermore, during his time as Premier, Quebec also took over health care from the Church and was the only province to opt out of the national pension plan to create its own version, the Quebec Pension Plan. It also formed the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec to invest in the pension plan funds and the Régie des rentes du Québec to manage the plan, revamped the province’s labour force by giving public-sector workers the right to strike, and laid a foundation for the creation of post-secondary Collèges d’enseignement général et professionnel (CEGEPs) in the area of education.

Opposition leader
Despite winning 47% of the vote in the 1966 Quebec general election, compared to 40% for the Union Nationale, Lesage's Liberals won fewer seats because their vote was concentrated in urban ridings. Lesage was succeeded as Premier by Daniel Johnson.

Lesage remained Liberal leader for several years until he announced his resignation in August 1969, even though his party held a big lead over the governing Union Nationale in polls. He continued on as Leader of the Opposition until January 1970, when Robert Bourassa became the new Liberal leader. Bourassa returned the Liberals to power in the 1970 Quebec general election held in April 1970.

Retirement and death
After leaving politics, Lesage sat on several corporate boards. He had throat cancer at the end of his life, and died from heart failure at his home on December 12, 1980, at the age of 68. Lesage's funeral was held at Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec. He is buried at Cimetière Notre-Dame-de-Belmont in Quebec City.

Book references

 * Rouillard, Jacques (2003), Le syndicalisme Québécois : Deux siècles d'histoire, Boréal Editions, 335p.
 * Comeau, Robert & Bourque, Gilles (1989), Jean Lesage et l'éveil d'une nation Sillery Editions, 367p.
 * Thompson, Dale C. (1984) Jean Lesage and the Quiet Revolution. Macmillan of Canada.
 * Thomson, Dale Carins (1984), Jean Lesage et la révolution tranquille, du Trecarre Editions, 615p.
 * Fullerton, Douglas H. (1978), The dangerous delusion. McClelland and Stewart, 240p.

title: Jean Lesage


text:
Robert Bourassa

Robert Bourassa  (July 14, 1933 – October 2, 1996) was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd premier of Quebec from 1970 to 1976 and from 1985 to 1994. A member of the Liberal Party of Quebec, he served a total of just under 15 years as premier. Bourassa's tenure was marked by major events affecting Quebec, including the October Crisis and the Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords.

Early years and education
Bourassa was born to a working class family in Montreal, the son of Adrienne (née Courville) (1897–1982) and Aubert Bourassa, a port authority worker. Robert Bourassa graduated from the Université de Montréal law school in 1956 and was admitted to the Barreau du Québec the following year. On August 23, 1958, he married Andrée Simard (1931–2022), heiress to the powerful shipbuilding Simard family of Sorel, Quebec. Later, he studied at Keble College, University of Oxford and also obtained a degree in political economy at Harvard University in 1960. On his return to Quebec, he was employed at the federal Department of National Revenue as a fiscal adviser. He also worked as a professor of public finance at Université de Montréal and Université Laval.

Quebec legislator
Bourassa was first elected as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec (MLA) for the riding of Mercier in 1966, then won the Quebec Liberal Party leadership election on January 17, 1970. He positioned himself as a young, competent administrator. He chose "100,000 jobs" as his slogan, which emphasized that job creation would be his priority. Bourassa felt the extensive hydro-electric resources of Quebec were the most effective means of completing the modernization of Quebec and sustaining job creation. He successfully led his party into government in the 1970 election, defeating the conservative Union Nationale government and becoming the youngest premier in Quebec history.

Premier of Quebec (1970–1976)
One of Bourassa's first crises as premier was the October Crisis of 1970, in which his deputy, Pierre Laporte, was kidnapped and later murdered by members of the Front de libération du Quebec. Bourassa requested that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoke the War Measures Act, which allowed for search and arrest of anyone associated with, or thought to be associated with the FLQ. Bourassa also requisitioned military assistance using provisions of the National Defence Act, which resulted in the deployment of troops to guard vital points in Montreal and assist police. The Canadian Armed Forces were withdrawn on 4 January 1971, and Paul Rose and some of his accomplices were found guilty of murder later that year.

