but I found a better site for the complete history of our plaque in Encyclopedie de l'Agora by the Directeur des etudes documentaires de l'Assemblee nationale, Quebec

http://agora.qc.ca/reftext.nsf/Documents/Quebec_-_Etat--LA_D...

En 1976, le Parti québécois, favorable à la souveraineté du Québec, était porté au pouvoir. Deux ans plus tard, la phrase Je me souviens était inscrite sur les plaques d'immatriculation de la Belle Province. Il en est résulté une controverse qui dure toujours.

The controversy surrounding "Je me souviens" is still raging, I take it.

But they can't remember what it is they are supposed to be remembering. Some say the phrase was coined by a famous Quebecker who is supposed to have said “I remember that I was born under the lily of France but raised under the rose of England.” The alternative theory holds that as the smoke of battle cleared from the Plains of Abraham on Sept. 13, 1759, to reveal that General James Wolfe’s British forces had routed those of Marquis de Montcalm, smashing forever the dream of New France, a despairing French voice was heard to cry out “Je me souviens.”
Actually, that is improbable. The despairing voice would have cried “I will always remember,” or “I will never forget,” not “I remember” in the present tense. So the mystery remains. What exactly are Quebeckers remembering?


for an article in English