After this first celebration, the newspaper La Minerve concludes that this holiday, the goal of which is to cement the union of Canadians will not be without fruit. It will be celebrated annually as a national holiday and can not fail to produce the happiest results. It is from this date that the national holiday of the old Canadians comes to correspond with the catholic feast of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, already well anchored in the tradition.
The festivities of Saint-Jean-Baptiste are very patriotic in Lower Canada thanks, among others, to the actions of Ludger Duvernay, who will become the first president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste. On June 24, 1834, O Canada was first sung! my country, my love of George-Étienne Cartier at a grand patriotic banquet gathering some sixty francophones and anglophones from Montreal in the gardens of the lawyer John McDonnell, near the old Windsor station. Several reformist politicians including Edmund Bailey O'Callaghan, Louis Perrault, Thomas Storrow Brown, Édouard-Etienne Rodier, Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine and Montreal Mayor Jacques Viger are present at this banquet.
This date is the religious holiday celebrating the birth of John the Baptist. From 1834, as a national holiday of French Canadians. Recognized as a holiday by the province of Quebec since 1926, the Parti Québécois sovereignist government declared it Quebec's national holiday in 1977. Since 1984, the Mouvement national des Québécois has been officially responsible for coordinating the festivities taking place in Quebec. June 23 and 24 of each year.
The Saint-Jean-Baptiste or Saint-Jean, is the national holiday in Quebec. Under the National Holiday Act, June 24 is a public holiday and non-working day in Quebec.
Saint-Jean-Baptiste
Following the uprisings of the Patriotes of 1837 and 1838 and subsequent military repression, the celebration ceased to be celebrated for several years. When it reappears, it is in the form of an essentially religious celebration, although the fires are always present. In Quebec City in 1842, it gave rise to a great religious procession, inaugurating the tradition of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Parade, promised to a long posterity. In 1843, Duvernay established the Association Saint-Jean-Baptiste, a charitable and patriotic society, for the celebration of the feast of that year in Montreal in 1843.
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