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During classical antiquity, the Greeks and Romans developed a patrimonial vision of nature and living things, arguing for the ontological superiority of humans over other species and a speciesist teleology. De facto, an intangible boundary seems to have been drawn early on. This dominant discourse tends to obscure the persistence in the minds of the Ancients of a porosity between humans and animals: the awareness of a deep kinship with other animals was, ultimately, difficult to completely erase. Perceptible through an original conception of the soul, it had consequences even in the definition of humanity and the way we looked at individuals and certain categories of humans, children and barbarians in particular. This porosity had ancient roots, some of which can be traced back to archaic Greece. The survey suggests that the break with other species was the result of a choice, of which the West is still the heir, and that what for a long time was merely a distance led to the creation of a frontier.

Keywords: Antiquité, porosité, frontière, identité, similarité, animalité, humanité, âme, Antiquity, Porosity, Frontier, Identity, Similarity, Animality, Humanity, Soul

Are they any animal topoi, or are they merely pre-existing topoi that include animals through anthropomorphisation? The aim of this paper is to extend Sator's reflections on the birdsongs of the fables, which are at once zoological observations, toposemes and typemes. The analysis will focus on the Roman de Renart, the Fables de La Fontaine and the Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux, three sets of short narratives in which the animals at the centre are sometimes the narrators. There are several reasons for this choice of texts: the variety of narrative situations and species represented, both wild and domestic, and a certain homogeneity in the ideological context of each work.After a preliminary survey of the first Satorbase, I will analyse the narrative and topical treatment of situations specific to animals (eating, noises, migrations) before observing the most frequent topoi (such as tricking the trickster, hunger, an assembly of animals chooses a king or a representative), their narrative configurations and any variations.This topical examination will provide an opportunity to consider the status of animals in society: do the topoi reflect these changes? do they incorporate new animals? are they influenced by the gradual emergence of pets in the bourgeoisie?

Keywords: zoopoétique, zoopoetics, fable, fable, Roman de Renart, Roman de Renart, La Fontaine, La Fontaine, topos, topos

On February 18, 1868, the Notre-Dame Parish Church in Montreal was the scene of one of the most imposing religious solemnities that had ever taken place in Canada. The occasion was the departure of the first detachment of Zouaves. In the church lavishly decorated for the occasion, a crowd of 15,000 people gathered, including four bishops and hundreds of priests come from all corners of the Province of Quebec. The celebration included appropriate addresses and a benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, but also a lengthy musical programme involving a brass band, an orchestra, and a chorus of over 200 participants. Three witnesses have given detailed accounts of the event, including the repertoire, the words of the music sung, and even the names of all the instrumentalists and singers. Thanks to them, we have a captivating close-up of an outstanding moment in the life of religious music in Montreal in the latter half of the nineteenth century. This episode in the history of the Zouaves has been the object of scrutiny by historians interested in its religious, social, and even political aspects, but its significance as a musical event has been overlooked. This article aims to fill this gap and bring to light what was an apex of musical life in Quebec at the time.

The notion of equality has a dual meaning in French and Quebec constitutional and quasi constitutional texts : a formal meaning, which establishes equality as a founding principle for the application of the rule of law ; a material meaning whereby equality is a purpose of the application of the rule of law. French and Quebec civil law judges do not accept this dual meaning of equality in the same way. For the French judge, equality is neither a founding principle nor a purpose of the civil rule of law : his treatment will differentiate between religious identities, by favouring those which are rooted in a « religion » and by denying those which stem from a « sect ». On the other hand, for the Quebec judge, equality is a founding principle and a purpose of the rule of law : while taking it upon himself to treat different religious identities equally, he will nonetheless recognize, on the basis of the right to equality, the possibility of favouring certain religious identities which are minorities on the nation's territory. In fact, the French judge's distrust of the difference between religious identities prompts him to control it by organizing a system of different cults, whereas the Quebec judge's wish to preserve the difference between religious identities, brings him to intervene in order to preserve it, while asserting and insuring the equal expression of each religious identity within society.