ty was to be offered to all political
offenders implicated in the troubles of '37-'38; and second, that the
clause in the Act of Union which made English the sole official
language had been repealed. The governor-general displayed his tact
and his goodwill by reading the Speech in French as well as in English,
a custom which has continued ever since.

A striking incident in the opening debate on the Address was the
passage at arms between LaFontaine and Papineau, between the new and
the old leader of French-Canadian political opinion. In '37 Papineau
had roused his countrymen to armed resistance of the government; but he
had wisely refrained from placing himself at the head of the
insurgents. Together with his secretary, {104} O'Callaghan, he had
witnessed the fight at St Denis from the other side of the river, but
took no part in it. He had afterwards reached the American border in
safety. From the United States he had passed over to France, where he
had consorted with some of the advanced thinkers of the capital. In
1843 LaFontaine, by his personal exertions with Metcalfe, was able to
gain for his exiled chief the privilege of returning without penalty to
his native land. Papineau, however, did not avail himself of the
privilege until four years later; he found life in Paris quite to his
taste. A curious result of his return, a pardoned rebel, was his
claiming and receiving from the provincial treasury the nine years'
arrearage of salary due to him as Speaker in the old Assembly of Lower
Canada. In the elections of 1847 he stood for St Maurice, and he was
elected. In the new parliament he took the role of irreconcilable; his
whole policy was obstruction. What he could not realize was, that
during his ten years of absence the whole country had moved away from
the position it had occupied before the outbreak of the rebellion; and,
in moving away, it had left him hopelessly behind. His only programme
was {105} uncompromising opposition to the government which had
forgiven him, and the vague dream of founding an independent French
republic on the banks of the St Lawrence. In the brief session of 1848
he attempted, but without success, to block the wheels of government.
Now, in the second session, the fateful session of 1849, he delivered
one of his old-time reckless philippics denouncing the tyrannical
British power, the Act of Union--the very measure he was supposed to
have battled for--responsible governmen