Jeanne Dugas of Acadia

by Cassie Deveaux Cohoon

  Much of Île Royale was rocky, with a thick forest cover. It was easy to see why most Acadians did not want to sacrifice their prosperous farms for this undeveloped land, and there were no salt marshes that could be converted to fertile farms as had been done in Acadia.

  Of course there was no time for fussing. The Dugas were welcomed and sheltered by the few people already in Port Toulouse. A simple dwelling was quickly erected and they unpacked the belongings they had brought with them from Grand-Pré. Finding his young wife in tears at the end of their first week in Port Toulouse, Joseph Dugas promised her that one day he would provide her with a home she would be proud of.

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  This southwest coast of Cap Breton had once been a strategic area for the French authorities, and after 1713 they quickly sought to re-establish a settlement there, which they named Port Toulouse. It was the closest habitation to the now-British territory of Nova Scotia, making it important from a military standpoint.

  The area was well known to the Mi’kmaq, who called it Potlotek. For centuries the Mi’kmaq had portaged their canoes over a narrow isthmus to the Bras d’Or Lake and used the area as a meeting place. In the summer months they made their base by the ocean on the Port Toulouse side and in the winter they camped inland on the Bras d’Or.

  The French had persuaded the Mi’kmaq to adopt the Catholic religion, and they assigned a French missionary to live among them on a year-round basis. In 1713, Father Antoine Gaulin, a priest from the Séminaire de Missions Étrangères in Québec, established a mission for the Mi’kmaq at Malagawatch at the site of one of their traditional gathering places. The Mi’kmaq had become allies of the French against the British, and the French maintained relations with them.

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  For the energetic, ambitious Joseph Dugas, Île Royale was a land of opportunity. He quickly established trading contracts with the recently opened fishing outport at Louisbourg, transporting firewood and lumber there from Port Toulouse. He also carried firewood, livestock and other freight between Cap Breton and Île Saint-Jean, and even to and from Nova Scotia, although it was officially forbidden to trade with the British. Within two years he was no longer in need of the French stipend to help support his family and, in 1717, he acquired ownership of a considerable acreage of land in the area of Port Toulouse. A few years later, he had built himself a new schooner, the Marie-Josèphe. He wanted to name it the Marguerite after his wife, but she had refused.

  By 1723, Joseph Dugas and Marguerite were well established, and their family was growing. They now had six children: Charles, Joseph and four little daughters born in Port Toulouse – Marie Madeleine, Marguerite, Anne and Angélique. Two hired hands and one servant brought the Dugas household to eleven. Sadly, Grandfather Abraham had passed away during his second winter in Port Toulouse.

  By this time, thirteen Acadian families had settled there and living conditions had improved, although they were far from the comforts many had known in Acadia.

  Now, Joseph Dugas was thinking of moving his family to Louisbourg, where there would be more business opportunities, and where he knew his wife Marguerite would find life more comfortable. In 1723 he was contracted to build a double house there for a blacksmith, Dominique Detcheverry. The house was on rue Royalle, in a good part of Louisbourg. When Detcheverry had problems paying for the construction, he agreed to give Joseph one half of the house in payment for his work. Marguerite was happy with the move; she had found the years in Port Toulouse very difficult.

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  Since 1713, the fishing outport of Louisbourg had grown very quickly. It not only exploited the rich cod fishery but had become an important trading and transhipment centre, and a strategic base in the area. By 1720, the French authorities had started a twenty-five-year fortification program to turn the outport into a fortress. It quickly became a busy, bustling community.

  In the summer of 1726, Joseph Dugas sailed from Port Toulouse to Louisbourg on the Marie-Josèphe, with Marguerite and their family, which now included another son, Abraham, just a few weeks old. Joseph’s other schooner, the Sainte-Anne, sailed with them, manned by others of his crew. The following year, he bought a third schooner, the Hangoit.

