PEOCEEDINGS FOE 1888. XXI 



ocean, the weaiisomo toils ol' forest-clearing ami farm-making of the first settlers, soon gave place 

 to the exciting warfiirc ot human strife. Papers in i)revious volumes of our Transa(;tions have 

 elucidated and illusti'atcd scvei'al i)hasos of the disturbed state of societj' iu early times. In the ])ro- 

 sent one we have an c'uhoralo pajicr of seventy-seven ]iages by Abbé Casgrain relating to a point in 

 our history that has pecuii.'ji- interest, and has of late years excited much populai' attention — the fate of 

 the people familiarlj' known as the Acadians, the early French inhabitants who had established villages 

 in the imperfectly defined tract then known as " Acadie," and now embraced by Nova Scotia and 

 a lai'ge part of New Brunswick. The cause and policy that led to the expulsion and dispersion of 

 these unfortunate people, as well as the circumstances attending their removal from the country, do 

 not appear even now, after the lapse of a hundred and thirty years, to be bj' any means exhausted 

 subjects for the histoi'ian, oi to have lost interest for the general public. Abbé (Jasgrain's present 

 paper, which contains a large amount of information, brought together in a painstaking manner, 

 wilh the necessary refcionces to what has been already published on points referred to, and quota- 

 tions from original dociunents, will be acceptable at once to the general reader, and to the student 

 who desires to make further lesearch. As Sir Adams Archibald well observes, the event occurred 

 at a time of restlessness among the nations, and the warlike operations which for years engaged 

 the great ai'mics in Europjo, as well as the stirring events that were being enacted on this side the 

 Atlantic, obscured for the time the removal of the Acadians. When the facts became known, a 

 feeling of pity arose foi' the expatriated people, and of reprobation for what seemed to be an act 

 of merciless severity. Ilalilnirton feelingly related the touching narrative, and Longfellow, inter- 

 ested in it, ascertained from Hawthorne that one of the Acadian girls who had been separated from 

 hei- lover, passed her life waiting and seeking for him, "n]y to find him at last dying in a hospital 

 when both were old. Longfellow worked up the facts into a poetical picture of highest art, a tale 

 of love in Acadie, home ol the happj^ Thus was flashed upon the world of humanit}-, ever S3'mpa- 

 thctic to the tale of suffering and wrong, the wonderfully beautiful story of "Evangeline." The 

 Acadian people were pres<!nted as the heroes of one of the most touching episodes in history. Their 

 old home of Grand Pré, and the fruitful valley that once knew them, stretching away in broad expanse 

 to Blomidon, were invested by the poet with a halo of interest that brings tourists annually to wan- 

 der over the hallowed ground. The present dwellers in the district also love to cherish the old tradi- 

 tions, and to perpetuate the poet's personifications in the names of their favourite cattle and domestic 

 pets, to emblazon them on locomotives that pass through the Evangeline land, and to send them on the 

 pi'ows of their ships to liuthest climes. Poetry and word-painting are not history; in this case 'hey 

 proved effective promoters of its stud}', for the facts involved, that had been so long neglected, 

 became matter of historical enquiry. Diversity of opinion prevails as to the interpretation of the 

 facts. But papeis like those of Abbé Casgrain, and of Sir Adams Archibald in the jiublication of 

 one of our associated societies, fuinish the material necessary for obtaining coirect views. That 

 considerations and sj^mpathies tending to warp our judgments should enter into such matters is 

 inevitable. It is sometimes said that a good way of allaying party feelings, and healing up differ- 

 ences, is to foi'get and forgive, but this is merely a jjalliative moasui-e, acceptable for the time to 

 the man of affairs, the man of the world. The histoi-ian's method is the more excellent way, 

 whereby, in a case like this, the adornments of fancy are stripped off, and the actual facts brought 

 into view; the use of the scalpel in laying bare the bones, until we have nothing left but a dis- 

 articulated skeleton of facts, may seem a heartless process, but, as followers of scientific method, we 

 are bound to follow it. Let our histoiians go on, then, with their researches to a final issue, feeling 

 that this is a subject that speciallj- comes within cognizance of our Society, composed as it is 

 of compatriots representing the two races, using the two languages, and all bound together by 

 a singleness of purpose to search for and promote the cause of truth. 



There are other literary compositions and historical papers of interest ami importance in our 

 French Section. Of those that belong to the former class, we have M. Eémi Tremblay's "In foima 



