Quebec’s Werewolves: Jean Plante’s Story

This is the first in a series of short pieces on Quebec’s werewolves, the Loup Garou. My attention was first drawn to this topic when I learned that, in stories from Quebec, people were transformed into werewolves due to religious transgressions, not by being bitten by another werewolf.

I started off thinking of these stories as a kind of allegory about religious observance (“be faithful or fall under the power of the devil”) but I think they say something more broadly about identity issues in the culture of Quebec. I think that this folklore reveals something important about the tensions that surround identity in Quebec from the industrial revolution up to the present day.

In this short article, I’d like to look at the story of Jean Plante told by Wenceslas-Eugene Dick in his “Légendes et Revenants” [“Legends and Ghost stories”] from 1918. In the story, a character is turned into a Loup Garou as punishment for violating the norms of Catholic charity. The appearance of the Loup Garou is an object lesson for the story’s protagonist, who has rejected religion and the reality of the supernatural.

On the surface, the story functions as a warning about the dangers of losing one’s faith and ignoring the boundaries set by religion. On a deeper level, it is a critique of how modern life has changed people. By 1918 Quebec had been through a century of industrial development that would reshape society and its moral order.

In the nineteenth century, Quebec’s economy was going through a transformation caused by the process of industrialization. This transformation changed the relationship between cities, villages and farms. Quebec’s cities had once served to supply farmers with opportunities to export their goods out of the province. Supplies came into the village from City ports and agricultural goods flowed outward.

As industrialization progressed cities became economic industrial centers drawing labour from the countryside. With the appearance of mills and factories, symbols of industrialization crept into the seigneuries of the countryside, as Serge Courville and Normand Seguin noted in their text, the Rural Life in Nineteenth Century Quebec:

Many of these villages were still only hamlets, clustered around the manor or the church, but a few had already attained a respectable size. On the whole, they were market centers, combining stores and warehouses, and would remain so throughout the period. However, beginning in the years 1825–30 a good number of them would also become important production centres, characterized by the presence of mills, workshops, and small factories, and, for some of them, even larger factories, forges, foundries, and shipyards, as in the larger towns. (6, Courville and Seguin, 1989)

The mill and those who operated it participated in the ‘modern’ economy of Quebec and represent this industrial transformation in the Loup Garou story below.

Folkloric stories of all kinds gained in popularity in the 19th century, beginning most famously with the Brothers Grimm in 1812 in Germany. In both Europe and North America, as the processes of industrialization moved forward, an interest in rural “folk belief” grew. As the economic and social order moved away from earlier agricultural models in Quebec, the interest in stories that addressed this perceived loss increased. The idea that the distinct rural life of the nation was threatened propelled a growing interest in the cultural patrimony of Quebec.

These portrayals of rural life were written for educated readers who, on the one hand, may identify with the characters in the story who represent their parents and grandparents still living in a rural village, but who, on the other hand, might also see themselves as the cultured city folk who have moved beyond superstitious religious belief and the control of the Church.

The story of Jean Plante as told by Wenceslas-Eugene Dick (1848–1919) is a story of supernatural horror set in a small village on Ile D’Orleans in Quebec.

The story begins with a group of men sitting around having a drink and telling stories after a meal. One of the men tells a story in which a wandering beggar curses the horns of his uncle’s animals, and a disagreement erupts regarding whether refusing charity to a beggar can leave one vulnerable to supernatural retaliation.

The story of Jean Plante is then told by one of the other men as an example of what can happen to those who don’t practice good Christian charity.

Here’s my version of the story in English for those who don’t read French. It’s a condensed version focused on the elements I think are important so, if at all possible, I’d encourage you to read the original.

One of the men tells this story:

30 yrs ago, Jean Plante lived in an old windmill in Argentenay (part of Ile D’Orleans near Quebec City). The windmill was set in the woods away from town. He and his brother worked there and Jean lived on the second floor. Jean was known for being vocal about not believing in Loup Garous or ghosts and of having no fear of such things.

One day, when Jean had been day-drinking, a beggar approached the mill and asked for charity in the name of God. Jean reacted badly and kicked the beggar in the butt to move him along. As the beggar was leaving, he saw Jean’s brother, Thomas, approaching and again asked for alms in God’s name. Thomas was in a rush and told the beggar to go to hell, that he had no time. The beggar made no reply but laid a hand on the side of the mill and left.

The mill stopped working the moment the beggar’s hand touched it. Jean Plante came outside to find the beggar gone and nothing out of place. He checked the different parts of the mill and could find no reason it had stopped. Jean blamed his brother for the breakdown and they fought. Thomas tried to get his brother to understand that the beggar had cursed the mill, but Jean refused to believe it. Unable to beat him physically, the little brother left claiming his brother would see him again.