  The new Dugas home was larger than the one in Port Toulouse. It was made with a heavy timber frame called charpente construction, with vertical piquet wall fill that came from the forest near the fortress. One room was used as a carpentry workshop. The furniture was ordinary and rather worn. Although the Dugas family was not part of the elite in the Governor’s circle at the garrison, Joseph Dugas was a respected craftsman and caboteur, and they had the means to live comfortably.

  The Dugas had brought with them one servant and the crew from the schooners. Soon after they arrived, they acquired a black slave named Pierre Josselin. Marguerite treated him like one of the family and he responded to her kindness. He was very good with the children. Unmarried members of the ships’ crews also stayed at the Dugas house when they were in port.

  The Dugas family continued to prosper and grow and, in 1728, they acquired the other half of the Detcheverry house. Their eighth child, a son named Étienne, was born in the winter of 1729, but he died a few months before his second birthday. Jeanne, their ninth and last child, was born in the house on rue Royalle in 1731. Soon after that the busy, happy life on rue Royalle was disrupted.

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  In 1732, smallpox spread through Louisbourg. This was not so unusual, but by 1733 it reached epidemic proportions and brought with it the threat of starvation. The Dugas household was not immediately affected and Marguerite hoped and prayed that they would be spared, but late in 1732 her daughters Marie Madeleine and Marguerite died. The following winter the epidemic claimed Anne and Joseph père, as well as the slave Josselin, who was only twenty-five years old.

  Marguerite had difficulty coming to terms with the death of her husband, and the loss of her three little daughters left a big void in her heart. Joseph had been the solid centre of her life – so alive, so vigorous and hard-working. Jeanne, who was barely two years old when her father died, had only one memory of this time – of her mother clutching her and her sister Angélique to her bosom as if she were afraid they too would be taken from her. Years later, when Jeanne herself had lost children, she understood her mother’s anguish.

  Marguerite Richard, the widow Dugas, was left with three sons, Charles, Joseph and Abraham, and two daughters, Angélique and Jeanne. But she was not destitute. As well as her home on rue Royalle, she owned two schooners, and had two domestic servants and four sailors as part of her household. There was also the land in Grand-Pré and Port Toulouse.

  According to the custom of the time, male children were considered minors until the age of twenty-five. Marguerite was therefore elected to be tuteur to her three sons and François Cressonet dit Beauséjour was elected as subrogé tuteur, to assist her. He was the husband of Marguerite Dugas, a cousin of Jeanne’s father. The Cressonets owned the fashionable Le Billard tavern.

  Jeanne kept only a vague memory of the house on rue Royalle, because three years after her father’s death, when she was only five, her mother Marguerite remarried. This event brought a big change to all their lives.

  Chapter 3

  There was a scarcity of women in the growing community of Louisbourg. Marguerite Richard, the widow Dugas, was still of childbearing age and, with her house and commercial activities, she had good prospects. In fact, she made a very fine match indeed.

  She married Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour, the great-grandson of the Charles de Saint-Étienne de la Tour, one of the founders of Acadia and its first governor. It was a proud name with a proud heritage. Marguerite’s new husband was also a caboteur, as Joseph had been. He was a friend of the Dugas family, and had been godfather to baby Étienne who died so young.

  He had lost his wife to the smallpox epidemic. Marie-Anne Perré had left behind two daughters. She had com
e from a wealthy merchant family and would have brought a large dowry to her husband. This may explain how Charles had managed to buy a substantial house on rue de l’Étang, in the same section of the town as rue Royalle.

  The new ménage on rue de l’Étang consisted of Charles, his daughters, Marie (8) and Louise (6) and Marguerite, her son Abraham (10) and daughters Angélique (12) and Jeanne (5). Marguerite’s older sons, Charles and Joseph, were living away. Now 23, Charles had established himself in Grand-Pré on land inherited from his father. Joseph fils (19) had been working with his father as a caboteur since the age of 15 and would continue on his own account, living in his late father’s house on rue Royalle. He had inherited his father’s schooner the Marie-Josèphe. When Charles visited Louisbourg he stayed with Joseph in the Dugas house.

