Honoré Beaugrand was a genuine man of letters, and his volcanic energy, practical skills as a journalist, cosmopolitan views, and talents as a writer in French and in English brought him recognition and made him a figure to emulate in the great bilingual experiment that was early Canada. He was also a successful municipal politician.

Born in Lanoraie, Quebec, on 24 March 1848, Honoré Beaugrand was educated at the Seminaire de Joliette, run by the Clercs de Saint-Viateur. At fifteen he began his religious training, but left without taking his first vows to become a sailor on the St. Lawrence River. He next completed a brief officers' training course in Montreal and, upon graduation in August 1865, enlisted in the French army and went to Mexico as part of Napoleon III's expeditionary force in aid of Emperor Maximilian. At eighteen Beaugrand had been wounded, captured, promoted, and decorated, and...