Subseries

This subseries focusses on Denis-Benjamin Papineau's personal correspondence, primarily chronicling his relationships with various members of his family. The documents in this subseries also reflect certain social and cultural aspects of the first half of the 19th century.

There are various letters discussing the health of Denis-Benjamin Papineau's friends and family, his business affairs, his errands in Montreal on behalf of his family, his daughter Agathe Honorine Papineau's wedding to Dr. Dennis Sheppard Leman, and this son-in-law’s death in 1846 and the aftermath. Some letters illustrate the dilemma Papineau faced when selecting a husband for his daughter, whose affections wavered between her cousin Louis-Antoine Dessaulles and Dr. Leman, a Protestant. In her letter of July 8, [1837?], his daughter asks him to choose between the two suitors. Other missives shed light on Denis-Benjamin Papineau's activities as the seigneurial agent for La Petite-Nation and, in the 1840s, there are accounts of the distress he experienced during his tumultuous political career as a member of the assembly and minister in the Parliament of the Province of Canada. His letter to Dennis Leman dated December 13, 1844, notes that he was sometimes accused of being "a traitor to [his] country." Several letters chronicle the anxiety of caring for an ill child and some of the traditional remedies used, such as applying sheep tallow to the chest of a boy with a cold (letter from Julie-Séraphine Aurélie Papineau, November 18, 1846).

The subseries primarily contains letters Papineau received from his wife Angélique Louise Cornud, his daughter Agathe Honorine Papineau, his sister Marie Rosalie Papineau Dessaulles, his father Joseph Papineau, his cousin Séraphine Truteau, his son-in-law Donald George Morison (husband of Marie Angélique Rosalie Papineau), and his daughter Julie-Séraphine Aurélie Papineau, who included with her letter a "list of perspective engravings" (probably perspective views or vues d'optique) of sites in Europe, notably in Paris. Three letters from Denis-Benjamin Papineau—one to his widowed aunt Le Cavalier, his son-in-law Dennis Sheppard Leman, and Joseph Leman, the latter's father—are also part of the subseries. In his letter to the elder Mr. Leman, Papineau pays a special posthumous tribute to his son-in-law. The letters were most often sent from La Petite-Nation, Saint-Hyacinthe and Montreal, and occasionally from Saint-Denis, Yamaska and Île à Roussin.