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THE
LADY OF FORT ST. JOHN
BY
MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD
AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF DOLLARD"
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1891
Copyright, 1891,
By MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
This book I dedicate
TO
TWO ACADIANS OF THE PRESENT DAY;
NATIVES OF NOVA SCOTIA WHO REPRESENT THE LEARNING
AND GENTLE ATTAINMENTS OF THE
NEW ORDER:
DR. JOHN-GEORGE BOURINOT, C. M. G., ETC.
CLERK OF THE CANADIAN HOUSE OF COMMONS, OF
OTTAWA; AND
DR. GEORGE STEWART,
OF QUEBEC.
PREFACE.
How can we care for shadows and types, when we may go back throughhistory and live again with people who actually lived?
Sitting on the height which is now topped by a Martello tower, at St.John in the maritime province of New Brunswick, I saw—not the oppositecity, not the lovely bay; but this tragedy of Marie de la Tour, thetragedy "which recalls" (says the Abbé Casgrain in his "Pèlerinage aupays d'Evangéline") "the romances of Walter Scott, and forces one to ownthat reality is stranger than fiction."
In "Papers relating to the rival chiefs, D'Aulnay and La Tour," of theMassachusetts Historical Collection, vol. vii., may be found theseprefatory remarks:—
"There is a romance of History as well as a History of Romance. To theformer class belong many incidents in the early periods of New Englandand its adjacent colonies. The following papers ... refer to twopersons, D'Aulnay and La Tour, ... individuals of respectable intellectand education, of noble families and large fortune. While the first wasa zealous and efficient supporter of the Roman Church, the second wasless so, from his frequent connection with others of a different faith.The scene of their ... prominent actions, their exhibition of variouspassions and talents, their conquests and defeats, their career and end,as exerting an influence on their associates as well as themselves, onother communities as well as their own—was laid in Nova Scotia. Thisphrase then comprised a territory vastly more extensive than it doesnow as a British Province. It embraced not only its present boundaries,which were long termed Acadia, but also about two thirds of the State ofMaine."
It startles the modern reader, in examining documents of the Frencharchives relating to the colonies, to come upon a