QUEBEC -- Quebec was in formal mourning over the weekend for the late former premier Jean Lesage whose funeral was to be held Monday at the Quebec City Cathedral.
Hundreds of mourners, led by Lesage's widow Corinne, paid their last respects Saturday to the premier who guided Quebec out of political dark ages into the modern era. Lesage's body lay in state through the weekend in the century-old National Assembly where he had served as premier from 1960 to 1966.
Accompanied by her three sons and daughter, Mrs. Lesage stood solemnly before the casket in the Victorian-style Red Room, formerly a legislative assembly hall. She broke down into tears when Liberal House Leader Gerard Levesque offered his condolences.
Two guards stood stiffly at attention on either side of the polished oak casket, which was surrounded by candles and flowers patterned after the symbol of the Quebec Nordiques hockey club.
The procession, a day after Lesage's unexpected death Friday, also included Deputy Premier Jacques-Yvan Morin, House Speaker Claude Vaillancourt, and former Liberal finance minister Raymond Garneau, once Lesage's press secretary.
A constant flow of more than 500 friends, relatives and other mourners filed past Lesage's casket within the first hour, a tribute to the esteem for the man credited with freeing Quebec from the shackles of a repressive, cleric-dominated society under Maurice Duplessis. Prior to his entrance into provincial politics, he had served 13 years both as an MP and a cabinet minister in the federal government.
A spokesman for Pierre Trudeau said the prime minister would attend Monday's state funeral but Premier Rene Levesque, who was a prominent member of Lesage's cabinet, said he would be unable to interrupt an official visit to Belgium and France.
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'There have been too many preparations, too many things planned,' Levesque said.
Levesque told reporters he believed that by continuing his present mission he was working for the future of Quebec in the spirit of Lesage.
He instructed the Vice Premier and members of the Quebec government to represent him at the funeral.
The premier was to meet next week with French Prime Minister Raymond Barre, who visited Quebec in February, 1978, in step with diplomatic exchanges between Quebec and France initiated by Lesage.
Barre expressed his condolences in a telegram to Morin.
'I learn with sadness of the death of Mr. Jean Lesage, the former premier of Quebec, under whose authority were signed the first agreements at the heart of a cooperation between France and Quebec,' Barre said.
Cardinal Maurice Roy, the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, will celebrate mass in Lesage's funeral.
The body of Lesage, who had been suffering from cancer of the larynx before his death at the age of 68, will be cremated.
