Canadian statesman. Father of Confederation. A native of Rivière-Ouelle (Québec), he studied first in his hometown, then at the college in Nicolet and at the Minor Seminary of Québec. In 1833, he became, like his father, a merchant in the Saint-Denis area, near the town of Kamouraska. As administrator, he served on the board of the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1840, he took charge of the construction of the parish church of Saint-Denis-de-la-Bouteillerie, after having worked to obtain the canonical and civil erection of the parish. He became involved in the school and municipal administration in Saint-Denis and was elected its first mayor in 1845. He was also its first postmaster in 1849. His entry into politics came in 1851 with his election for the Kamouraska riding in the Legislative Assembly of Canada. He was re-elected in 1854, but the election was cancelled on November 29 of that year. He aligned himself with the Reformists. He was officially reelected in Kamouraska with a by-election held on January 30, 1855. His mandate was renewed in 1858, 1861 and 1863. He was aligned then with the “Bleus”. On March 30, 1864, he was named Commissioner of Public Works in the Taché-MacDonald administration and held the same office up to July 1, 1867, in the Belleau-Macdonald coalition government that followed. It was frequently the custom in Canada in the early days of Confederation for men to occupy seats in both a provincial legislature and in the federal parliament. So in 1867, after having been named Canada's first minister of Agriculture, he won election in the Quebec house for the Champlain riding and sought election in the Kamouraska federal riding. The Kamouraska result was indecisive and "no election" was declared. The following year, he was named to the Senate for the division of La Durantaye and continued to hold his Agriculture portfolio until 1869 when he became Receiver-General. He kept that post until the fall of the Macdonald government in the railroad scandal of 1873. As a Conservative member, he continued to be active in the Senate until his death in Ottawa. He is frequently ignored by reference and history books which devote considerable space to the legal-political-literary career of his son, Sir Thomas Chapais.