AN ACADIAN VILLAGE 



their brilliant vestments, of les robes noirs, 

 who accompanied the explorers of the seven- 

 teenth century in these parts, and of the ad- 

 miration and astonishment they caused among 

 the savages, for whose conversion from pagan- 

 ism they laboured so hard. Then the power 

 behind them was a mighty power in the king- 

 dom of France. Now they are outcasts, re- 

 pudiated in their own home, the French Re- 

 public, and are seeking liberty to practise their 

 religion here in the new world. 



Of the present bishop of this region, Mon- 

 seigneur Gustave Blanche, it is said in a pam- 

 phlet describing his inauguration to office in 1 905 

 that "the violent persecution of 1903 found 

 him at his post. Thrown on the street, like all 

 the clergy that an impious government could 

 no longer endure, he took, with a hundred of his 

 brethren, the road to Canada in the month of 

 August, 1 903 . " z These were the Eudiste fathers, 

 a branch founded by Jean Eudes. Up to 1867 

 all the territory of Labrador was part of the 



1 Translation from "Les Fetes du sacre de Mgr. Gus- 

 tave Blanche, eveque titulaire de Sicca, Vicarre, aposto- 

 lique du Golf St.-Laurent. Celebres a Chicoutimi les 28 

 et 29 Octobre, 1905." Quebec, 1906. 



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