Claire

"For children, separation is hardly easy. The atmosphere of boarding schools seems quite strict compared to that of home. So they always look forward to Sundays, which are either visiting days or parlour days, depending on the case, with impatience. Certainly, the Légers are sometimes too busy to spend the day with their offspring. No matter, they are never far away. When they come to Saint-Hubert street, Claire and Jean-Pierre do puzzles and watch NFB films on television. Fortunately, in the summer, they spend wonderful holidays at their grandparents’ on Île Perrot. As they get older, they start attending cultural events: shows, exhibitions, museums. The Légers never refuse them any opportunity to enrich themselves intellectually. There are also ski weekends at Mount Sutton. Nothing lavish about these getaways. Claire makes sandwiches and takes her little brother down the slopes. Hotelier friends offer discounted lodging to the two teenagers. Never any pocket money or reckless spending. Even when their business prospers, the Légers prefer to let their children fend for themselves. Just because our parents own a rotisserie doesn’t mean we should have everything handed to us!"

"The very next day, the Léger family puts up for sale the furniture in good condition that they have left and permanently leave the apartment on rue Chambord, which the disaster has rendered uninhabitable. Parents and children move in with the bare minimum of furniture to the tiny dwelling located above the rotisserie. Its cost is already included in the lease. So no more additional rent to pay for a roof! Of course, this is far from living like royalty. The family squeezes into two rooms. The parents sleep in the living room. As for the children’s bedroom, its furnishings are limited to a bunk bed. The rest of the space serves… as a storage room. In any case, Claire and Jean-Pierre hardly have the leisure to complain about it. To avoid another tragedy, Hélène and René decide to send their offspring to boarding school: Claire to the convent of Saint-Lambert, Jean-Pierre to Eulalie-Durocher College. It is the best solution for parents who are very busy trying to bail out their business."

"Neither shock nor rupture in this decision made in agreement with her mother, but rather a happy event: the birth of her son in 1970. True to family tradition, the young mother preferred to devote herself entirely to the education of her offspring. Without diminishing this original motivation, another, more diffuse yet just as compelling, drives her to leave the St-Hubert fold. “Who would I be without the family business?” This is the question that has always haunted her. This project, which was her parents’ and which she inherited by default, shaped her childhood. But it suddenly became burdensome. Too simple, too predictable. Business? In truth, she fell into it when she was little, without really choosing. Hence this irrepressible need to break free, to go in search of herself and discover new horizons. She therefore followed her husband for two years to Toronto, then for fourteen months to Quebec City. Back in Montreal, she fulfilled her dream: to pursue a DEC in visual arts at Cégep du Vieux-Montréal. A recipient of a piano award, she took flute lessons—an easier instrument to carry. The artist within her had finally spread her wings. Claire was even about to start a bachelor’s degree in printmaking at Concordia University. But all this is now in the past, as she is back at the Pont-Viau headquarters. The rotisseries have finally caught up with her."

"Certainly, she never denied her humble origins. Even at the convent, Claire felt different from her classmates, all daughters of doctors, notaries, lawyers… Not that she really suffered from it, but she knew how to read between the lines: in the mind of this cautious French-Canadian elite, her father was a restaurateur, not a professional. Hadn’t her admission to the Sophie-Barrat school been refused because of her parents’ occupation? At the end of the 1950s, running a business and making profits was rather frowned upon in some very religious circles. All that wasn’t very Catholic. René Léger himself was not always very comfortable with this notion… If someone pointed out to him that his portions were too generous, that deliveries cost him a lot? He would invariably answer instantly: “No profit? It’s not a big deal! The important thing is to satisfy the customer…”"

"It was in this bright context that Claire and Jean-Pierre finally took their places at the head office. Their parents gradually stepped back to make way for their children. They always trusted young people. The same was true for their children. In any case, why would they worry? They were offering them a growing business “on a silver platter.”"