Honoré Beaugrand


Honoré Beaugrand was a French Canadian journalist, politician, author and folklorist, born in Berthier County, Quebec.
As a young graduate from military school Beaugrand joined the French military forces under General Bazaine in Mexico, supporting the ill-fated emperor Maximilian of Mexico. He returned with those troops to France after the fall of Chapultepec and Maximilian's execution. After some months he moved to New Orleans in 1868 and became a journalist. Subsequently, he wrote for U.S. newspapers in St. Louis, Boston, Chicago, and Lowell and Fall River, Massachusetts.
In 1878, he returned to Canada and founded the newspaper La Patrie in Montreal to take the place of Le National which had recently folded. It ceased publication in 1957, after 78 years. In August 1879 he acquired Le Canard from publisher and satirist Hector Berthelot. He made a name as a political writer and reporter, and in 1885 received the cross of the French Légion d'honneur.
He became a freemason in 1873 and took part in the foundation of Montreal Émancipation lodge in 1897.
He was elected mayor of Montreal in 1885. Today, a street in Montreal and the Honoré-Beaugrand station on the green line of the Montreal metro are named in his honour. He is most famous in Quebec for writing down the legend of the "Chasse-galerie", published in 1891 in La chasse galerie: légendes canadiennes, which also included "Le loup-garou," "La bête à grand’queue," "Macloune," and "Le père Louison."

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