A Life in Journalism and Diplomacy - Fulgence Charpentier

Fulgence Charpentier

Section 38, Grave 63

Fulgence Charpentier was born in Saint-Anne-de Prescott, Ontario on June 29, 1897. Over the course of his long and full life he had a wide variety of jobs, including diplomatic, political and bureaucratic positions. But his first love was journalism.

He started working at Montreal’s Le Devoir at the age of 18. Along with many other young men of his generation, Charpentier joined the Canadian Forces in 1918, but the war ended before he could be sent overseas. He stayed in the army after the Armistice to work in a military hospital on the campus of McGill University in Montreal.

After leaving the military in 1922, Charpentier moved to Ottawa, where he began covering Parliamentary affairs for Le Droit. He ended up becoming the longest-serving member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Charpentier’s early stories on the then-unilingual English environment of Parliament were believed to be instrumental in getting federal authorities to increase the visibility of French in the Canadian public service.

Over the course of his career, he also wrote for Montreal's La Presse and Quebec's Le Soleil. Charpentier also headed the Canadian Censorship Board during most World War II.

After the war ended, he joined the Department of External Affairs in 1947 and spend the next few decades abroad, first as a cultural attaché and finally as an ambassador. His foreign affairs resume included serving as a media spokesman for ambassador Georges Vanier in Paris and working as a diplomat from 1946 until 1968 in some francophone African nations and South America. While serving in Africa, Charpentier met Dr. Albert Schweitzer and became an advocate for his work.

A few years after returning to Canada, Charpentier was appointed Editor-in-chief of Le Droit. In 1978, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Officer in 1998. Charpentier retired at the age of 71, but continued to write a weekly column on international politics for Le Droit for the next thirty years. It was only then, at the age of 101, that ill health finally forced Charpentier to put aside his trusty typewriter.

He passed away on February 6, 2001 at the age of 103.