Felix Voorhies

“ Many a one has suffered even more than we shall suffer and for causes less saintly than ours. Let us prepare for the worst, for to-day, we bid adieu forever, perhaps to Acadia, to our homes, to the graves of those we loved so well. We leave friendless and penniless for distant lands; we leave for Louisiana, where we shall be free to honor and reverence France, and to serve our God according to our belief. My good friends, we barely have the time to prepare ourselves; to-night, we must be far from St. Gabriel.’
“These words chilled our hearts. ”

“ Is it true, then, that the beloved of God are always visited by sore trials? Was it that Emmeline was too ethereal a being for this world, and that God would have her in his sweet paradise? It does not belong to us, petiots, to solve this mystery and to scrutinize the decrees of Providence; we have only to bow submissive to his will.
“Emmeline never recovered her reason, and a deep melancholy settled upon her. Her beautiful countenance was fitfully lightened by a sad smile which made her all the fairer. ”

“ Are you ready to accept these humiliating conditions, and to be branded as traitors and cowards?’
“‘Never,’ we answered; ‘never! Rather proscription, ruin and death.’
“‘My friends,’ he added, ‘exile is ruin; it is despair, it is desolation. Pause a while and reflect, before forming your resolve.’
“Not one of us flinched, and without hesitancy, we all cried out: ‘Rather than disown our mother country and become apostates, let exile, let ruin, let death, be our lot.’
“‘Your answer is noble and generous, my good friends, and your resolve is sublime,’ said he; ‘then let exile be our [Pg 57] lot. ”

“ Scars of a wounded heart never heal entirely, joy and happiness alone leave no trace of their passage, as you shall learn hereafter. But why should I speak thus to you? Soon enough you shall learn more from the teachings of grim experience, than from all the sayings and maxims, how wise and judicious soever they may be. ”

“ They pillage and burn our villages, and even lay sacrilegious hands on the sacred vessels in our churches. They tear the wives from their husbands, the children from their parents, and they drive their ill-fated victims to the seashore, and stow them on ships which sail immediately for unknown lands. They spare only such as become traitors to their Faith and to their King. They raided our village at dusk yesterday, and have perpetrated there the same wanton outrages and cruelties. ”

“ Gabriel that the English were landing troops in Acadia, whence came the rumor, no one could tell, and it would have been impossible to trace it to its source, and yet, uncertain as it was, it created considerable uneasiness in the community. Bad news travels fast, petiots, and it looks as if some evil genius took delight to despatch winged messengers to scatter the tidings broadcast over the land. ”

“ Ah! the child’s mind, like soft wax, is easily molded to sensations and impressions that never fade, while man’s mind, blunted by the keenness of life’s deceptions, can no longer receive and retain the imprints of those impressions and sensations. ”

“ When the moon rose, dispelling by degrees the darkness of night, we again pursued our journey. We made the least noise possible as we advanced cautiously, our fears and apprehensions increasing at every step. ”

“ Petiots, that was a sad day in the colony, and we all shed bitter tears. The brave young men that were sacrificing their lives so nobly, wept with us, but remained as firm as rocks in their resolve. We had, at last, realized the fact that the threatening ruin was frowning upon us, and that it had struck at our very hearts.
“On the day of their departure, the noble young men received the holy communion, kneeling before the altar, and they listened to the encouraging words of the old curate, while every one wept and sobbed in the little church. ”

“ During days and weeks, we had to march slowly and tediously through endless forests, cutting our way across undergrowth so thick, as to be almost impervious to light, brushwood where a cruel enemy might lay concealed in ambush to murder us, for we were now in the very heart of the Indian country, and the savages followed us, stealthily, day and night. ”

“ I repeat his very words, for as they fell from his lips with the solemn sound of a funeral knell, they became engraved upon my heart. ‘My good friends,’ said he, ‘our hopes were illusory and the future is big with ominous [Pg 56] threats for us. A cruel and relentless enemy is at our doors. The story of the wounded man is true, the English are applying the torch to our villages, and are spreading and scattering ruin as they advance. They spare neither old age nor infirmity, neither women nor children, and are tender hearted only to renegades and apostates. ”

“ Petiots, we often speak of a mortal [Pg 51] hour, but the hour that passed away while these men were holding counsel in the curate’s room, seemed to encompass a year’s duration. Our happiness, our all, our life itself, in fact, were at stake and turned on their decision, and we awaited that decision in dreadful suspense. At last our elders, accompanied by our old curate, sallied out of that house with sorrowful countenances, but with steady step and firm resolve written on their brows. ”

“ In Acadia, as we prized temperance, sobriety and simplicity of manners more than riches, early marriages were highly favored. Early marriages foster the virtues which give to man the only true happiness, and from which he derives health and longevity. ”

“ Is it necessary, petiots, that I should speak to you of our despair when thus torn from our relatives and friends, when we saw ourselves cooped up in the hull of that ship as malefactors? Is it necessary that I should describe the horror of our plight, our sufferings, our mental anguish during the many days that our voyage on the sea lasted?
“This can be more easily imagined than depicted. We were huddled in a space scarcely large enough to contain us. The air rarefied by our breathing became unwholesome and oppressive; we could not lie down to rest our weary limbs. ”

“ How fleeting is time, how swiftly does old age creep upon us with its infirmities. The curling smoke, dispelled by the passing wind, the water that glides with a babbling murmur in the gentle stream, leave as deep a mark of their passage as do the fleeting days of man. ”