Bourassa and Trudeau often clashed over issues of federal-provincial relations and Quebec nationalism, with Trudeau opposing what he saw as concessions to sovereignism. In June 1971 he participated in an attempt at constitutional reform, the Victoria Charter, which quickly unravelled when Bourassa backed away from the proposed deal after it was strongly criticized by Quebec opinion leaders for not giving Quebec more powers.

On 8 October 1971, Trudeau announced in the House of Commons that, after much deliberation, the policy of multiculturalism would be implemented in Canada. Bourassa documented his strong opposition to Trudeau's policy in a letter which he released to the press on 17 November 1971, and stated he had "serious misgivings about the principle of the multicultural policy". The policy document tabled in the House "dissociates culture from language", which seemed to Bourassa "a questionable basis on which to found a policy". Bourassa declared that Quebec did not accept the federal government's approach to the principle of multiculturalism.

During his time in power, Bourassa implemented policies aimed at protecting the status of the French language in Quebec. In 1974, he introduced Bill 22, which declared French to be the sole official language of the province. As a result, Quebec was no longer institutionally bilingual (French and English), though the rights of anglophones were still protected under the British North America Acts. Many businesses and professionals were unable to operate under such requirements. Bill 22 angered Anglophones while not going far enough for many Francophones; Bourassa was vilified by both groups. In response Trudeau described Bourassa as a “mangeur de hot-dogs” (“hotdog eater”).

Bourassa initiated the James Bay hydroelectric project in 1971 that led to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement of 1975 with the Cree and Inuit inhabitants of the region. The Bourassa government also played a major role in rescuing the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal from huge cost overruns and construction delays. Bourassa's government became embroiled in corruption scandals.

On 21 March 1974, workers belonging to the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec union working on the LG-2 construction site of the James Bay project rioted using their bulldozers to destroy the site they were working on while other workers set buildings afire. The riot caused $35 million in damage, and was part of an extortion attempt on the part of the union boss André "Dédé" Desjardins, who was known in Quebec as the "King of Construction". In response to the violence at the LG-2 site, which confirmed long-standing rumors about thuggish practices on the part of construction unions, Bourassa appointed a commission consisting of a well respected judge Robert Cliche, a prominent Montreal labour lawyer Brian Mulroney and Guy Chevrette, the vice-president of the Centrale de l'enseignement du Québec, whose legal counsel was another prominent lawyer Lucien Bouchard to investigate corruption in the construction industry in Quebec. The Cliche commission as it became known held 68 days of hearings on live TV, interviewing 279 people from the construction industry, who testified to widespread corruption and violence in the construction industry, and to the close ties between the Bourassa cabinet, the Mafia and corrupt construction union bosses. Bouchard had wanted to have Bourassa testify before the commission, but Mulroney prevented this, saying that having the Premier of Quebec testify before the commission would be a violation of "executive privilege". Nonetheless, the Cliche commission established the Quebec construction industry was dominated by a casual brutality with thuggish union bosses teaching union organizers how best to break legs. Workers who complained about corruption on the part of their bosses had their dogs murdered and their teenage children beaten up.

When the Cliche commission presented its report in May 1975, the document was described as an exposé of "an organized system of corruption without parallel in North America" as the commission noted that it was political corruption that had enabled the corruption in the construction industry. In an editorial, the Montreal Gazette wrote about the Cliche commission report: "A devastating document. For some four years, the Bourassa government worked hand in glove with gangster union leadership in the province's construction industry." The Cliche commission had little impact on the problem of corruption in the Quebec construction industry, but turned public opinion against Bourassa, whose special adviser had asked the corrupt construction unions to help the Liberals win a by-election in exchange for giving firms that employed workers in the corrupt unions exclusive contracts to work on the James Bay project.

