Joseph Jules Léger (April 4, 1913November 22, 1980) was a Canadian diplomat and statesman who served as Governor General of Canada, the 21st since Canadian Confederation. Léger was born and educated in Quebec and France prior to starting a career in the Canadian Department of External Affairs, and eventually served as ambassador to a number of countries. He was in 1973 appointed as governor general by Queen Elizabeth II, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Pierre Trudeau, to replace Roland Michener as viceroy, and he occupied the post until succeeded by Edward Schreyer in 1979. As the Queen's representative, Léger was credited for modernising the office and fostering Canadian unity. On June 1, 1979, Léger was sworn into the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, giving him the accordant style of The Honourable. However, as a former Governor General of Canada, Léger was entitled to be styled for life with the superior form of The Right Honourable. He died on November 22, 1980. Youth and career Born in Saint-Anicet, Quebec, to Ernest and Alda (née Beauvais), Léger, along with his brother (and future cardinal), Paul-Émile, was raised in a devoutly religious family. After completing high school, Léger went on to the Collège de Valleyfield and then the Université de Montréal, where he completed a law degree. Léger subsequently enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris, from which he was awarded a doctorate in 1938, the same year that, on August 13, he married Gabrielle Carmel, whom he'd met at the University of Paris. The couple together had two daughters, Francine and Helene. When Léger returned to Canada at the end of 1938, he was hired as an associate editor of Le Droit in Ottawa, but remained there for only one year before he went on to become a professor of diplomatic history at the University of Ottawa until 1942. Simultaneously, Léger joined in 1940 the Department of External Affairs, and in just over 13 years received his first overseas diplomatic posting as Canada's ambassador to Mexico. After his retirement from that office on August 1, 1954, he returned to Ottawa to act as under-secretary of state for external affairs, until, on September 25, 1958, he was commissioned as ambassador and permanent representative to the North Atlantic Council, occupying that post until 5 July 1962, as well as the Canadian representative to the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation in Paris. Then,