Acadia

“ Acadia has no dangers. Even the Micmacs are tamed. The French and Indian wars are over."
"That reminds me,—please excuse me for interrupting,—you will find Digby, where you are going to-morrow, very tame compared with Pubnico."
"Pubnico?"
"Yes, Pubnico, a wonderful French village, with Acadians and descendants of the old noblesse, and with many interesting things that you'll miss altogether in your misguided course. Then we shall go to the deserted Loyalist town, Shelburne, which is full of history and haunted houses."
"You seem to have digested a whole guidebook, Fritz. ”

“ On the arrival of Razilly in that year most of the Scottish settlers went home, and the few who remained were soon merged in the French population.
For twenty-two years after this Acadia remained French, under the feudal sway of its overlords, Razilly, Charnisay, La Tour, and Nicolas Denys, the historian of Acadia. [Footnote: He wrote The Description and Natural History of the Coasts of North America. An edition, translated and edited, with a memoir of the author, by W. F. Ganong, will be found in the publications of the Champlain Society (Toronto, 1908) .] ”

“ As time went on the Acadians became impatient at the delay in settling the limits of Acadia. In vain they were annually told the boundaries would soon be determined, all negotiation proved fruitless. Those who had crossed the isthmus into what is now the County of Westmorland found themselves undecided as to their future course. Their inclination—a very natural one—seems to have been to return to the fields they had abandoned, but the Abbe Le Loutre urged them to remain under French rule as the only way of enjoying unmolested the privileges of their religion. ”

“ Every aspect of the place, the almost hidden ruins here and there, Evangeline’s well, the rough stone cross that marks the grave of a village, the virility of the bronze Evangeline, make real the pathos of this people now scattered broadcast through America, in whose souls the love of their country, Acadia, is as potent now as then. Neither time nor the Deportation have caused them to lose [Pg 18] their identity as a distinct people, for a quarter of a million in America are the same Acadians who went into exile from Nova Scotia from 1755 to 1763. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The entrance to the town was over a drawbridge, near which was a circular battery, mounting sixteen guns of fourteen-pound shot."
This cannon-studded harbor was the naval dépôt of France in America, the nucleus of its military power, the protector of its fisheries, the key of the gulf of St. Lawrence, the Sebastopol of the New World. For a quarter of a century it had been gathering strength by slow degrees: Acadia, poor inoffensive Acadia, from time to time, had been the prey of its rapacious neighbors ”

“ 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. ”

“ The guarantee to the Acadians of the freedom of their religion had entailed the presence in Acadia of French priests not British subjects, who were paid by the French government and were under the direction of the bishop of Quebec. These priests were, of course, loyal to France and inimical to Great Britain. Another source of influence possessed by the French lay in their alliance with the Indian tribes, an alliance which the missionary priests helped to hold firm. The fear of an Indian attack was destined on more than one occasion to keep the Acadians loyal to France. ”

“ Some day, when they grow up, they shall go to Paris."
"Have Acadians any real love for France?" asked Amy. "It is certainly a long, long time since their ancestors left it."
"Yes, indeed," replied Madame Bourque, "just as the Englishman always loves England, or the Irishman Ireland; they are still strangers in a strange land, though they must call the English Queen their queen," she concluded sentimentally. "Some Acadians go back to France to study, and some French boys come out to the college at Church Point, and one of them—ah, it is so romantic!—married an Acadienne a few years ago." ”

“ Oh, I know that Blomidon was his home, and Minas his beaver-pond, and Spencer Island used to be his kettle that he tipped upside down when he deserted Acadia, and two rocks there in the Bay were once his dogs that he turned to stone at the same time. He never was cruel, never grew old, and was never to die, and so I suppose that the Indians are looking constantly for him to come back and restore their own to them. ”

“ There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance.'"
Poor exiles! You will never see the Gasperau and the shore of the Basin of Minas, but if this very feeble life I have holds out, I hope to visit Grandpré and the broad meadows that gave a name to the village.
One thing Longfellow has certainly omitted in "Evangeline"—the wild flowers of Acadia. The [Pg 61] roadside is all fringed and tasselled with white, pink, and purple. The wild strawberries are in blossom, whitening the turf all the way from Halifax to Chezzetcook. You see their starry settlements thick in every bit of turf. ”

“ But whether considered from the standpoint of exploration or settlement, the first chapter of French annals in Acadia is a fine incident. Champlain has left the greatest fame, but he was not alone during these years of peril and hardship. With him are grouped De Monts, Poutrincourt, Lescarbot, Pontgrave, and Louis Hebert, all men of capacity and enterprise, whose part in this valiant enterprise lent it a dignity which it has never since lost. As yet no English colony had been established in America. ”

“ It isn't a remarkable story in any way, only they say that when the Acadians saw that they were prisoners, some of them managed to take down the bell and wall it up in one of the vaults under the church, while the church treasure was put in the other. Years afterwards, in the days of the English settlers, a strange vessel was seen in the Basin one night. People who passed this way thought they heard queer noises during the night, and in the morning the ground near the site of the old church was disturbed. ”