Bourassa lost the 1976 provincial election to René Lévesque, leader of the sovereigntist Parti Québécois, in a massive landslide brought on by the language controversy and the corruption scandals, among other things. Bourassa himself was heavily defeated in his own riding by PQ challenger Gérald Godin. He resigned as Liberal Party leader and accepted teaching positions in Europe and the United States. He remained in political exile until he returned to politics by winning the Quebec Liberal Party leadership election on October 15, 1983. On June 3, 1985, he won a by-election in Bertrand.

Out of politics (1976–1985)
Bourassa resigned as Liberal leader and exiled himself for nine years into academic obscurity. During these nine years, he spent his time overseas. In 1980, Bourassa campaigned in favour of the "no" side (which was eventually successful) of the 1980 Quebec referendum on a sovereignty-association agreement with the federal government. In 1983, Bourassa was elected Liberal leader again, replacing Claude Ryan.

Premier of Quebec (1985–1994)
Bourassa led the PLQ to victory in the 1985 election. However, he lost his own seat to Parti Québécois candidate Jean-Guy Parent. On January 20, 1986, he was elected in a by-election in the Liberal stronghold of Saint-Laurent after the sitting Liberal MNA Germain Leduc resigned in his favour.

During his second term as premier, Bourassa in 1988 invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to override a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that declared parts of the Charter of the French Language unconstitutional, causing some of his anglophone ministers to resign. In 1993, however, he introduced modifications to the language charter. These compromises reduced the controversy over language that had been a dominant feature of Quebec politics over the previous decades.

During the Oka Crisis in 1990, Bourassa invoked the National Defence Act for the second time, requisitioning the Canadian Armed Forces to help police.

Bourassa also pushed for Quebec to be acknowledged in the Canadian constitution as a "distinct society", promising Quebec residents that their grievances could be resolved within Canada with a new constitutional deal. He worked closely with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and received many concessions from the federal government, culminating in the Meech Lake Accord in 1987 and the Charlottetown Accord in 1992. The Meech Lake Accord failed in June 1990 when two provinces, Manitoba and Newfoundland, refused to ratify the agreement their premiers had signed. That failure revived the Quebec separatist movement. The Charlottetown Accord was defeated in a nationwide plebiscite in 1992; it was heavily defeated even in Quebec, partly due to the perception that Bourassa had given away too much at the negotiations.

Final years
Bourassa retired from politics in 1994. He was replaced as Liberal leader and premier by Daniel Johnson Jr., who lost an election to the sovereigntist Parti Québécois after only nine months.

In 1996, Bourassa, who had spent much of his vacation time in hot climates, died in Montreal of malignant melanoma at the age of 63, and was interred at the Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.

Quotations

 * "No matter what anyone says and no matter what anyone does, Quebec is, today and forever, a distinct society, free and capable of assuming its destiny and development." (watch excerpts of original speech) (watch English dubbing) Meech Lake Accord.
 * "There was no censorship of the press: in general, the War Measures Act could have been made even more radical."
 * "A diplomat had been kidnapped, a cabinet minister had been kidnapped, they were under threats of murder. The police forces were rather tired. After a whole week, we were unable to find those that had effected the kidnappings."
 * "We all have the means to be prosperous. We have to find the balance between our wealth and our needs."

Homages

 * A statue and a memorial of Bourassa was unveiled in front of the National Assembly on October 19, 2006.
 * The City of Quebec renamed Highway Du Vallon, a major road in Quebec City, after Bourassa in late 2006.
 * In Montreal, the portion of Rue University from Bonaventure Expressway to Sherbrooke Street was renamed Boulevard Robert-Bourassa.
 * Canada's largest hydroelectric power station, Robert-Bourassa generating station, and its accompanying reservoir, Robert-Bourassa Reservoir were named after Bourassa in honour of his support of the James Bay Project.