  Little Jeanne was very impressed with their new home on rue de l’Étang. It was a charpente house, timber-framed with a rubble stone infill, more substantial than the piquet house usually built by the Acadians. And it was larger and better furnished than the Dugas house on rue Royalle. Jeanne had wandered, wide-eyed, in the formal parlour when they had first arrived in their new home. It was very different from the usual Acadian home where the large kitchen was the general living quarters for the whole family. This house had a fashionably furnished parlour, with a beautiful tapestry on the wall, depicting elegantly gowned French shepherdesses. And there was a clavecin. The Acadians loved music and might have a violin and Jew’s harp, but this was the first time Jeanne had seen a harpsichord. Angélique was enthralled with both the shepherdesses and the clavecin. She later told her little sister that she had that day sworn to herself that she would learn to play.

  There were several bedrooms, and it was decided that Angélique would share a room with Marie and Louise, and Jeanne would share another with Abraham. This was unfortunate. It separated Jeanne from her sister and it meant that she was treated like a baby. At least that’s the way she saw it.

  Indeed she was very unsure of how she fit in the scheme of things in the new place. Not only was the house new and strange, Jeanne was no longer the centre of attention as the baby of the family, as she had been on rue Royalle. With Charles and Joseph now away from the family circle, her step-father Monsieur de la Tour was the only man in her family.

  To make matters worse, he seemed to be taking first place in Maman’s attentions and affections. And of course Maman had two additional daughters to look after. Not that she neglected any of the children, but she often looked distracted. It was around this time that Jeanne developed her habit of quietly studying the people around her to see what she could expect of them.

  Monsieur de la Tour, as the Dugas children called him, was a rather proud-looking man. No doubt kind – he was generous – but distant. Their father had been a down-to-earth, warm and rather noisy Acadian. Although as a caboteur he was often absent, when he was at home he was boisterously affectionate with his children. Charles and Joseph fils, cut from the same cloth, had taken his place in Jeanne’s life.

  Jeanne watched Maman very carefully. She decided that although her mother seemed preoccupied, she looked happy. But it was not a happiness that reflected Jeanne’s presence; the source lay somewhere else. Indeed, she seemed to be somehow a different person when Monsieur de la Tour was at home.

  Maman changed in other ways too. Very soon a seamstress came to stay with the new family while she made several beautiful new gowns in the French style. Maman said these were only for when she would accompany Monsieur de la Tour on special occasions. She continued to wear her Acadian clothes at home – at least until the new babies came. Oh yes, a year after the move, twin girls were born, Jeanne Charlotte and Anne.

  There is no doubt that the new babies disrupted life on rue de l’Étang. Angélique, as the oldest girl, resented having to help look after them and Jeanne resented having to share Maman with them. Marie and Louise de la Tour no doubt now felt outnumbered by the Dugas, and the eleven-year-old Abraham overwhelmed by sisters. There had been a very real shift in all of their lives.

  On the verge of young womanhood, Angélique seemed rather pleased with the new family’s status. For, although Monsieur de la Tour insisted he was an Acadian, Angélique was old enough to see that he preferred to live in a manner more refined than most Acadians could aspire to.

  Their new step-sisters, Marie and Louise, attended the convent of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, a school for girls located near the de la Tour home. The only school in Louisbourg, it had been founded by Soeur de la Conception, a headstrong nun who had come to Louisbourg from Québec in 1727. The curriculum had a strong devotional basis, and behaviour and deportment were stressed. But the girls were also taught reading, writing and simple arithmetic, as well as needlework, music and crafts. The students were clearly meant to emerge as “proper young ladies.” The convent accepted only daughters of the officers at the garrison, making rare exceptions for a few day students from deserving families like the de la Tours.

