probably purely political. The consequences were not
fully foreseen, that to get this support a price would have to be
paid--by the Liberals of the other provinces. Still less was it
foreseen that the overwhelming support of his own people would
become not only politically essential to Laurier but a moral
necessity as well--something which in time he felt, by an imperious
demand of the spirit, that he must hold even though this allegiance
became not a political asset but a liability. Gradually, perhaps
insensibly at first, in opposition possibly to his judgment,
certainly to his public professions oft repeated, he came to regard
it as necessary to so shape party policy as always to command the
approval of French-Canadian public opinion. Sir Wilfrid lived to
see, as the culmination of 20 years of this policy, the French and
the English-Canadians more sharply divided than they had been for 80
years. Such is the capacity of the human mind for self-deception
that he could see in this divergence nothing but the proof that his
life's work had been destroyed by envious and designing men.

THE FOUNDATION STONE OF POLICY

Quebec in turning Laurierite did not turn Liberal. This was the
factor hidden from the public eye that governed the future. The
Laurier sweep of Quebec in 1896 was the result of a combination of
the Bleu and Rouge elements. The old dominant French-Canadian party
had been made up of Bleus and Castors--factions bitterly divided by
differences of temperament, of outlook and belief, and still more by
desperate personal feuds between the leaders. When the coming of
responsible government broke up the solidarity of the French-Canadians
they separated into three groups, the controlling factor in each
case being religious belief. The Castors were ultra-clerical
and ultramontane; the Bleus inherited the tradition of Gallicanism;
the Rouges imported and adapted the anti-clericalism of European
Liberals. Various influences--the brilliance and resourcefulness of
Cartier's leadership and antipathy to Rouge extremism among them--kept
Bleu and Castor in an uneasy alliance. This alliance began to
disintegrate when Laurier rose to the command of the Liberals. There
was a steady drift from the Bleu to the Liberal camp--by this time
the old definition of "Rouge" was under taboo; and in 1896 the Bleus
moved over almost in a body. This was not an altogether instinctive
and voluntary movement; it was suggested, inspired, successfu