All alone Jean still couldn’t get the mill working so he decided to spend the rest of the day drinking and resolved to see what tomorrow would bring.

Jean got drunk and fell asleep on the ground outside the mill. He woke in the middle of the night and saw lights and heard noises inside the mill. Dancing lights [feux follets] appeared, covering the outside of the mill.

Finally a kind of large red-haired dog, at least three feet high, was seen prowling among the trees, sometimes stopping and staring at Jean with two big eyes that shone like flaming coals.

Jean was paralysed with fear and remained frozen on the ground until daybreak when all these terrors immediately vanished. With the light of day, Jean regained his courage and disbelieved what he saw the night before, daring all the ghosts and werewolves of the island to come try to frighten him.

He spent the day fruitlessly trying to get his mill working again and every night being awoken at the stroke of midnight by the noises of cries and chains, and the strange lights dancing around the mill. He spent the night hiding under the blankets and shaking until dawn.

On the evening of the eighth day — which happened to be on All Saints Day — Jean was still awake. He had not been to mass, on the pretext that he didn’t feel well, preferring to spend his time drinking and defying the good Lord.

The stroke of Midnight found Jean sitting at his table, drinking. The clock rang out twelve tones and on the twelfth the door was flung open by a gust of wind. In the doorway was the big red dog from the first night. It sat in the doorway staring at the miller. For five minutes this staring contest continued, the miller filled with disbelief, his hair standing on end, the dog calm and menacing.

Then the candle on the table went out.

Jean reached for the matches he’d lain nearby, but they were gone.

In the dark room Jean began backing away from the door, toward his bed, while the animal sat unmoving.

Finally it stood and walked into the room, crossing the floor towards the bedroom door. It’s eyes, burning like coals, remained fixed on the miller.

When he was only three paces from Jean Plante, the poor man lost his head and grabbed his scythe.

“He’s a Loup Garou! he cried, voice strangled. And, bringing back his weapon with force, he struck the animal.

Immediately, the mill sprang to life making a sound like thunder, and a sudden gleam filled the room. Jean’s brother Thomas stood before him, a lit match in his fingers.

Jean, livid and haggard, did not speak. He stared at Thomas, who was missing a piece of his right ear. “ What happened to your ear?” he asked in a whisper.

“ You know what happened!” Thomas replied harshly. Jean bent down and picked up a piece of dog’s ear from the ground, still bleeding.

“So it was you!” he whispered. And, putting his hand to his forehead he laughed mournfully and went mad.

In this Loup Garou story, the brother Thomas loses his humanity as a punishment for his cruelty to the poor. In Loup Garou stories, being a good Catholic is the only protection from this fate. Anyone who rejects religion falls under the power of the Devil. The red colored, flame-eyed dog-monster is a revelation of the truth, signifying the presence of supernatural evil.

Thomas and his brother Jean work in the new economy, operating the mill on the edge of the village close to the wilderness. Jean Plante had not believed either in the power of Good or the danger of Evil. This hellhound appears repeatedly as a stubborn symbol not only of the Devil’s power but of the continuing presence of the supernatural even in modern times.

The Loup Garou doesn’t attack Jean or behave particularly threateningly; it just imposes itself on the scene. Wrapped up in the symbol of the Loup Garou is Jean’s rejection of religion, his failure to believe in the supernatural and his utter failure to recognise his own brother until blood had been shed. As we will see in other Loup Garou stories, the curse is broken with a wounding blow. This allows a kind of irrefutable proof of identity, when the piece of ear and the wound on the brother are connected.

It is this connection that drives Jean insane. The reality of the Loup Garou and its identity confront Jean with the truth that he had been unable or unwilling to see. His previous vision of the world is shattered.

This story of existential terror is so effective because of the power of this concern about identity. The changes in Quebec society went beyond the economy into every aspect of life and self-conception. Sons were leaving their fathers’ farms and moving to the city, following job opportunities into Upper Canada or the US, leaving behind not only their families but, for some, their language and customs. Embracing modernity and progress threatened to lead to the abandonment of religion and the establishment of a new, secular society. Pope Leo XIII wrote in his 1878 encyclical Inscrutabili Dei Consilio, that modern life promoted “ every kind of infamy, weaken all right order, and thus, sooner or later, bring the standing and peace of the State to the very brink of ruin”.

Jean Plante’s story describes a man who has left the traditional values of the nation behind and embraced modern life. The story presents this denial as willful blindness as the truth of the situation repeatedly tries to assert itself to him. His abandonment of religion and tradition lead to the loss of his work and family and ultimately his sanity. The entire Catholic world was grappling with the impact of industrialization and ideas about modernity and the future of christian societies. The people of Quebec looked forward into the coming twentieth century and wondered what transformation they would undergo. How much of their traditional life could they leave behind before their own brothers would not recognize them?