Influential though he was in the history of French-Canadian literature, Napoléon Aubin produced no literary books. His two books are chemistry texts related to his parallel career as an inventor and scientist. His literary bibliography consists of a few poems and short stories, most of the content of the satirical review Le Fantasque, and various articles published in the newspapers he edited. Although he never ran for public office his journalistic career made him influential in politics.

Although he married a French-Canadian Roman Catholic (Marie-Luce-Emilie Sauvageau) and raised his children in that faith, Aubin himself was a Swiss Protestant. Son of Pierre-Louis-Charles and Elizabeth Escuyer Aubin, he was born Aimé-Nicolas Aubin at Chêne-Bougeries in the suburbs of Geneva, and was baptized a Calvinist. The fact of his Swiss birth and upbringing was generally known, but his Protestantism was not common knowledge in...