Rodolphe Girard is important as the author of the first satirical novel in Quebec literature, Marie Calumet (1904), which aroused considerable controversy at the time of its appearance and is now considered one of the best works of fiction produced in Quebec in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Girard was born in Trois-Rivières on 24 April 1879, the son of Louis Girard, a grocer and customs officer, and Marie Trottier Girard. He completed his elementary education in Trois-Riviéres with the Christian Brothers before moving in 1892 to Montreal, where he studied at the Académie Commerciale et Catholique and the Collége de Montréal. In 1899 he began work as a journalist for La Patrie, and the following year he was employed by La Presse.

His first published literary work was Florence (1900), which was serialized in Le Monde illustré (3 February-28 April 1900), bearing...