Charlevoix (1744)
Charlevoix, Pierre-François-Xavier de (1682-1761). Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France [...]. Paris: Rollin fils, 1744.
Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix, a Jesuit and a historian, was born in Saint-Quentin, France in 1682. In 1698 he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in Paris. From 1705 to 1709 he taught grammar at the Jesuit College in Quebec City. After his return to Paris, he was ordained priest and then taught humanities and philosophy at Louis-le-Grand College.
In 1719 he was sent to Canada on a double mission: to make recommendations about the borders of Acadia, a subject of constant disputes between England and France since the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), and to inquire into the geographical position of the Western Sea. After arriving in Quebec City in September 1720, Charlevoix visited the Great Lakes, went down the Mississippi to Louisiana, and returned from there to France in December 1722. Afterwards he worked on several books. For about 20 years from 1733 on, he was also one of the editors of the Journal de Trévoux, a monthly review published by the Jesuits. Finally, he acted as attorney for the Jesuit missions in New France from 1742 to 1749. Upon his death in La Flèche, France in 1761, Charlevoix was considered "the one undisputed historian of the New World." In fact, in addition to Histoire de la Nouvelle-France, he published Histoire du christianisme au Japon (1715), Vie de Mère Marie de l'Incarnation (1725), Histoire de Saint-Domingue (1730), Histoire du Japon (1736) and Histoire du Paraguay (1756). Almost all these works went through several editions and were translated into different languages.
To write his work on New France, Charlevoix had obtained permission to consult the French state archives, which made it a truly original work.
The account, in the strict sense, covers the period from the first discoveries to 1731. This is accompanied by a travel journal the author kept during his second stay in New France, which is considered one of the most important writings of the kind about North America. Enlivened by various plans and maps, the work also comes with an appendix giving a richly illustrated description of the main plants of Northern America. Moreover, the original edition is one of the finest examples of eighteenth-century typography and bookbinding.
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