Institut canadien de Montréal

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The Institut canadien de Montréal was founded on December 17, 1844, by a group of 200 young liberal professionals in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Institute was a public library and debating room for the literary and scientific society that would later come into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church.

The Institute was the source of the ideas defended by the Parti rouge. Its motto was: Justice pour nous, justice pour tous; Raison et liberté pour nous, raison et liberté pour tous (Justice for us, justice for all; reason and liberty for us, reason and liberty for all).

The library contained literary works by French romantic authors such as Victor Hugo and Alphonse de Lamartine and Enlightenment authors such as Voltaire and Diderot whose writings were judged immoral by the Catholic Church. At the time, there were no French language university nor public library in Montreal.

In 1858, Mgr Ignace Bourget gave the order to refuse to give sacrements to catholic members of the Institute. In 1869, Bourget refused to let typographer Louis-Joseph Guibord be buried in the Côte-des-Neiges Catholic cemetery because he was a member of the Institute. The Institute decided to bring the case to court.

Guibord was eventually buried in Côte-des-Neiges after the Privy Council of London ruled in favour of the Institute in the Guibord case.

The library suffered the censorship of the Catholic clergy of Quebec in 1868. The Institute closed the doors of its debating room in 1871, and the library closed in 1880. Only the Institut canadien de Québec survived the censorship by getting rid of certain works listed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Catholic Church.