and down the coast; to New Brunswick, Cape Breton and 

 Nova Scotia; or to the magnificent lake and forest regions 

 of the interior. And to it, one may come, as to no other 

 national park area on the continent, by boat as well as train 

 or motor. 



The chapter of world history which the Sieur de Monts 

 National Monument commemorates, that of the first founding 

 of Acadia, in 1604 — half a generation before the landing of 

 the Pilgrim Fathers on the Massachusetts shore, and of 

 the long French occupation of the Acadian region, extending 

 from the Kennebec to Cape Breton, which followed it, is full 

 of human interest as told in the pages of Champlain and Les- 

 carbot in quaint old French, and by numerous later writers. 



De Monts, a Huguenot of noble family in southwestern 

 France, came out commissioned by Henry IV — Henry of 

 Navarre — to occupy for France, and colonize, ''the lands 

 and territory called Acadia," extending, as it was then defined, 

 from the 40th to the 46th degrees of latitude — those approxi- 

 mately of Philadelphia and Montreal to-day; to establish 

 friendly trade relations with its natives; to explore its coasts 

 and rivers; to govern it, and represent in it and on its seas 

 the person of the King; and to bring its people, ''barbarous, 

 and without faith in God," into knowledge and practice of 

 the Christian religion. 



It was a great adventure, largely conceived and bravely 

 carried out. De Monts planted the fleur-de-lis on the Amer- 

 ican shore, and for more than a century and a half it stayed 

 there. That it is not floating there to-day is due to forces 

 greater than national, to the growth of the democratic spirit 

 and democratic principles of government in the English 

 colonies, which gave them an inherent power that mounted like 

 a rising tide till it possessed and overflowed their continent, 

 and is to-day profoundly influencing the world. 



De Monts himself, to say a word of him, was sprung from 

 one of the most ancient families in France, distinguished in 

 arms and military employments from the time of the First Cru- 

 sade, when four brothers out of six journeyed "beyond the Sea" 



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