"En escrivant à une personne, je parle à plusieurs”: Responding to Readers in the Jesuit Relations from New France

En escrivant à une personne, je parle à plusieurs":Responding to Readers in the Jesuit Relations from New France Micah TrueIt is common in scholarship on the Jesuit Relations-reports from French missionaries in what is now eastern Canada that were published annually in Paris from 1632 to 1673 and are now highly valued as source of historical and ethnographic information-to note that the texts reached a large and enthusiastic readership.Allan Greer, for example, characterized their reception this way: "The appearance of each successive volume was eagerly anticipated in some circles, as priests, nuns, and pious laypeople throughout France read them avidly" (14). 1 Readers' reactions to the texts have generally not, however, been considered among the forces that shaped subsequent instalments in the series.Instead, scholars have tended to emphasize the writerly work of Jesuits on the ground in New France (Pouliot 18; Greer 14), while occasionally acknowledging that editors in Paris could also shape the Relations (Wroth 118; Melzer 83).Such factors surely were very important in determining the form and content of the texts, but this article suggests that they do not tell the whole story.Drawing on the available clues about how the missionary authors understood and reacted to their audience, I argue here that the desires of metropolitan French readers-whether expressed or merely presumed by the Jesuits-also ought to be considered a key part of the process that produced the annual Relations.It is beyond doubt that the Relations found readers in France in addition to the Jesuit Provincial in Paris to whom they were sent each year, and whom they frequently address directly.2 The very fact of their publication suggests a larger readership, and their occasional mention in the writings of non-Jesuits-such as the Ursuline nun Marie de l'Incarnation, prior to her own arrival in Quebec to establish a convent there-confirm that the Relations were eagerly awaited and faithfully 1 For more examples, see Desbarats 51; Dubois 52; McShea 23-24; Rigault and Ouellet 639; Thwaites, vol. 1, 41; and Wroth 114. 2 For examples of references to the "Révérend Père" to whom the Relations were at least superficially addressed, see MNF 2.406, 485, 538, and 740.For examples of comments directed to "Vostre Révérence," see MNF 2.411, 578, and 649.All citations of the Jesuit Relations in this article are drawn from Lucien Campeau's Monumenta Novae Franciae.This edition is here abbreviated MNF.

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