In the general election of 1896 the Liberal strategy had been to give the party managers in the English provinces an apparent choice of the best weapons, but with all these advantages the results showed that they had barely held their own. The majority came from Quebec where Laurier had apparently to face the heaviest odds. The natural inference was not lost upon Laurier. If he was to remain in power he must look to Quebec for his majority. A majority was necessary and he must get it where it was to be had. This decision was at first probably purely political. The consequences were not fully foreseen, that to get this support a price would have to be paid--by the Liberals of the other provinces. Still less was it foreseen that the overwhelming support of his own people would become not only politically essential to Laurier but a moral necessity as well--something which in time he felt, by an imperious demand of the spirit, that he must hold even though this allegiance became not a political asset but a liability. Gradually, perhaps insensibly at first, in opposition possibly to his judgment, certainly to his public professions oft repeated, he came to regard it as necessary to so shape party policy as always to command the approval of French-Canadian public opinion. Sir Wilfrid lived to see, as the culmination of 20 years of this policy, the French and the English-Canadians more sharply divided than they had been for 80 years. Such is the capacity of the human mind for self-deception that he could see in this divergence nothing but the proof that his life's work had been destroyed by envious and designing men.
Quebec in turning Laurierite did not turn Liberal. This was the factor hidden from the public eye that governed the future. The Laurier sweep of Quebec in 1896 was the result of a combination of the Bleu and Rouge elements. The old dominant French-Canadian party had been made up of Bleus and Castors--factions bitterly divided by differences of temperament, of outlook and belief, and still more by desperate personal feuds between the leaders. When the coming of responsible government broke up the solidarity of the French-Canadians they separated into three groups, the controlling factor in each case being religious belief. The Castors were ultra-clerical and ultramontane; the Bleus inherited the tradition of Gallicanism; the Rouges imported and adapted the anti-clericalism of European Liberals. Various influences--the brilliance and resourcefulness of Cartier's leadership and antipathy to Rouge extremism among them--kept Bleu and Castor in an uneasy alliance. This alliance began to disintegrate when Laurier rose to the command of the Liberals. There was a steady drift from the Bleu to the Liberal camp--by this time the old definition of "Rouge" was under taboo; and in 1896 the Bleus moved over almost in a body. This was not an altogether instinctive and voluntary movement; it was suggested, inspired, successfully shepherded and safely delivered.