ut poets are so
rare that even when one is caught young, his captors doubt his
species. The captors in this case determined to see whether Pegasus
could trot as well as gallop. "Transport yourself, little Frechette,"
they said, "to the Council of Clermont and be a troubadour." What is
time to the poet? He became a troubadour: but this was not enough; his
preceptors were still in doubt; they locked him in a room and gave him
as a subject the arrival of Mgr. de Laval in Canada. An hour passed;
the first sufferings of the young poet having abated, he produced his
verses. It was evident that Pegasus could acquire any pace. His
talent was questioned no more.

[Illustration: _MUSIC, SCIENCE AND ART._
Photogravure from a Painting by Francois Lafon.]

As he became older, Frechette had dreams of becoming a man of action,
and began to learn telegraphy at Ogdensburg; but he found the art too
long and life too brief. He went back to the seminary and contributed
'Mes Loisirs' (My Spare Hours) to the college paper. From the
seminary--the _Petit Seminaire_, of course,--he went to the College of
Ste. Anne, to Nicolet, and finally to Laval University, "singing, and
picking up such crumbs of knowledge as suited his taste."

In 1864 M. Frechette was admitted to practice at the bar of Quebec. He
was a poet first and always; but just at this time he was second a
journalist, third a politician, and perhaps fourth a barrister. He
began to publish a paper, Le Journal de Levis. It failed: disgusted,
he bade farewell to Canada, and began in Chicago the publication of
L'Observateur: it died in a day. He poured forth his complaints in
'Voix d'un Exile' (The Voice of an Exile). "Never," cries M. Darveau
in 'Nos Gens de Lettres' (Our Literary Workers), "did Juvenal scar the
faces of the corrupt Romans as did Frechette lash the shoulders of our
wretched politicians." His L'Amerique, a journal started in Chicago,
had some success, but it temporarily ruined Frechette, as the Swiss
whom he had placed in charge of it suddenly changed its policy, and
made it sympathize with Germany in the Franco-Prussian war.

Frechette's early prose is fiery and eloquent; his admirers compared
it to that of Louis Veuillot and Junius, for the reason, probably,
that he used it to denounce those whom he hated politically.
Frechette's verse has the lyrical ring. And although M. Camille Doucet
insisted that the French Academy in crowning his poems honored a
Frenc