Jeanne Dugas of Acadia

by Cassie Deveaux Cohoon

  When the men got off the shallop, Pierre and Michel had to help Grandfather Coste. They walked on either side of him and half carried him along. He was deathly pale and seemed unaware of his surroundings. They sat him down on a rough bench someone brought forward.

  “Charles, this is my husband, Pierre Bois,” Jeanne said.

  Charles shook his hand and gave him a rough hug. “I am so glad to meet you.”

  “And I to meet you, sir,” Pierre said.

  “Not sir, just Charles.”

  “This is Michel Benoist, an Acadian from Port Toulouse,” Pierre said. “And my grandfather, Jean Coste, who is ill. I don’t know how much farther he can go on. Are we to stay here?”

  “No. Now that Louisbourg has fallen, we are fairly certain that the British forces will attack the Miramichi area and especially Camp de l’Espérance island. Most of the refugees who came here and survived,” he added, “have either gone on to Québec or to La Petite Rochelle at the Ristigouche Poste. That is where we are going, and my plan was to lead you there today if you arrived early. If your grandfather is not well enough to travel we can wait here for a few days.

  “Is your grandfather the Jean Coste who is well known in Acadia as an expert shipbuilder and brilliant navigator?”

  “Yes,” Pierre said proudly. “And we were fortunate to have him travel with us these last few years.”

  “He’s a wonderful man,” Jeanne added.

  Michel Benoist had been keeping an eye on Grandfather Coste as they spoke. Now he called to Pierre.

  Grandfather Coste had fallen off the bench and Michel was trying to raise him up. Pierre hurried over. They laid him down on the sand. He opened his eyes to look at Pierre and tried to speak.

  “It’s all right, Grandpère. Just rest. We’re right here with you.” Oh dear God, he prayed silently, don’t let him think we would abandon him.

  They took Grandfather Coste to an empty rough habitation and laid him on a paillasse. Boishébert came to look at him, but shook his head when he left. “I have seen other men in his condition,” he said. “Even if we had a surgeon I don’t think he would be able to help him.” Pierre stayed with him.

  In the meantime, Charles was making arrangements for all of them to eat and sleep on Boishébert’s island.

  When Jeanne brought some food to Pierre late in the afternoon, she found him sitting quietly on the floor, head down and eyes closed, beside the body of his Grandfather Coste.

  “Ah, Pierre.” Tears filled her eyes. “I am so sorry. When did it happen?”

  “Just a little while ago. I wanted to stay with him to say goodbye.”

  She knelt beside Grandfather and put her hand on his forehead. His skin was still warm. “Thank you, Grandfather, for all your love and help,” she whispered. “I will go and tell the others, Pierre.”

  Charles and Boishébert accompanied her back to the hut.

  “Pierre, I’m very sorry for your loss and that it happened to him so far from his home,” Charles said.

  “Thank you, Charles. But I think Grandfather would consider that he had a good death. He was still on his beloved sea, helping others, and he died an Acadian.”

  “You are quite right, young Pierre Bois. Your grandfather was a noble Acadian,” said Boishébert. “If you agree we will bury him on this island with the other Acadian patriots. There is a good chance that Abbé Manach will be here tomorrow and, if so, your grandfather will have a proper Christian burial.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “If you agree, Pierre, we will hold a veillée for him during the night,” Charles said.

  “I think Grandfather would like that.”

  Abbé Jean Manach arrived the next morning and officiated at Grandfather Coste’s funeral and burial at the cemetery on the eastern end of Boishébert’s island. The area was barren, with not even one tree to break the bleakness of that point of land in the sea. The graves were marked with simple wooden crosses, each bearing a name. Jeanne wondered how long it would be before the names were erased by wind and rain and the crosses simply disappeared.

  After the ritual Michel Benoist approached Abbé Manach and asked him if he would say a prayer at his wife and sons’ gravesides. The Bois and Dugas families accompanied him and joined in the prayers.

  As they walked away from the cemetery, Jeanne remarked on the cold wind from the gulf that was blowing over the graves.