In March 2015, a section of University Street (from Notre-Dame Street to Sherbrooke Street) in the downtown core of Montreal was renamed Robert-Bourassa Boulevard.

Park Avenue controversy
On October 18, 2006, Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay announced that Montreal's Park Avenue would be named after Bourassa. On November 28 the Montreal city council voted in favour (40–22) of renaming Park Avenue after Bourassa. If, as had been expected, Quebec's Toponymy Commission had approved the name change, all of Park Avenue and its continuation, Bleury, would have been renamed Robert Bourassa Avenue. This would have caused the newly named street to intersect René Lévesque Boulevard, named after a long time political rival to Bourassa. That boulevard, in turn, had been renamed from Dorchester Boulevard in 1987, in a decision that was also not without controversy. This decision by the City of Montreal without any consultation with the people of the city caused an immediate controversy, though many of those opposed to the change considered it a fait accompli. The proposal spawned substantial grass-roots opposition, both because of the lack of prior citizen input and because Park is itself a meaningful street name, associated with the city's Mount Royal park. In addition to protests and active opposition by a committee of Montreal residents and businesses opposed to the name change, an online petition garnered more than 18,000 virtual signatures against this renaming. On February 5, 2007, Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay withdrew his proposal to rename Park Avenue. However, there is a Robert Bourassa Blvd., located in the Duvernay district of Laval, Quebec.

title: Robert Bourassa


text:
Transesterification

Transesterification is the process of exchanging the organic functional group R″ of an ester with the organic group R' of an alcohol. These reactions are often catalyzed by the addition of an acid or base catalyst. Strong acids catalyze the reaction by donating a proton to the carbonyl group, thus making it a more potent electrophile. Bases catalyze the reaction by removing a proton from the alcohol, thus making it more nucleophilic. The reaction can also be accomplished with the help of enzymes, particularly lipases (one example is the lipase E.C.3.1.1.3 ).

If the alcohol produced by the reaction can be separated from the reactants by distillation this will drive the equilibrium toward the products. This means that esters with larger alkoxy groups can be made from methyl or ethyl esters in high purity by heating the mixture of ester, acid/base, and large alcohol.

Mechanism
In the transesterification mechanism, the carbonyl carbon of the starting ester reacts to give a tetrahedral intermediate, which either reverts back to the starting material, or proceeds to the transesterified product (RCOOR2). The various species exist in equilibrium, and the product distribution depends on the relative energies of the reactant and product. Depending on reaction conditions ester hydrolysis and/or esterification will also occur, which results in some amount of free carboxylic acid being present.

 * General transesterification mechanism.png

Polyester production
The largest scale application of transesterification is in the synthesis of polyesters. In this application, diesters undergo transesterification with diols to form macromolecules. For example, dimethyl terephthalate and ethylene glycol react to form polyethylene terephthalate and methanol, which is evaporated to drive the reaction forward.

Methanolysis and biodiesel production
The reverse reaction, methanolysis, is also an example of transesterification. This process has been used to recycle polyesters into individual monomers (see plastic recycling). It is also used to convert fats (triglycerides) into biodiesel. This conversion was one of the first uses. Transesterified vegetable oil (biodiesel) was used to power heavy-duty vehicles in South Africa before World War II.

It was patented in the US in the 1950s by Colgate, though biolipid transesterification may have been discovered much earlier. In the 1940s, researchers were looking for a method to more readily produce glycerol, which was used to produce explosives for World War II. Many of the methods used today by producers have their origin in the original 1940s research.

Biolipid transesterification has also been recently shown by Japanese researchers to be possible using a supercritical methanol methodology, whereby high temperature, high-pressure vessels are used to physically catalyze the biolipid/methanol reaction into fatty-acid methyl esters.

