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 1905 

 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, 1903." J 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 Chicotrtimi les 28 

 et 29 Octobre, 1905." Quebec, 1906. 



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