representative at Ottawa. Disappointment among the Liberals led
first to rage and then to rage plus fear as Tarte with the magic
wand of the patronage and power of the public works department,
began to make over the party organization in the province. Open
rebellion under François Langelier broke out in December: "A
coalition with Chapleau," Langelier informed the public, "is under
way." But the rebellion died away. The Laurier influence was too
strong. Langelier was quite right in his statement. The coalition
movement at that time was far advanced. The letter from Chapleau to
Laurier, bearing date February 21, 1897, quoted by Professor
Skelton, was that of one political intimate to another. Take this
paragraph as an illustration: "The Castors in the battle of June
23rd lost their head and their tail; their teeth and claws are worn
down; even breath is failing for their cries and their movements and
I hope that before the date of the Queen's jubilee we shall be able
to say that this race of rodents is extinct and figures only in
catalogues of extinct species." The reference to the coming
extinction of the Castors had relation to the then pending
provincial elections as to which he made certain references to
political strokes which "I am preparing." Associated with this
Laurier-Tarte-Chapleau triumvirate was a fourth, C. A. Dansereau,
nominally postmaster of Montreal, actually the most restless
political intriguer in the province of Quebec. Dansereau had been
the brains of the old Senecal-Chapleau combination which had
dominated Quebec in the eighties. Just what Laurier thought of the
company he was now keeping was a matter of record for he had set it
forth in a famous article in L'Electeur in 1882 entitled "The Den of
Thieves," which led to L. A. Senecal, the Bleu "boss," prosecuting
him for criminal libel. Laurier stood his trial in Montreal, pleaded
justification, and after a hard fought battle won a virtual triumph