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Reality set in early at Parti Québécois headquarters Monday night.

And when it did, a prolonged silence washed over the Montreal crowd. Few believed a PQ victory was possible, but the depth of their disappointment was clear just a half-hour after polls closed.

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That’s when the TV networks called a Coalition Avenir Québec majority. Party members fought back tears as they watched footage of CAQ Leader François Legault doing his victory lap.

Legault was once a proud PQ cabinet minister. Now he helped hand the PQ a crushing defeat.

“I need a drink,” one member muttered to another.

PQ president Gabrielle Lemieux tried to lift spirits at the downtown rally.

“We can be proud of this campaign,” she said. “You all have my admiration.”

Lemieux’s voice shook and her words were met with polite but sparse applause.

When leader Jean-François Lisée spoke at the last PQ rally just a few nights earlier, he asked the faithful to dream with him — to dream of Quebec as an independent, progressive utopia in North America. Even with polls clearly showing a PQ defeat, Lisée wanted his people to keep the faith.

By Monday, they weren’t dreaming anymore; they were just holding out hope that they could win 12 seats in the National Assembly — enough to preserve official party status. After analysts predicted Lisée would lose his Rosemont seat to Québec solidaire’s Vincent Marissal, people began to whisper about his successor.

Lisée made it official when he finally took the stage Monday night.

“The verdict in Rosemont puts an end to the greatest job I’ve ever had: the job of leader of the Parti Québécois,” he said.

And with that, the audience gasped.