Date Published:
July 2007

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Joseph Doutre

Doutre, Joseph (1825-1886), lawyer and author, was born at Beauharnois, Lower Canada, on March 11, 1825. He was educated at Montreal College, and was called to the bar of Lower Canada in 1847 (Q.C., 1863). Though he never sat in parliament, he was one of the leading members of the parti rouge; and it was under his presidency that the Institut Canadien was incorporated in 1852. He was an advocate of the abolition of seigniorial tenure in Lower Canada; he fought a duel with George Etienne Cartier; and he opposed, vehemently and successfully, the attempt of Bishop Bourget and other ecclesiastics to crush Liberalism in the province of Quebec. Especially noteworthy was his battle with Bishop Bourget over the Guibord case in 1869. In his earlier years he was a constant contributor to such journals as Les Mélanges Religieux, L'Aurore des Canadas, Le Courrier des Etats-Unis (New York), and the Lower Canada Jurist. He was one of the founders of Le Pays, and he contributed a series of contemporary biographies to Papineau's L'Avenir. He published also, in his earlier years, two novels, Les fiancés de 1812 (Montreal, 1844) and Le frère et la soeur, in J. Huston (ed.), Le répertoire national (4 vols., Montreal, 1848-50). He died at Montreal on February 3, 1886.

Source: W. Stewart WALLACE, The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 233.