Élève des jésuites, puis impliqué dans des mouvements sociaux et politiques, Pierre Dansereau a entretenu des relations avec des personnalités politiques et religieuses influentes de son temps. Sa volumineuse correspondance se compose de lettres échangées, entre autres, avec le secrétaire du premier ministre Mackenzie King, Harry Baldwin, l’ambassadeur du Canada au Liban, Paul Beaulieu, l’ambassadeur de France au Canada, Raymond Bousquet, le sous-sécrétaire de la province de Québec, Jean Bruchési, le premier ministre du Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, le premier ministre du Québec, René Lévesque, Thérèse Casgrain, Solange Chaput-Rolland, le maire de Montréal, Jean Drapeau, le premier ministre du Québec, Maurice Duplessis, le ministre Paul Gérin-Lajoie, le ministre Camille Laurin, le maire de la ville de Québec, Jean-Paul Lallier, André Laurendeau, Jean-Paul Lefebvre, le directeur du Jardin botanique de Montréal et maire de Montréal, Pierre Bourque, le sénateur Gérald A. Beaudoin, le chanoine Lionel Groulx et le cardinal Paul-Émile Léger
Extrait sonore : 1
Extrait d’une entrevue accordée par Pierre Dansereau à Elspeth Chisholm lors de l’émission radiophonique Memories of Henri Bourassa, 1962.
Production : CBC.
Université du Québec à Montréal. Service des archives et de gestion des documents.
Fonds d’archives Pierre-Dansereau, 22P6a/3.
Pierre Dansereau: So, I thought, here is my chance, this is an occasion, I won’t speak to Bourassa about French-Canadian nationalism but about European affairs. So I walked up tremulously and introduced myself, he didn’t throw me in the sea, he stopped and talked to me and began to tell me very kind things about the Kaiser and How badly misrepresented the Kaiser had been in this country, and How what a shame the treaty of Versailles was, and so on and so forth. These ideas, especially concerning the treaty of Versailles, unfortunately, we young men of Les Jeune-Canada were very much inclined to accept. But what he was really trying to do is to tell me, «Look here, boy, don’t worry too much, Dolphus has been assassinated, so what? This is a very small happening, this is not going to be earthshaking at all, this is part of what has gone on before. And let me tell you, what has gone on before is very much more important, and the mistakes that we have made in the past are responsible for Dolphu’s assassination». In other words, he may not have said it explicitly, it is we who have assassinated Dolphus. So I spent a half-hour talking to him, or getting him to talk to me – I must say that he talked down to me, and I didn’t mind that at all. I don’t think that in my life I have encountered too many men of his stature. I have met in the course of my scientific career in later years many great men who have influenced the thinking of the world in many ways, but I don’t think that I have often felt the feeling of reverence which I experienced on that occasion.