Louis Honoré Fréchette

Louis-Honoré Fréchette (French pronunciation: [lwi ɔnɔʁe fʁeʃɛt]; November 16, 1839 – May 31, 1908) was a Canadian poet, politician, playwright and short story writer. For his prose, he would be the first Quebecois to receive the Prix Montyon from the Académie française, and the first Canadian to receive any honor from a European nation.

Early life and education

Fréchette was born on November 16, 1839, in Lévis, Lower Canada. From 1854 to 1860, Fréchette did his classical studies at the Séminaire de Québec, the Collège de Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière and at the Séminaire de Nicolet. Fréchette first showed his rebelliousness when he studied at college. He later studied law at Université Laval.

Career

In 1864, he opened a lawyer's office in Lévis and founded two newspapers: Le drapeau de Lévis and La Tribune de Levis. He exiled himself to Chicago, where he wrote La voix d'un exilé. A number of plays which he wrote during that period were lost in the Great Chicago Fire.

Fréchette returned to Quebec in 1871, where he was a Liberal candidate for Lévis in the provincial elections that year; he was not elected. However, in 1874, he was elected a Member of Parliament in Ottawa. He served in the House of Commons of Canada from 1874 to 1878 as a Liberal Party of Canada member from Lévis. He was not re-elected in 1878. After that, he moved to Montreal, where he began writing full-time, having inherited his aunt's wealth when she died.

He was the first Quebecer to receive the Montyon Prize of the Académie française for his collection of poems Les Fleurs boréales, les oiseaux de neige (1879).