  “It’s all right, Jeanne. Grandpère would like that.” Pierre was fighting back tears.

  She put an arm around him and walked closely with him.

  “I don’t think you understand, Jeanne. You have all your relatives. Grandpère was my only contact with my family.”

  Mon Dieu! It was true. She should have seen this before and been more concerned for her husband. Now all she could think to say was, “Pierre, you know my family is your family.”

  They sailed for La Petite Rochelle in the Baie des Chaleurs the same day. The death of Grandfather Coste and their hurried departure after his burial cast a sombre pall on them as they set sail.

  Chapter 27

  The Angélique followed Charles’s schooner, the Saint-Charles, up the coast, into the Baie des Chaleurs, and then into the mouth of the Ristigouche River. Jeanne did not know what awaited them there. There had been very little time to talk with Charles, after Grandfather Coste’s death and burial. Charles had simply said, “We will explain everything when we reach the Ristigouche.”

  It was almost ten years since Jeanne had left Grand-Pré with Joseph to go to Port Toulouse! Would Charles's and Abraham’s children remember her? There would be some she had not yet met. And would there be a difficulty with providing her group with food and lodging? What were the family’s circumstances here?

  Ah, mon Dieu, she thought suddenly, where is Nono? Wrapped up in her worries, she had forgotten about him for a moment. She turned to look for him and there was Marie, a rope in each hand – Pierrot at the end of one, Nono at the other – marching up and down the deck.

  “It’s all right, Maman, I’m going to tie them to the mast in a moment.” Marie had a big smile on her face and so did Pierrot and Nono. Wonder of wonders!

  Jeanne had to laugh. “Thank you, Marie, my big girl.”

  —

  It was late in the day when they docked at a makeshift wharf on the north side of the Ristigouche River, at Pointe-à-Bourdon. They stood on the deck of the schooner, each holding a small bundle of personal effects, half apprehensive and half joyful at arriving. Charles had docked before them and now came to help them disembark.

  “Look, Jeanne,” he said, pointing to a large group of people standing a short distance from the wharf.

  “Ah, mon Dieu! All the family!”

  “Yes, there was a ship in ahead of us and the news arrived before we did.” He laughed happily.

  As they walked down the wharf the family ran to meet them. Charles’s wife, Anne, Abraham’s wife, Marguerite, and all their children. And Jeanne’s stepsisters, Marie and Louise, and the twins, Charlotte and Anne, the four of them now grown women. They all had tears running down their cheeks as they laughed and hugged and kissed. Jeanne proudly presented Pierre and her children and Nono – and Joseph’s children of course, and Marie Braud and Michel Benoist. Abraham waited for a while, then said, “Hey, Jeanne, you have another brother here too.” They all laughed and wiped away tears again, as Abraham hugged his sister.

  Charles said, “In case you have not heard yet, Joseph is not here. Our intrepid brother has gone to Québec to get some Lettres de Marques so he can become a privateer! His son Ti-Jos is with him. Mimi’s twin.”

  Jeanne finally caught her breath. “Charles, will you be able to cope with all of us?”

  “Jeanne, we are family. We are Acadian. We are not as wealthy as we were in Grand-Pré, but we have survived so far and – well, see how many o
f us there are!” He and Abraham each had eight children. “And now with you and Joseph and your families here we are complete. Let us pray that Joseph returns. I, for one, will bet on it. Sacré, he’s got nerve!”

  “Jeanne,” said Anne, “you must be exhausted. Come, you and Pierre and your children and Michel Benoist will come to our house. Abraham and Marguerite will take Joseph’s children and Marie Braud with them. Tomorrow we’ll get together and catch up on our stories.” Anne had a meal ready for them – a feast it seemed to Jeanne.

  “Mon Dieu! You have bread!” she exclaimed.

  “Yes, there are two outdoor ovens at the fort that we use,” Anne replied. “And we get flour and other provisions from the fort, as long as the ships can get through to the poste.”

