MARK ABLEY, "A GOOD DAY TO LOOK ANEW AT HISTORY OF PATRIOTES," MONTREAL GAZETTE   (MAY 17, 2003).

Copyright Montreal Gazette 2003

Even Montreal's main statue in their honour betrays some confusion about what the Patriotes' fight was all about.

It stands near the St. Lawrence River, outside a forbidding stone edifice just below the grey-and-green span of the Jacques Cartier Bridge. Dandelions push through the scanty grass. Yesterday morning, no other flowers were in sight.

Even if they stop at the nearby traffic light, it's doubtful if many of the drivers pouring into downtown from the eastern reaches of the city glance at the three-sided statue.

"Defeated in battle," an inscription reads (in French only), "they have triumphed in history."

They have, beyond question, become icons. And this curious, cottage-opening holiday - "Victoria Day" in most of Canada, "Fete de la Reine" to some older Quebecers, "Fete de Dollard" until last year - now celebrates the struggle of the 1837-8 rebels against British rule.

Last year, then-premier Bernard Landry consigned Dollard des Ormeaux to oblivion, declaring that the May holiday would henceforth be the "Journee nationale des Patriotes."

Since 1982, thanks to Landry's old boss Rene Levesque, a Sunday in November had been dedicated to the Patriotes. Landry went farther, granting them one of our rare and precious days off.

In modern-day Quebec, the term "Patriotes" is everywhere. A university hockey team, a Laurentians theatre, a mediocre wine and a variety of streets and roads have all been named for them.

But what, exactly, is the Patriotes' place in history? And how did they triumph?

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To reach the statue from the nearest metro station, you have to walk down de Lorimier Ave. It was once called Colborne St., after the British officer who suppressed the Patriote cause.

There's a rosette of Chevalier de Lorimier on one side of the statue near Notre Dame St. An inscription speaks of "sacrifice." De Lorimier was one of 12 Patriotes hanged here in February 1839, outside the big stone building that was then Montreal's prison but is now the headquarters of the Societe des alcools du Quebec.

Pierre Falardeau, the most hardcore nationalist among Quebecois filmmakers, made a movie about de Lorimier's last day: 15 fevrier 1839. He turned the imprisoned notary into a saintly independantiste martyr.

By chance, a narrow sidestreet off de Lorimier bears the name "Falardeau." Lying as it does under the great bridge, it's an ideal location for nationalist graffiti. But in 2003, most of the graffiti is non-political. Only a few scrawled words reveal the young male angst that so often feeds political agitation:

"Je hais les touristes et les filles riches."

The metro station a few blocks away is named after the political leader of the Patriote movement, Louis-Joseph Papineau. Like de Lorimier, he is commemorated on one side of the statue by the former prison. Above his image is inscribed the French phrase, "The parliamentary struggle."

For Papineau was a moderate. He was not among those hanged in the bleak winter of 1839. Nor was he among the eight Patriotes exiled to Bermuda or the 57 shipped off to Australia.

After the failure of the uprising, Papineau made his way safely to France. Though he eventually sailed back to Lower Canada, serving in its assembly in the 1850s, by then he wanted Canada annexed to the United States. He was also the seigneur of 178,000 acres around Montebello. It's hard to paint him as a victim.

Other Patriotes also survived to run in future elections. One of them, George-Etienne Cartier, ended up as a knighted Father of Confederation.

The third side of the statue is even more problematic. The face it shows is that of Wolfred Nelson, a doctor who commanded the Patriote forces at their only successful military skirmish, near St. Denis sur Richelieu. (Originally sentenced to death, Nelson was exiled to Bermuda.) Above Nelson's image on the statue are the words "The armed struggle."

Which is the side of the Patriote movement that the Front de liberation du Quebec and its supporters have always liked to recall. Looking for historical precedents and justifications, they fastened on the image of a tuque-wearing rebel with a rifle.

In this light, the official commemorations announced by Levesque and Landry might be more than just a blatant attempt to harness a potent nationalist image to the ends of the Parti Quebecois. They might also be an effort to sanitize and soften the Patriote ideal, making it safe for all Quebecers.

"To celebrate the movement," says Stephane Chagnon, director of the Maison nationale des Patriotes in St. Denis sur Richelieu, "is to celebrate democracy and liberty. Every Quebecer, every Canadian, no matter what their ethnic origin, can draw inspiration from the Patriotes' fight."

Wolfred Nelson was not a character in Falardeau's recent movie. Neither was his brother Robert, nor the merchant Thomas Brown, nor the doctor and journalist Edmund O'Callaghan. None of them appear among the 12 character sketches on a Web site dedicated to "Nos heros Quebecois de 1837-1838."

All these men were among the radicals in the Patriote movement - in 1838, Robert Nelson even led its ragtag army and wrote a declaration of the Republic of Lower Canada (a classic case of wishful thinking). But they happened to be anglophones.

"Most of les blokes here lined up on the side of the British," Falardeau said when his movie was released. "It's not my fault if it's not a nice story. There were people doing the hanging and other people being hanged."

The truth was a good deal more complex. Admittedly, no English- speakers were executed after the rebellion here - though 20 were hanged after the sister uprising in what would become Ontario, a province that has never seemed quite sure how to commemorate its own 1837-8 rebels. But the ranks of the Patriotes were by no means limited to francophones.

In fact, it might be a good thing for the French language that the uprising here failed. In all likelihood, the triumph of the militant Patriotes would quickly have led to the absorption of Lower Canada into the United States.

Which means, perhaps, that the potency of the Patriote rebellion - like that of the 1885 Metis uprising in western Canada - is intimately tied to its defeat. The Patriotes never compromised; they were never troubled by success; they never had to resolve their internal contradictions. Their symbolic power lies in the purity of loss.

Their triumph, in short, is permanent because it is also ambiguous. Lay flowers on their statue on Monday. Make of their struggle what you will.