“ Opposition will avail thee nothing, and for thy grandfather and cousin it will mean suffering and privation beyond their wildest dreams. Every Acadian is rewarded according to his loyalty to the king and to the true church. Hitherto I have spared them, but it is I alone who have the ordering of their going, and of the new home to which they journey. The gran’-père is old, Margot more tender than is the habit of Acadian maidens, yet must the church not stay her hand when the saving of souls is in the balance. She must make example, she must discipline. ”

“ Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient, Acadian farmers.
Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes and their country,
Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and way-worn,
So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants descended
Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives and their daughters.
Foremost the young men came ”

“ This is a romance of the great expulsion of the Acadians which Longfellow first immortalized in "Evangeline." Swift action, fresh atmosphere, wholesome purity, deep passion, searching analysis, characterize this strong novel; and the tragic theme of the exile is relieved by the charm of the wilful demoiselle and the spirit of the courtly seigneur, who bring the manners of old France to the Acadian woods. ”

“ In fact, the simple confidence of the Acadians in the security of their guard seemed to be justified by circumstances. These six stout men wore armed; Zac and his followers were unarmed. All the floating craft in the Basin belonged to the Acadians, and all the settlements. For Zac to escape by water was scarcely possible, and to get off by land was not to be thought of. The nearest English settlement was many miles away, and to reach it he would have to run the gantlet of a population of French and Indians. ”

“ GRAND PRÉ. Finally the brakeman shouts "Grand Pree;" and Octavia remarks, "Yes, indeed, this is the grand prix of our tour," as the party step off the train at this region of romance. The gallant conductor, with an air of mystery, leads the way to a storage room in the little box of a station, and there chops pieces from a clay-covered plank and presents us as souvenirs. "Pieces of a coffin of one of the Acadians, exhumed at Grand Pré fourteen months ago, near the site of the old church," we are told ”

“ A Grand Pré Morning When I stepped off the wide grounds of Monsieur de Lamourie I was at the extreme eastern end of the village. How little did I dream that this fairest of Acadian towns was lying even now beneath the shadow of doom! I am never superstitious in the morning. Little did I dream how near was the fulfilment of Grûl’s grim prophecy, or how, in that fulfilment, Grand Pré was presently to fade like an exhalation from the face of this wide green Acadian land! ”

“ 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 ”

“ Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.
Part the First Canto I In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number. ”

“ Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the Acadian women,
Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore,
Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings,
Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and the woodland. ”

“ The able-bodied men and women toiled in the fields as reapers, and added to their income in the evening by making wooden implements. The Acadians were truly primitive in their methods. 'Although,' says a writer of the time, 'they tilled the soil they kept no animals for labour. The young men drew their material for fencing with thongs of sinew, and they turned the earth with a spade. ”

“ Plainness and simplicity of manners are the mainsprings of happiness, and he that wishes for what he may never have or acquire, must be miserable, indeed, and worthy of pity. Alas! that this simplicity of our Acadian manners should have already degenerated into extravagance and folly! Ah! the Acadians are losing, by degrees, the remembrance of the traditions and customs of the mother country, the love of gold has implanted itself in their hearts, and this will bring no happiness to them. ”

“ As the priest of God, he must conquer every earthly passion; the work to which he was dedicated yet remained unaccomplished, and the sins of his early life were still unatoned.
Thus he reasoned, blinded by the false dogmas of a superstitious creed; and the arguments of Madame de la Tour, the tears and entreaties of [Pg 264] Luciè, had been alike disregarded. The return of the priest, who usually officiated at the fort, was the signal for him to depart on a tour of severe duty to the most distant settlements of Acadia. Nothing could change his determination ”

“ If the Acadians can anywhere be seen in the prosperity of their primitive simplicity, I fancy it is in the parish of Vermilion, in the vicinity of Abbeville and on the Bayou Tigre. Here, among the intricate bayous that are their highways and supply them with the poorer sort of fish, and the fair meadows on which their cattle pasture, and where they grow nearly everything their simple habits require, they have for over a century enjoyed a quiet existence, practically undisturbed by the agitations of modern life, ignorant of its progress. ”

“ The French, having been there first, had taken possession of all the most eligible lands. The places to which emigrants would most wish to go were already filled up. Annapolis, and Grand Pré, and other places were occupied; and the English who wished to settle had to go to places which were far inferior. Besides this, the English wanted every man in the country to be an active assistant,—not a neutral. All these things combined to make the question of the Acadians a very troublesome one. ”

“ The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.’
“This season I’ve been studying these Acadian people. And I like them! They don’t like to be reminded that they’re Acadians. Well, that’s natural; the Creoles used to lord it over them so when the Creoles were slave-holding planters and they were small farmers. That’s about past now. The Acadians are descended from peasants, that’s true, while some Creoles are from the French nobility. But, hooh! wouldn’t any fair-minded person”—the horsemen [Pg 197] are within earshot; they are staring at the silk hat—“Adjieu.” ”