16 LABRADOR 



guese; but Brest is the "principal town" of the Sieur de 

 Combes. The finishing touches were put on the myth 

 by a Mr. Samuel Robertson, who lived on the Labrador 

 coast in the first half of the nineteenth century. In a 

 paper read before the Geographical and Historical Society 

 of Quebec in 1843, he gave a graphic picture of Brest hi 

 its palmy days. "I estimate," he said, "that at one time 

 it contained two hundred houses, besides stores, etc., and 

 perhaps 1000 inhabitants in the winter, which would be 

 trebled during the summer. Brest was at the height of 

 its prosperity about the year 1600, and about thirty years 

 later the whole tribe of the Eskimos were totally extir- 

 pated or expelled from that region. After this the town 

 began to decay, and towards the close of the century the 

 name was changed to Bradore." In 1630, he goes on to 

 relate, a grant en seigneurie of four leagues of the coast 

 embracing the town was made to the Count de Courte- 

 manche, who was married to a daughter of King Henry IV 

 of France. 



Et voilb justement comme on ecrit I'histoire. The whole 

 story is a myth and a fairy tale. There was, it is true, a 

 De Courtemanche on the Labrador coast from 1704-1716, 

 but he was not a count, nor did he hold any land en seig- 

 neurie, and he was married to the daughter of a tanner 

 named Charest at Levis. Moreover, we have De Courte- 

 manche's account of the coast when he came there in 1704. 

 He does not mention the town of Brest; apparently he 

 had never heard of it. But in the harbour he found an 

 establishment of Frenchmen and a blockhouse, about half 

 a league from the mouth of the Eskimo River. This 

 was just a century after the time when "Brest was at 