Fat processing
Fat interesterification is used in the food industry to rearrange the fatty acids of triglycerides in edible fats and vegetable oils. For example, a solid fat with mostly saturated fatty acids may be transesterified with a vegetable oil having high unsaturated acid contents, to produce a spreadable semisolid fat whose molecules have a mix both kinds of acids.

Synthesis
Transesterification is used to synthesize enol derivatives, which are difficult to prepare by other means. Vinyl acetate, which is cheaply available, undergoes transesterification, giving access to vinyl ethers:
 * ROH + ⟶  + AcOH

The reaction can be effected with high enantioselectivity when mediated with a lipase.

title: Transesterification


text:
Henri Coandă

Henri Marie Coandă (7 June 1886 – 25 November 1972) was a Romanian inventor, aerodynamics pioneer, and builder of an experimental aircraft, the Coandă-1910, which never flew. He invented a great number of devices, designed a "flying saucer" and discovered the Coandă effect of fluid dynamics.

In the 1950s, Coandă inflated his importance in aviation history, describing falsely how he had invented the air-breathing jet engine and incorporated that design into the Coandă-1910 aircraft. However, his ducted engine design, the "turbo-propulseur", was described in its patent as working the same way with either water or air running through.

Early life
Born in Bucharest, Coandă was the second child of a large family. His father was General Constantin Coandă, a mathematics professor at the National School of Bridges and Roads. His mother, Aida Danet, was the daughter of French physician Gustave Danet, and was born in Brittany. Coandă recalled later in life that beginning from childhood he was fascinated by the miracle of wind.

Coandă attended Elementary school at the Petrache Poenaru Communal School in Bucharest, then (1896) Began his secondary school career at the Liceu ''Sf. Sava'' (Saint Sava National College). After three years (1899), his father, who desired a military career for him, had him transferred to the Military High School in Iaşi where he required four additional years to complete high-school. He graduated in 1903 with the rank of sergeant major, and he continued his studies at the School of Artillery, Military, and Naval Engineering in Bucharest. Sent with an artillery regiment to Germany (1904), he enrolled in the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg, Berlin.

Coandă graduated as an artillery officer, but he was more interested in the technical problems of flight. In 1905, he built a missile-aeroplane for the Romanian Army. He continued his studies (1907–08) at the Montefiore Institute in Liège, Belgium, where he met Gianni Caproni. In 1908 Coandă returned to Romania to serve as an active officer in the Second Artillery Regiment. His inventor's spirit did not comport well with military discipline and he obtained permission to leave the army, after which he took advantage of his renewed freedom to take a long automobile trip to Isfahan, Teheran, and Tibet.

Aviation activities in France
Upon his return in 1909, he travelled to Paris, where he enrolled in the newly founded École Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieurs en Construction Aéronautique (now the École Nationale Supérieure de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace, also known as SUPAERO). One year later (1910) he graduated at the head of the first class of aeronautical engineers.

In 1910, in the workshop of Gianni Caproni, he designed and built an aircraft known as the Coandă-1910, which he displayed publicly at the second International Aeronautic Salon in Paris that year. The aircraft used a 4-cylinder piston engine to power a rotary compressor which was intended to propel the craft by a combination of suction at the front and airflow out the rear instead of using a propeller.

Contemporary sources describe the Coandă-1910 as incapable of flight. Years later, after others had developed jet technology, Coandă started making claims that it was a motorjet, and that it actually flew. According to Charles Gibbs-Smith: "There was never any idea of injecting fuel; the machine never flew; it was never destroyed on test; and Flight noted that it was sold to a Monsieur Weyman." Gibbs-Smith continued, "The claim said that after a disastrous crash (which never happened) Coandă wished to begin a 'second aircraft', but 'his funds were exhausted.' Within a year he was ... exhibiting (in October 1911) a brand new propeller-driven machine at the Reims Concours Militaire..." Other aviation writers accepted Coandă's story of his flight tests with the Coandă-1910.

