seat in the House as member for that Constituency. He presented himself for re-election at the general elections, which took place in 1852, but this time, his opponent, M. Chapais, headed the poll, and M. Letellier was left without a seat. It may be noticed, in passing, that nowhere in the Lower Province are the lines of party more finely drawn than in the County of Kamouraska. This has been the case ever since the Union of the Provinces in 1841. A local writer who is well acquainted with the state of political feeling there, recently recorded that "the people of this fine agricultural constituency guard their allegiance to their party-leaders almost as scrupulously as their adhesion to their articles of faith, and defections from the ranks of either political party in Kamouraska are therefore of very rare occurrence." Up to this day the inhabitants of the County are in the habit of speaking of their neighbours as "un Chapais" or "un Letellier" —meaning that the person referred to is an adherent of the Chapais or the Letellier faction, as the case may be. For more than twenty years, and in many an election contest, the fight was maintained between the leaders of the two parties, the present Senator Chapais on the one side, and the subject of this sketch on the other. The conflict was always close, and always carried on with much bitterness.
At the general election of 1857, M. Letellier was again compelled to endure defeat. Three years later he offered himself as a candidate for the Legislative Council for the Grandville Division, which includes the County of Kamouraska, His candidature on that occasion was successful, and he continued to sit in the Council until the Union. In the month of May, 1863, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture in the Sandfield Macdonald-Dorion Government, and upon presenting himself before his constituents he was re-elected by acclamation. This position he held until March, 1864, retaining meanwhile his seat in the Legislative Council. In May, 1867, he was called to the Senate, by royal proclamation, for the Division of Grandville. During the next five or six years he was leader of the Opposition in the Senate. The abolition of dual representation not having then been effected he was induced in February, 1869, to offer himself as a candidate for election to the Quebec Assembly for the County of Kamouraska, and in 1871 for the County of L'Islet. He was unsuccessful in both these contests, but on each occasion the majority against him was very small, owing to the close division of
