ASA Annual meeting

"When you say to a tree: How beautiful you are, it is then that it looks at its roots."

Yes! what an impressive tree it was given to me to meet on this day of October 31, 1992, which commemorates the 320th anniversary of the union of François Séguin and Jeanne Petit, "these generators of a new civilization." What a privilege I have. I had to be able to contemplate this magnificent tree in its entirety! As much as I was able to vibrate with admiration in front of the deployment of its generous foliage that Saturday (beyond 450 Séguin well in bloom!), as much as I could feeling emotion and pride in realizing my distant roots - knowledge in the sense of "co-birth" ("to be born with").

When you experience the feeling of being an island lost if not drowned in the anonymous crowd of big cities, it is vital to discover the links that bind us to any continent. When we find it, we are less adrift. It reassures. This continent, I found it on October 31st.

Of course, I expected to meet a lot of Séguin. Imagine: "Gathering members of the Association of Séguin d'Amérique", it is impressive! But it was only an abstraction before I went there. It was enough that I set foot there for everything to make sense. As soon as I walked through the Polyvalente de Mortagne gate, I found myself in the concrete. I began to hear myself called out at all times, to the left, to the right, from behind, everywhere at the same time. Monsieur Séguin here, Monsieur Séguin there. Every time we said that name, I jumped. To realize, quite astonished, that it was not me that one called but another, or another or still another.

There were Séguins everywhere. There at the registration table. Over there around the coffee maker. At the back, on the left, at the macaroons, cups and sweaters sales counter: Madames Séguin. "Hey Séguin!" I jump again without being able to get used to it. Cousins, cousins, by the dozen, by the hundreds! As Alphonse Daudet would say: “It looked like there were ten Monsieur Séguin's goats in the mountain.” Ten? Correction Monsieur Daudet: there were 450 goats of Monsieur Séguin in Mortagne (even the name of the school where we met was suitable) ...

And smiles and exclamations and surprises and bursts of laughter.
- Monsieur Séguin I presume?
- Yes, yes, of the same lineage as you, my dear.
- Said Ladéroute?
- Of course!
- So we are from the same lineage?
- Yes, yes, especially with the acute accent on my "é" by Séguin.
- And me with the dot on my "i" ...

And I embrace Patricia from Ottawa where I myself was born. I shake hands with our treasurer Raymond # 2 from Boucherville, our president Yolande whom I call "my aunt" and another Raymond, son of Armand, from Greenfield Park in whom I discover a real little brother who is almost twin so much our characters, our tastes and our interests are alike. And then Walter from Hudson who has just returned from a trip to Nashville and who talks to me nostalgically about the days when he played the guitar.

Too ! Marie-Claire whom I embrace with affection and who discreetly signs an autograph for my daughters Emmanuelle and Geneviève. There is my close cousin Lucette, daughter of the late Ivanhoe, whom I had not seen for thirty years! And it "quibbles" everywhere. It comes from all over the country and even from states. And in each, each, I find myself.

I, who had woken up that morning in a gloomy mood, saw myself a few hours later propelled into high spheres of energy and intense palpitations. I would have liked to have broads like the world to embrace all that kinship. The hours went by too quickly.

How do I find the time to tell them that I love them all without even knowing them? And yet I know them by the blood which flows in them, which gushes in them, in all of you and all dear cousins. This blood coming from the same source which does not stop leaping in the countryside, villages, towns, provinces ... And I proudly wear my white and blue macaroon with its little fleur-de-lis and its superb weaver's comb, noble profession of my ancestor François.

Let's talk about it that impressed me this François Séguin from Picardy and embarked, the head and the heart full of dreams and adventures, on a tall ship that left La Rochelle in 1665. At first courageous soldier, he traded his noisy gun for a silent weaver's comb. Ah! As I am explaining here this need for action but also for peace which the Séguins have inherited from him. Simplicity. Sweetness. All this spread among all his descendants.

How beautiful our ancestor went down to the church on the central aisle with his bride Jeanne Petit on his arm! Their love consecrated at the foot of the altar in front of three celebrants (named Séguin) was going to give these innumerable and tasty fruits that we are.

Standing, almost behind the magnificent Sainte-Famille church in Boucherville, I watched this collected crowd, seduced by this mass sung in Latin as in the past. I was as moved as I was at the midnight masses of my childhood. Communion took on a meaning and dimension that I had long forgotten. As well as the exchange of "the Peace of Christ" transmitted from bench to bench to the back of the church. At the time of the Memento of the Dead, we, the branches of an ever-growing tree, prayed for our roots. Funny tree whose branches are on the earth and its roots in the sky!

And it was not over! Like any self-respecting gathering, the day ended with fraternal feasts. A real family New Year's Eve. In order not to envy those who could not take part in this day, I will ignore the impressive menu of the banquet. The radio-Canadian voice of Normand Séguin, who had charmed us all day long, made us thrill, especially during the draw for ten bottles of 'Château de Seguin' after the singers of the Théâtre lyrique de Boucherville generously entertained the guests.

How can we forget the ovations reserved for Ms. Yolande Séguin-Pharand and her husband as well as our treasurer Raymond for the immense work accomplished. Thanks to them and of course to the support provided, thanks to their generosity and their love, the party was a success all around. Our association owes them life. It has become this magnificent tree which has not finished extending its branches.

Let me tell you that the other night, my guardian angel, who was coming back from a short weekend spent up there, whispered to me that our ancestor François, well seated on his cloud, had benefited on the 31st. last October of an additional and rather rare beatitude in heaven. It appears that the Eternal Father would have granted François and his beautiful Jeanne to add other, many other branches to the Séguin family tree ...