Editing Marcel Chaput (section)

=== Family and education ===
Marcel Chaput was born in [[Hull, Quebec|Hull]], [[Quebec]] on October 14, 1918.<ref group=A name="Côté, chap. 1">{{harvsp|Côté|1979|loc=chap. 1}}.</ref> His mother was Lucia Nantel, and his father, Narcisse Chaput, was a proofreader at Her Majesty's Printer in Ottawa.<ref group=A name="Chaput, p. 253">{{harvsp|Chaput|2007|p=253}}.</ref> He was the youngest child and sole boy in a family of seven children. He did not know three of his sisters, who died at a young age. The three sisters he knew were Rolande, Gabrielle and Madeleine.<ref group=A name="Chaput, p. 253" /> He was ten years old when his sister Rolande, 16, died of [[sepsis]].<ref group=A name="Côté, chap. 2">{{harvsp|Côté|1979|loc=chap. 2}}.</ref>

After doing his primary schooling at École Lecomte, he entered the [[Collège Notre-Dame de Hull]]. He was enrolled in the cadet corps of his college. One of his teachers, Brother Ernest, led him to an interest in science. From that time he cherished the dream of being a chemist.<ref group=A name="Côté, chap. 2" /> In 1934, he joined the Groupe Reboul<ref group="B">Named in honour of father [[Delisle Reboul]].</ref> of the [[Association catholique de la jeunesse canadienne-française]].

In September 1933, he left his college in Hull and registered at the ''High School'' of the [[University of Ottawa]], an institution which he left only two years later to enter, in September 1935, the [[École technique de Hull]] which trained chemistry laboratory technicians at the time. He stayed there until graduation in 1939.

Chaput claims to have become a partisan of the independence of Quebec as part of the Groupe Reboul while preparing for a public debate on the subject of ''separatism''. He and his team member Jacques Boulay had to argue ''for'' separatism in a debating contest against two comrades, Roland Dompierre<ref group=B>Father of famous Quebec musician [[François Dompierre]].</ref> and Réal Denis. His team lost the debate held on December 10, 1937, but the readings he did to learn about the subject (''Séparatisme, doctrine constructive'' by [[Dostaler O'Leary]], old issues of the paper ''La Nation'' by [[Paul Bouchard]], history books on the Patriots of the 19th century) convinced him of the merit of the idea in itself. He considered that he and the other pioneers of the contemporary movement for the independence of Quebec did nothing but update an idea that goes back to the British conquest of French Canada in 1760.<ref group=A name="Côté, chap. 5">{{harvsp|Côté|1979|loc=chap. 5}}.</ref>