“ We felt that none but noble causes lead to martyrdom, and we looked upon ourselves as martyrs of a saintly cause, and with a clear conscience, we lay down to sleep under the blue canopy of the heavens. ”

“ She called us “petiots” meaning “little ones,” and she took pleasure in conversing with us. My father remonstrated with her because she fondled us too much. “Mother,” he would say, “you spoil the children,” but she heeded not his words and fondled us the more. These details are interesting to none but myself, and I dwell, perhaps, too long upon them. Alas! I am an old man, reviewing the joys and [Pg 21] sorrows of my boyhood, and it seems to me that I have become once more a little child when I speak of days gone by, and when I recall the memory of those I loved so well and who are no more. ”

“ Emmeline, petiots, had been exiled to Maryland with me. She was, as I have told you, my adopted child. She dwelt with me, and she followed me in my long pilgrimage from Maryland to Louisiana. I shall not relate to you now the many [Pg 84] dangers that beset us on our journey, and the many obstacles we had to overcome to reach Louisiana; this would be anticipating what remains for me to tell you. When we reached the Teche country, at the Poste des Attakapas, we found there the whole population congregated to welcome us. ”

“ In spite of our anxiety and apprehensions, the peace and quiet of the colony remained unruffled. Alas! we had been lulled to security by deceitful hopes, and the storm that had swept along Canada, was about to burst upon us with unchecked fury. Our day of trial had dawned, and, doomed victims of a cruel fate, we were about to undergo sufferings beyond human endurance, and to experience unparalleled outrages and cruelties.”
Our grandmother, at this point, was overcome by her emotion and hung her head down. ”

“ After having told them to serve the king faithfully and to love God above all else, he gave them his blessing, while big tears rolled down his cheeks. Alas! how could he look upon them without emotion and grief? He had christened them when they were mere babes; he had watched them grow to manhood ”

“ My Grandmother’s
Narrative She Depicts Acadian Manners
and Customs
Petiots,” she said, “my native land is situated far, far away, up north, and you would have to walk during many months to reach it; you would have to cross rivers deep and wide, go over mountains looming up thousands of feet, and beneath impending rocks, shadowing yawning valleys; you would have to travel day and night, in endless forests, among hostile Indians, seeking an opportunity to waylay and murder you.
“My native land is called Acadia. ”

“ Awed into admiration, mingled with reverence, for her noble sentiments and for the ardent love she still cherished for her lost country, we gazed upon her in silence, and understood now why it was that she always wept when she spoke of Acadia. Having mastered her emotions, she brushed away her tears and resumed her narrative as follows.
“Petiots,” she said in a sweet sad tone, “your grandmother always weeps when [Pg 47] the remembrance of her sufferings and of her wrongs comes back to her heart. She is an old woman and her tears soothe her grief. ”

“ But to carry out this plan, petiots, we had to travel thousands of miles through a country barren of civilization, through endless forests, and across lakes as wide and deep as the sea; we were to overcome obstacles without number and to encounter dangers and hardships at every step, and yet we remained firm in our resolve. ”

“ The old people not over active and strong, like your grandmother,” she would add with a smile, “together with the infirm and invalids, braided the straw with which we manufactured our hats; so that you see, petiots, we had no drones, no useless loungers in our villages, and every one lived the better for it. ”

“ Petiots, war, with its train of evils and of woes, is always a terrible scourge, and it was but natural that we should ponder mournfully on its consequences and dread the future. England had enlisted hundreds of Indians in her armies, and we knew that the bloodthirsty savages spared no one, and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on their prisoners ”

“ The men tended the flocks and tilled the land, and while they plowed the fields, the boys followed them step by step, goading on the work-oxen. The wives and daughters attended to the household work, and spun the wool and cotton which they wove and manufactured into cloth with which to clothe the family. ”

“ Thus it was, petiots, that we settled in Maryland after leaving Acadia.
“Three years passed away peacefully and happily, and during the whole of that time, the Smith and Brent families remained our steadfast friends. Our party had prospered, and plenty smiled once more in our homes. We lived as happy as exiles could live away from the fatherland, ignorant of the fate of those who had been torn from us so ruthlessly. In vain we had endeavored to ascertain the lot of our friends and relatives, and what had become of them; we could learn nothing. Many parents wept for their lost children ”

“ The plan suggested by them was adopted, and the men of our party, aided by our Canadian friends, felled trees to build a suitable boat.
“There, petiots, a great misfortune befell us. We experienced a great loss in the death of Rene Leblanc, who had been our leader and adviser in the hours of our sore trials. Old age had shattered his constitution, and unequal to the fatigues of our long pilgrimage, he pined away, and sank into his grave without a word of complaint. He died the death of a hero and of a Christian, consoling us as we wept beside him, and cheering us in our troubles. ”

“ Ten of the bravest and most active of our young men took the lead a short distance ahead of the column, and formed our advance guard. Our forces were distributed in this wise, petiots, for our safety, as the road lay through mountain defiles, and in a wild and dreary country inhabited by Indians. ”

“ They have driven its inhabitants to the seashore like cattle, and when through sheer exhaustion, one of their victims fell by the road side, I have seen the fiends compel him with the butts of their muskets, to rise and walk. ”

“ If this be true, does not a kind Providence suggest to us, in this wise, the wisdom of molding the child’s mind and intelligence with the fostering care of parental solicitude, that he may become [Pg 18] an upright man, a good citizen and a reproachless husband and father. ”