Patriots and orators: From the class in rhetoric to the invention of a revolutionary discourse

The discursive arts played a key role in Quebec colleges during the eightee nth and nineteenth centuries. In 1765, the Seminaire de Quebec adopted an e ducational plan which, following the Jesuits' Ratio Studiorum, made rhetori c the crowning moment of the curriculum. This model became an example for l ater colleges, and, in these young institutions, teaching remained indissol ubly linked to the figure of a revered professor whose influence touched se veral generations of disciples. This is illustrated by the great popularity of Joseph-Octave Plessis's Rhetorica in Quebec City and Antoine-Jacques Ho udet's Rhetorique in Montreal. A study of these treatises shows how their l essons were subsequently illustrated by two of the most brilliant speakers of the insurrectionary period: Louis-Joseph Papineau and Edouard-Etienne Ro dier. The tradition of rhetoric is shown to be continuously present in ever y speech, with all of the words, concepts and articulations learned in clas s being used to sustain the invention of a discourse that was both new and rebellious.