Coandă's colleague at Huyck Corporation, G. Harry Stine—a rocket scientist, author and "the father of American model rocketry"—stated in his book The Hopeful Future that "there were several jet-propelled aircraft in existence at an early time-the Coandă-1910 jet and the 1938 Caproni Campini N.1, the pure jet aircraft flight was made in Germany in 1938". Rolf Sonnemann and Klaus Krug from the University of Technology of Dresden, mentioned in passing in their 1987 book Technik und Technikwissenschaften in der Geschichte (Technology and Technical Sciences in History) that the Coandă-1910 was the world's first jet.

Between 1911 and 1914, he worked as technical manager of the Bristol Aeroplane Company in the United Kingdom, where he designed several aeroplanes known as the Bristol-Coanda Monoplanes. In 1912 one of these aircraft won a prize at the British Military Aeroplane Competition.

In 1915, he returned to France where, working during World War I for Delaunay-Belleville in Saint-Denis, he designed and built three different models of propeller aeroplane, including the Coandă-1916, with two propellers mounted close to the tail. This design was to be reprised in the 1950s Sud Aviation Caravelle transport aeroplane, for which Coandă was a technical consultant.

In the years between the wars, he continued travelling and inventing. In 1934 he was granted a French patent related to the Coandă Effect. During early 1930 he used the same principle as the basis for the design of a disc-shaped aircraft called Aerodina Lenticulară (lens-shaped aerodyne), a "flying saucer" shaped aircraft that used an unspecified source of high-pressure gases to flow through a ring-shaped vent system. In 1936 Coandă applied for a patent for his design. No practical full-scale version was built.

World War II
Coanda spent World War II in occupied France where he worked for the Nazis to help their war effort by developing the turbopropulseur (turbopropeller) drive system from his 1910 biplane into a propulsion system for snow sleds. The German contract concluded after one year, yielding no plans for production.

Later work
Coandă's research on the Coandă Effect was of interest post-war and became the basis for several investigations of entrained or augmented flow. A small stream of a high-velocity fluid could be used to generate a greater mass flow, at lower velocity. Although eventually unsuccessful for aircraft propulsion, this effect has been widely used on a smaller scale, from packaging machinery for small pills through to the Dyson Air Multiplier bladeless fan.

In 1969, during the early years of the Ceauşescu era, he returned to spend his last days in his native Romania, where he served as director of the Institute for Scientific and Technical Creation (INCREST) and in 1971 reorganized, along with professor Elie Carafoli, the Department of Aeronautical Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, spinning it off from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Coandă died in Bucharest on 25 November 1972 at the age of 86. He is buried at Bellu cemetery.

Honours and awards

 * 1965: At the International Automation Symposium in New York, Coandă received the Harry Diamond Laboratories Award.
 * He received an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Aeronautical Society in 1971
 * Bucharest's Henri Coandă International Airport is named after him.
 * Award and Grand Gold Medal "Vielles Tiges".
 * UNESCO Award for Scientific Research
 * The Medal of French Aeronautics, Order of Merit, and Commander ring

Inventions, and discoveries

 * 1910: The Coandă-1910, an experimental aircraft powered by a ducted fan.
 * 1911: An aircraft powered by two engines driving a single propeller – the configuration cancelled the torque of the engines.
 * He invented a new decorative material for use in construction, beton-bois; one prominent example of its use is the Palace of Culture, in Iaşi.
 * 1926: Working in Romania, Coandă developed a device to detect liquids under ground, useful in petroleum prospecting. Shortly thereafter, in the Persian Gulf region, he designed a system for offshore oil drilling.
 * The most famous of Coandă's discoveries is the Coandă Effect. After more than 20 years studying this phenomenon along with his colleagues, Coandă described what Albert Metral was later to name the "Coandă Effect". This effect has been utilized in many aeronautical inventions. See Coanda Effect
 * A modular system of sea water desalination and transformation to fresh water, based on solar energy, a clean, ecological and adaptable system.

title: Henri Coandă