to
twenty-four. But in the minority voted John Neilson, Augustin
Cuvillier, F. A. Quesnel, and Andrew Stuart, who now definitely broke
away from Papineau's party. There are signs, too, that the
considerable number of Catholic clergy who had openly supported
Papineau now began to withdraw from the camp of a leader advocating
such republican and revolutionary ideas. There is ground also for
believing that not a little unrest disturbed those who voted with
Papineau in 1834. In the next year Elzear Bedard, who had moved the
Ninety-Two Resolutions, broke with Papineau. Another seceder was
Etienne Parent, the editor of the revived _Canadien_, and one of the
great figures in French-Canadian literature. Both Bedard and Parent
were citizens of Quebec, and they carried with them the great body of
public opinion in the provincial capital. It will be observed later
that during the disturbances of 1837 Quebec remained quiet.

None of the seceders abandoned the demand for the redress of
grievances. They merely {43} refused to follow Papineau in his extreme
course. For this they were assailed with some of the rhetoric which
had hitherto been reserved for the 'Bureaucrats.' To them was applied
the opprobrious epithet of _Chouayens_[1]--a name which had been used
by Etienne Parent himself in 1828 to describe those French Canadians
who took sides with the government party.

[1] The name _Chouayen_ or _Chouaguen_ appears to have been first used
as a term of reproach at the siege of Oswego in 1756. It is said that
after the fall of the forts there to Montcalm's armies a number of
Canadian soldiers arrived too late to take part in the fighting. By
the soldiers who had borne the brunt of the battle the late-comers were
dubbed _Chouaguens_, this being the way the rank and file of the French
soldiers pronounced the Indian name of Oswego. Thus the term came to
mean one who refuses to follow, or who lets others do the fighting and
keeps out of it himself. Perhaps the nearest English, or rather
American, equivalent is the name Mugwump.

{44}

CHAPTER VI

THE ROYAL COMMISSION

A general election followed soon after the passing of the Ninety-Two
Resolutions and revealed the strength of Papineau's position in the
country. All those members of the _Patriote_ party who had opposed the
Resolutions--Neilson, Cuvillier, Quesnel, Stuart, and two or three
others--suffered defeat at the polls. The first division-list in t