Pierre Lemieux is a French-Canadian professor, libertarian, and master literary stylist. In 2001, he penned "Confessions d'un coureur des bois hors-la-loi" (Confessions of an outlaw woodsman), to protest against the growth of oppressive, intolerant, anti-gun, anti-self defense laws in Canada. (Or as he says, "pretend laws"--an appellation that has been used for the "laws" of Vichy France.)

The book has recently been re-issued in electronic version by "Les Classiques des sciences sociales," which is one of the most important Francophone on-line social science publishers. I finished reading it yesterday, and I recommend it highly.

I have been studying Canadian firearms policy since 1986, so I was apprehensive that book would contain a recitation of various arguments with which I was already very familiar. Au contraire. The book is collection of passionate essays on the spirit of liberty, on the "Redneck of the North" culture of rural Quebec, and on the rising danger of the soft tyranny of the nanny state.

If you can read French at the high intermediate level or better, you will be able to enjoy the book. If you are highly proficient in French, you will especially appreciate Lemieux's beautiful writing--including the first chapter, in which he describes walking around his rural property, carrying his .223 carbine in violation of the pretend law. The best chapter imagines his meeting on Judgment Day with St. Peter, which begins with Lemieux remonstrating St. Peter for addressing him with impertinent informality ("tu").

I read Lemieux in French in the manner that many students used to read Cicero in Latin: to improve my language skills by carefully studying every word and phrase from a master of rhetoric, and to savor the pleasure of a brilliant writer animated by the deepest love of liberty. "Les Classiques" also has several other libertarian books written by Lemieux.