French citizen, Professor of comparative literature at Laval University, Quebec, from 1933 to 1949, Auguste Viatte was instrumental, with Marthe Simard and Elisabeth de Miribel, in founding the 'Comité de la France-Libre' in Quebec, probably the first in North America. His diary (1939-1949) helps to understand the difficulties to convince, from 1941, the French Canadian people to support General de Gaulle rather than Marechal Pétain. Published in two volumes, the diary benefits from the exhaustive introduction and footnotes written by Claude Hauser, Professor of contemporary history in the university of Fribourg, Switzerland.