  —

  The Ristigouche Poste at Pointe-à-Bourdon was a simple wooden fort surrounded by a stockade, with barracks, stores for supplies, a forge and several other buildings. The fortifications included four batteries of cannons strategically placed up and down the river. La Petite Rochelle was a straggling temporary settlement of Acadian refugees nestled along the river on both sides of the poste. It extended from Pointe-à-la-Mission, where there was an encampment of Mi’kmaw families, to an area west of Pointe-à-Bourdon. The Acadians lived in simple habitations hastily erected without foundations; most of them had a small kitchen garden. Many of the refugees had become fishermen and a number of them became privateers.

  The commandant at Ristigouche Poste was Jean-François Bourdon de Dombourg. Bourdon, born in France, had arrived in Louisbourg at the age of thirteen. Discovering he had a facility for languages, he had become an interpreter for the Mi’kmaq. In 1758 he had been ordered to join Boishébert’s group of irregular forces. He was now in charge of a handful of troops and more than a thousand refugees.

  The storekeeper at the fort, in charge of distributing provisions to the forces and the Acadian refugees, was Pierre du Calvet. He was a recent arrival from France who had come to try his luck in the new world. Intending to become a trader, he had the misfortune to lose the merchandise he brought with him in a shipwreck. Unable to set up business for himself, he’d accepted the position of storekeeper at Ristigouche Poste.

  —

  It was a long time since Jeanne had been able to lean on an older woman. Anne, Charles’s wife, took her under her wing. She noticed Jeanne’s tenseness and her air of worry and apprehension. In fact, she thought Jeanne looked old beyond her years. The morning after their arrival, when Anne sympathetically asked her what was wrong, Jeanne broke down in tears. Anne took her in her arms.

  “It’s nothing,” Jeanne sobbed. “It’s nothing and everything.” Then she poured out her heart to Anne. Her life at Port Toulouse, her marriage to Pierre, giving birth to Marie when she was alone (she did not mention Martin), the moves from Port Toulouse to Île Saint-Jean, to Remshic, to Port Toulouse, to Remshic, to Île Saint-Jean, to Remshic, to Port Toulouse, to the Miré and now to the Ristigouche. How they stayed in each place sometimes for only a few months at a time, in rough lean-tos, in abandoned houses or even on the schooner. And living in fear. Always the fear and the uncertainty.

  “Please, Anne, don’t think that I regret following my brother Joseph to Port Toulouse. I really don’t.”

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, Jeanne.” Anne sighed. “You’re not telling me everything, are you?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” asked Jeanne. She attempted a smile. She could not bring herself to mention her disappointment in Pierre, or her attachment – that is what she would call it – to Martin, her resentment of Le Maigre and what she saw as his influence on Joseph. She could not explain her silly attachment to her bundle of treasures, the relics from her childhood that she could not abandon.

  “Ah, Anne, you must think me so ... so weak.”

  “Non, ma pauvre Jeanne, you are a very strong woman. You are trying to take everyone’s burden on your shoulders and there has been no one to help you. Well, now there is someone to help you. You must eat well and let yourself sleep without worry. We will help you with the children and with Joseph’s family. We don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring, but the healthier and stronger we are, the better our chances to survive.”

  —

  The next few days at La Petite Rochelle were spent talking – catching up with each other’s lives and telling stories.

  Jeanne begged Charles to tell her honestly what they could expect there. “We have been wandering from one place to another, moving almost every few months for three years now,” she said. “Are we safe here, Charles? We’ve been told that Boishébert leads a band of Acadian resisters in this area. Doesn’t that worry you? What does he hope to accomplish?”

  “Ah, Jeanne, you’re still the little girl who sat quietly in Uncle Abraham’s house at Grand-Pré and listened to the men talking about politics, aren’t you?” He smiled fondly.

  “Well, this is much more serious,” he continued, more soberly. “It is true that Boishébert is the leader of a group of irregular forces – Acadian refugees, Mi’kmaw warriors and a few French forces. They call themselves resisters. They run a kind of little war against British ships and troops, when they can find them. They haven’t a chance of inflicting any real damage to them yet. But yes, it worries me.

