Madeleine Doucet Richard of Acadie
by
Michel Richard, grandson of Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, was transported during the Expulsion of the Acadians without his family and died in the Carolinas. Madelaine Doucet, his wife, took the children and ran. For eight long years they stayed together and stayed one step ahead of les anglais in refugee camp after refugee camp. Eventually they and other refugee families helped create modern Acadie in the Kent County area of New Brunswick. The novella is a fictional recreation of their journey and their struggles to survive as an intact family and society.
They speak of Commander Boishébert, who comes from Quebec to lead battles and raiding parties, and of the young rebel Broussard dit Beausoleil, Michel’s nephew, who fears nothing under the sun. They tell of husbands and wives reunited in the most unlikely of places, they tell of sunken ships and whole families lost to deep waters.
And they tell us that Michel, my beautiful Michel, died of a lingering sickness in that ugly southern land. Merciful Jesus, did he have even the comfort of the Last Rites? I am enraged that he left this world without dignity and without the solace of his family by his side. My heart is broken for my lonely, broken man.
Mais dans mes rèves, pendant les nuits longues de notre dérangement, Michel et moi, nous nous promenons, joyeuse et si jeunes, aux terres vertes de notr’ Acadie.