  Angélique was hoping to go to the convent too, although at twelve she was at an age when most students would be finishing their schooling. There was another complication. The nuns were still looking after a number of girls who had been orphaned during the smallpox epidemic. But, when Monsieur de la Tour and Maman went to consult with the nuns, they agreed to accept Angélique as a day student. Because of her age she would receive instruction only in “young ladies’ arts,” that is, religion, deportment, needlework and music. Jeanne, to her great surprise – and concern – was told she had been accepted at the convent for the following year.

  Angélique was pretty and had grand plans for her life. She began to plead with Maman for new French-style clothes. She could make them herself, she said. Monsieur de la Tour, amused at this girl-turning-young-woman, told Maman to have the seamstress come to make a couple of new gowns for her. Next, arrangements were made for Angélique to take dancing lessons from one of several dancing masters in Louisbourg. Jeanne was not sure if Maman really approved of this. She heard Maman scoff at Angélique’s new airs one day. “Where do you think you’re going to use your dancing skills?” she asked her daughter. But Angélique, obviously preoccupied with her new status in life, was practising languid poses in her new gowns, much to the amusement of Monsieur de la Tour.

  All of this annoyed Jeanne, who was too old to be a baby and too young to be a young woman. She was secretly pleased to see that the de la Tour daughters, Marie and Louise, were also miffed by their father’s treatment of Angélique. Maman sensed how Jeanne was feeling, and told her it would be her turn one day.

  And so, the members of the new family settled in around each other, Maman at the centre of things and Monsieur de la Tour looming large in the background. As the eldest, Angélique held sway over Marie and Louise. Abraham kept to himself when he was at home and not out running around with friends. When she looked back, Jeanne could see that the twin baby girls had played a part in bringing the new family together. Even though at times resented by the other children, they were very sweet babies. And so Jeanne kept her careful watch on all the members of the new family.

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  Jeanne was worried about the idea of going to school. On her very first day she walked the short distance to the convent with her eyes down, nervously gripping Angélique’s hand. She was scrubbed, polished and wore a new Acadian bonnet. Maman had wanted her to dress in the French style like Marie and Louise, but Jeanne had dug in her heels and refused, her first real act of defiance.

  She arrived at the front door of the convent wearing a linen chemise with a dark-coloured vest over it, a striped linen skirt, a neck scarf, the new bonnet on her head and a determined look on her face. She was going to make the best of it.

  As they arrived, Angélique whispered urgently, “Jeanne!” and tugged on her hand. Jeanne lifted her eyes just as the door opened and Mère Saint-Joseph appeared.

  “Bonjour, ma jolie petite Acadienne
!” she exclaimed. Jeanne’s scowl disappeared and she smiled in spite of herself. That day she took to book-learning like a duck to water.

  Chapter 4

  In the mid-1730s there were rumblings of the threat of yet another war between France and Britain. It stood to reason that having taken over Acadia, the English would want to extend their reach to the neighbouring areas, and the growth and development of Louisbourg had begun to be perceived as a threat to British trade. By 1739 the rumours were becoming more persistent and there was a resulting decline in the cod fishery. Fishing entrepreneurs in Europe were reluctant to risk sending ships and men to an area that might be engaged in fighting another war. The rumours also affected trade, an important part of the port’s economy.

  While the cod-fishing industry was a large undertaking and the basis for the economy of Louisbourg and Île Royale, the town was also a very important trading centre. It had warehouses, careening wharf, admiralty court, harbour defences and the first lighthouse in the area. During the 1730s an average of 150 ships a year would sail into its harbour during the summer season, making Louisbourg one of the busiest ports in the new world.

  Most of the huge profits made from the cod-fishing industry found their way into the coffers of the French king; then the traders and shippers benefited, followed by the fishermen. When the catch was abundant, Louisbourg was a prosperous place – even though life was very hard for the people who worked long hours at the seashore tending the flakes where the cod was dried. They were poorly paid for the very long hours of work. Whereas in Acadia the settlers who had farmland and farm animals prospered, Louisbourg had no farming to speak of and the poor often had no money to buy the foodstuffs that were, of necessity, imported.