  “What most of us want, is to go on living here, peacefully, in this little corner of the world. Surely the English could spare us this much land. We are not a threat to anyone. We live in peace with the Mi’kmaq. We just want to create a home for our children.

  “Jeanne,” he continued, “I simply don’t know what is going to happen. But I believe you are in the safest place you can be right now.”

  She turned to look at her husband. Pierre nodded reassuringly. “He’s right, Jeanne.”

  Charles stood and rubbed his hands. She would come to learn that this meant he had a plan. “People come and go, in this place,” he said. “When someone leaves, that means an empty house. Come, there’s a good chance there is one available for you.”

  Charles took them to register their family at the fort, and then to see the house. It was simple, but it had a hearth and some basic furniture. It would be available in a week or so. And it was just a short walking distance from Charles and Anne’s home. It would be fine. Jeanne’s spirits lifted.

  —

  Early in September, Joseph arrived, with a handful of Lettres de Marques and enough small cannons, muskets, knives and hatchets to arm several schooners. Ti-Jos brought back stories of the trip that kept the other children enthralled for days.

  Joseph and Le Maigre also brought news. The British had started to deport Acadians from Île Saint-Jean, but it was taking a long time because they found many more than they had expected. In the meantime, a good number of Acadians were making their way to the island’s north shore hoping to be picked up by French schooners and taken to the Baie des Chaleurs or Québec. Le Maigre quickly found sympathizers at La Petite Rochelle, and he sailed with them for Île Saint-Jean. Jeanne was not sorry to see the back of him.

  —

  The deportations from Île Saint-Jean were only part of a general campaign by the British to remove any remaining Acadian resisters from the shores of the golfe du Saint-Laurent before the planned British attack on Québec the following year. During the fall of 1758, the British attacked the Acadian and Mi’kmaw settlements at the Miramichi. They found only a few starving refugees, but they burned down all the settlements regardless. They also made devastating attacks on Acadian settlements along the Saint-Jean, the Chépoudi and the Petitcodiac rivers. In some instances, the Acadian refugees had time to disappear into the forests before the British troops arrived. When they were found, they were killed and scalped – even the women and children. In all cases, their settlements, livestock and crops were decimated. This resulted in a shortage of food supplies for the general area and an increase in the number of ref
ugees making their way to La Petite Rochelle.

  At this point in time, privateering became a matter of survival for the large number of refugees at La Petite Rochelle. Only by raiding British supply ships loaded with provisions could the settlement hope to feed its inhabitants.

  Joseph Dugas and his brothers Charles and Abraham were among the most successful privateers. Among the others were men who were also resistance leaders, including Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, Joseph and Pierre Gautier and, of course, Joseph Leblanc dit Le Maigre. Within a few months they had captured seventeen British supply ships. That the privateers were able to capture the much bigger British ships was an example of great seamanship and daring. And it was a big thorn in the side of Charles Lawrence, the British governor of Nova Scotia.

  Joseph operated from both Richibuctu and La Petite Rochelle. Pierre served as a member of the crew on Joseph’s schooner. As well as the Marie-Josèphe, Joseph co-owned another ship with Le Maigre.

  Le Maigre had returned from one of his voyages transporting refugees with his wife Anne and son Paul on board. Several of his children had died and they did not know the whereabouts of the others. Anne was a small, wizened woman now – a shadow of the woman Jeanne had known at Port Toulouse. Sadly, she died soon after her arrival at La Petite Rochelle.

  Chapter 28

  Life at La Petite Rochelle was a welcome respite for Jeanne. She soon responded to her sister-in-law Anne’s attentions, good food and rest. Jeanne had her family and they had a home. As soon as they were settled, she asked Pierre to bring her special bundle from the ship.

  Joseph’s family too had settled into their own house. Michel Benoist went to stay with them until Joseph’s return and then decided to stay on. Even Marie Braud looked better, with a bit of colour in her cheeks. Little Nono was slowly turning into a normal child. But if, heaven forbid, he took his cues from Pierrot he would get to be a handful too! Jeanne was grateful, but there was always a strong current of worry and fear. How long would they be safe in this new refuge?