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We do not now, of course, know what was the condition of the surface of the River on this day of January two hundred years ago, but in any circumstances it would be better for travelling than the pathless woods, deep in drifted snow and choked with windfalls. There, too, on the River they enjoyed the shelter of it's banks, for French River to the head of the tide is just a deep gorge which the waters through the ages have cut in the soft, red sandstone, which now so plainly shows along its banks. Then, too, as they were going Southwest the wind was on their backs. Though the party had stopped long enough at Tatamagouche in the morning to repair its sledges and to be joined by other Acadians, it by five o’clock had reached the small Acadian village, which Beaujeau calls "Bacouel". Here the party was joined by two who were well known to the Tatamagouche Acadians. One was Girard, the Parish Priest at Cobequid, who as we have already seen frequently visited Tatamagouche and who was destined to follow his parishioners into exile for a time in St. John’s Island, and eventually to die in peace in his land of France; the other, Abbe Antoine Simon Maillard, of well deserved fame. Maillard had been a Priest since 1735 and at one time had his charge among the Indians of Cape Breton and of Antigonish. For a time he was at the Shubenacadie Mission. He exerted a powerful and benign influence over the Acadians and the Indians. Among his other labors he made scientific study of the Micmac language and wrote a Micmac grammer and dictionary. After the fall of Louisbourg, he used his influence to bring about a reconciliation between the British on the one part, and the Indians and the few Acadians who were left on the other part. Greatly honoured, he died in Halifax in 1768. But he was no prophet, and on this cold day of January 1747, as he walked the woods, his cassock and crucifix hidden by his heavy furs, he could not foretell that thirteen years later, he, as he approached his own dissolution, would seek the consolations of the offices of another Church and that his body was to rest at last with those of another faith and race. Back |
