Show honoring je mi 0 grand db pre B 2 OAH SCOTT WATSON other day several thousand people gathered in the little town of st la to participate in a ceremony which rolled back the pages of history to events that took place more than years ago the ceremony was the b statue and when it stood revealed there was recalled once more a great tragedy in american colonial history and one of the kenderest ten derest love stories in american literature the story of the quest of for her lover gabriel immortalized in a poem by wadsworth longfellow for the statue was a life size image of the famous maid of grand pre and most of those who had gathered there to pay her honor were her own people louisiana descendants of the eight benth century acadians Acad ians and a delaga lion of several hundred acadians Acad ians from moncton grand pre montreal and other canadian cities and towns who made a pilgrimage to this shrine for ibis occasion and who were also repaying a visit made by the louisiana acadians Acad ians to canada last year erecting the statue over the spot near the left wing of the old st martin catholic church in st where the real lies buried Is one of the steps in the project of establishing a national reservation there to be known as the longfellow national memorial park a public recreation center which will perpetuate the memory at the american poet and the acadian girl in particular and the acadians Acad ians their sufferings Buffe rings their romance and their faith in general the name of the real Evangel lne was emmerline labiche Lab tche the faithless gabriel was louis arceneaux Arcene aur and their life story Is a part of the tragic tale of the simple folk of awadla who were deported by british soldiery from their homes away back in 1755 the Acad Jans were french colonists who bad settled in what Is now nova scotia in and who lived a happy contented existence in their homes in the new world until caught in the maelstrom of world policies stirred up by the contest between england and france to decide which nation was to dominate the north american continent in the series of wars between the two countries which began in 1689 awadla was a pawn on the international chess board now held by the french and now by the british As for the acadians Acad ians themselves they were in the main neutral in tact they were often referred to in the official papers of the time as the neu aral french while the sympathies of most of them nd doubt leaned to ward their own countrymen and some of them supported the french cause for the most part they wished to be left alone in their peaceful pursuits ut farmers and fishermen in that year the british who then held awadla decided that the aca deans were an enemy encamped in the heart of the province and deter mined to get rid of them according ly this was done by methods which deem to have been unnecessarily harsh the principal responsibility for this rests upon the lieutenant governor of nova charles lawrence who was acting governor until the lords of trade in london should pick a sac to gov peregrine copson who bad resigned by harvest time jn 1755 the expulsion of the acadians Acad ians began when colonel monckton acting under law bences instructions gathered in of the inhabitants of colo pel john will live in history as the officer sent to the little all illge of grand arc on the shore of the eanon of manae arrived at grande pre on angast 19 september 2 colonel win blow lenued a proclamation informing th e people that the lieutenant cover W nor had a communication to impart to them the men were ordered therefore to appear in the church at grand pro at 3 in the afternoon of friday september 6 on that fateful friday a strange sight greeted the men as they filed slowly into the church that had been familiar to them from their youth stern faced soldiers with gleam ing bayonets and red coats guarded the door and in the middle of the church a table had been placed and around it other armed soldiers were drawn up As colonel entered attended by his staff a deep hush fell upon the people without any pro he proceeded to deliver his address in english immediately aft arward it was interpreted to the assemblage sem blage in french with the pronouncement of the ter elble words that your lands and tenements cattle of all kinds and live stock of all sorts are forfeited to the crown with all your other effects saving your money and household goods and that you yourselves are to be removed from this his majesty s province a murmur of anguish es the dumfounded dum founded Acad lans until aroused by the sharp corn mand of an officer the bewildered in habitants sat mute and staring as though unable to comprehend the gig of the fate they were con signed to recovering from the shock of words the Acad lans first thoughts were of their with whom they had no means of corn and who would not understand the reason for their detention after a lengthy conference colonel permitted the prisoners to choose 26 of their number to break the news to the families and to bring jn food for the prisoners they were to be held accountable for the behavior and safe return of the 20 an effort was made to keep families intact but a lack of transports the natural contusion and terror that nee followed s tears that his force greatly outnumbered by the Acad lans might be overpowered and the barrier of language all contributed to the separations that made the sufferings of the exiled Acad lans so tragic three ships the first to sail left the basin of alnas october 13 bound for maryland and vanla the last ship to leave awadla sailed southward december 20 to prevent any stragglers that escaped to the forests from finding a place of refuge squads of soldiers attend ed to the work of burning every house barn or building that would in any way furnish shelter in all from grand pre and other places more than 6 Acad lans were deported they were scattered in the english colonies from maine to georgia and in both france and eng land many died many helpless in new surroundings sank into decrepit pauperism gome reached people of their own blood in the french colony of louisiana and canada among those who came to ana was young louis arceneaux Arcene aur who had become separated from his sweetheart emmerline labiche and who settled on bayou a stream which winds in and out like a snake 88 hence its name which Is the indian term for snake here too ten years later came emmerline labiche who had been mourning the loss of her lover at last emmerline found him and tradition says that the meeting took place beneath the historic rvan geHne oak on the bayou where she learned that her faithless bover had married another there Is some variation in the ac counts ot how longfellow fame to write the story of lne according to one story it was nathaniel hawthorne who first gave the poet the bint of the romance which he wove into his poem under the date of october 24 1838 we find the fol lowing memorandum lo 10 hawthorne s american notebooks note books H L C heard from a french canadian a story of a young couple in on their marriage day all men of the province were summoned to assemble in the church to hear a proclamation when they assembled they were seized and shipped off to be distributed through new england among them the bridegroom his bride set oft in search of him wandered about new england all her lifetime and at last when she was old she found her bridegroom on his deat libed the shock was so great that it killed her likewise II 11 L C was horace lorenzo conol ly then a neighbor of hawthorne at salem he had been rector of st matthews protestant episcopal church in south boston but hawthorne was probably in error in stating that con oily obtained the story directly from a french canadian at any rate some time later haw thorne took conolly to allne with long fellow at cambridge during the din ncr the clergyman told longfellow that he had been trying in vain to get hawthorne to write a story based on an incident told him by mrs george M hallburton a former parl shoner who had formerly lived in nova ala conolly then related the story briefly longfellow said to hawthorne it yon really do not want this incident let me have it for a poem his friend willingly consented and lne was the result the other account and this la the one which you will hear in the acad lan country of louisiana Is that longfellow while he was an instructor at harvard was told the story by a handsome young acadian then a student at harvard edward simon later a judge in louisiana who had learned it from his friend judge felix judge had been told the story by his grandmother madame anne Basta who brought to the coun itry madame Basta died in 1830 at the age of it was madame Basta who told of bow labiche sprang forward with a glad cry when sh met ler former lover and of how tho faithless lover told her that he had married another and was happy on the lands of the ancient duke dabols blanc louis arceneaux set tied with his bride and there many of bis descendants live today the heartbroken girl madame Basta told her grandson lost her reason and until death came to her she wan dered about the banks of the tache gathering the water and weaving brides wreaths of them ro br wertera Wert tra fw paper unan km ia |