Marie-André Duplessis (1687-1760) guided the Augustinian sisters at the
Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec - the oldest hospital north of Mexico - where she
was elected mother superior six times. Although often overshadowed by
colonial nuns who became foundresses or saints, she was a powerhouse
during the last decades of the French regime and an accomplished woman
of letters. She has been credited with Canada's first literary
narrative, Canada's first music manual, and the first book by a Canadian
woman printed during her own lifetime. In A Touch of Fire, the first
biography of Duplessis, Thomas Carr analyzes how she navigated, in peace
and war, the unstable, male-dominated colonial world of New France.
Through a study of Duplessis's correspondence, her writings, and the
rich Hôtel-Dieu archives, Carr details how she channelled the fire of
her commitment to the hospital in order to advance its interests,
preserve its history, and inspire her sister nuns. Duplessis chronicled
New France as she wrote for and about her institution. Her
administrative correspondence reveals her managerial successes and
failures, and her private letters reshaped her friendship with a
childhood Jansenist friend, Marie-Catherine Hecquet. Carr also delves
into her relationship with her sister Geneviève Duplessis, who joined
her in the cloister and became her managerial and spiritual partner. The
addition of Duplessis's last letters provides a dramatic insider's view
into the female experience of the siege and capture of Quebec in 1759. A
Touch of Fire examines the life and work of an enterprising leader and
major woman author of early Canada.
