Until November 30, 2025

Already acclaimed by the public in Quebec City and Montreal, the René and Lévesque exhibition offers a sensitive and nuanced portrait of the man behind the public figure.

Thanks to a corpus of largely unpublished objects and archives, many of which have been loaned by citizens in response to a call for objects, the public will have access to an intimate facet of the man who profoundly marked Quebec's contemporary history.

Because, beyond the politician, what do we really know about him? Younger generations know very little about his career as a journalist, war correspondent for the US army and the milestones of his rise in politics. And few Quebecers know about his tumultuous childhood and adolescence and his leap into adulthood as a different, ultra-bright, cheeky young man. René and Lévesque is the meeting of the private man and the public man, and through these crossed reflections, the lesser-known face of the man whose social, political and cultural legacy still colours Quebec society.

The presence of this exhibition in Gaspésie has a strong symbolic significance: it is here, in New Carlisle, that it all began. From his first letters written from the Séminaire de Gaspé to his early days behind a microphone at CHNC, René Lévesque's footsteps can still be seen here. The Musée de la Gaspésie is proud to offer the local population, as well as visitors passing through, the chance to experience this unique encounter between the national memory and Lévesque's Gaspé roots.

An exhibition created by the Musée de la civilisation in collaboration with the Fondation René-Lévesque and with the financial participation of the Governments of Quebec and Canada.

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