Cameron of Lochiel
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[oe] replaces the oe ligature
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italic text: _underscores_
imflammable typo replaced with inflammable
musquitoes replaced with mosquitoes
dazzingly replaced with dazzlingly
Ææan replaced with Ægean
harrasses replaced with harasses
vail replaced with veil
seige replaced with siege
beseiged replaced with besieged
vengance replaced with vengeance
Acadie replaced with Acadia
Uncommon and inconsistent hyphenation and spelling have been retained;
typographical errors have been corrected.
CAMERON OF LOCHIEL
Works of
Charles G. D. Roberts
The Prisoner of Mademoiselle
The Watchers of the Trails
The Kindred of the Wild
The Heart of the Ancient Wood
Earth's Enigmas
Barbara Ladd
The Forge in the Forest
A Sister to Evangeline
By the Marshes of Minas
A History of Canada
The Book of the Rose
Poems
New York Nocturnes
The Book of the Native
In Divers Tones (_Out of print_)
Songs of the Common Day (_Out of print_)
Cameron of Lochiel
(_Translated from the French of Philippe Aubert
de Gaspé_)
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
New England Building
Boston, Mass.
(_See page 68._)
CAMERON OF
LOCHIEL
BY
PHILIPPE AUBERT DE GASPÉ
TRANSLATED BY
CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS
NEW EDITION
_With a frontispiece by_
H. C. EDWARDS
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
_MDCCCCV_
_Copyright, 1890_
+By D. Appleton and Company+
_Copyright, 1905_
+By L. C. Page & Company+
(INCORPORATED)
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION
This leisurely and loose-knit romance of de Gaspé's, which he called
"Les Anciens Canadiens," has for hero one who was not a Canadian, but
a Scotch exile sojourning in Canada. It is on the creation of this
character, consistently developed and convincingly presented, that the
book must mainly base its claim to be called a work of fiction, rather
than a volume of memoirs and folklore. I have ventured, therefore, at
the suggestion of my publishers, to take a liberty with the author's
title, and name the story after this young Scotch exile, "Cameron of
Lochiel." I am the more willing to take this liberty because I feel
that de Gaspé has not hitherto been granted the place he is entitled to
in the ranks of Canadian fictionists. Considered purely as a romance,
it seems to me that the sincerity, simplicity, and originality of this
work quite outweigh its sprawling looseness of structure, and make it
one of the unique ornaments of the composite literature which we are
building up in Canada. If by so changing its title as to emphasize the
fictional character of the work I can the better call attention to the
worth of de Gaspé's achievement, I feel that I am justified, even in
the face of such anticipatory protest as may seem to be implied in the
author's too modest introduction.
When all this has been said, however, the fact remains that it was
not its many merits as a romance that induced me to translate this
work, but the riches of Canadian tradition, folk-lore, and perished
customs embalmed in the clear amber of its narrative, coupled with my
own anxiety to contribute, in however humble a way, to the increase
of understanding and confidence between the two great branches of the
Canadian people. It is a beautiful and gracious life, that of old
French Canada, as depicted in de Gaspé's lucent pages,--a life of high
ideals, and family devotion, and chivalry, and courage. This is an
atmosphere it is wholesome to breathe. These are people it is excellent
to know; and the whole influence of the story makes for trust and a
good understanding.
C. G. D. R.
+Fredericton, N. B.+, _May, 1905_.
PREFACE.
In Canada there is settling into shape a nation of two races; there
is springing into existence, at the same time, a literature in
two languages. In the matter of strength and stamina there is no
overwhelming disparity between the two races. The two languages are
admittedly those to which belong the supreme literary achievements of
the modern world. In this dual character of the Canadian people and the
Canadian literature there is afforded a series of problems which the
future will be taxed to solve. To make any intelligent forecast as to
the solution is hardly possible without a fair comprehension of the two
races as they appear at the point of contact. We, of English speech,
turn naturally to French-Canadian literature for knowledge of the
French-Canadian people. The romance before us, while intended for those
who read to be entertained, and by no means weighted down with didactic
purpose, succeeds in throwing, by its faithful depictions of life and
sentiment among the early French Canadians, a strong side-light upon
the motives and aspirations of the race.
In spite of the disclaimer with which the author begins, the romance
of Les Anciens Canadiens is a classic. From the literary point of
view it is markedly the best historical romance so far produced in
French Canada. It gathers up and preserves in lasting form the songs
and legends, the characteristic customs, the phases of thought and
feeling, the very local and personal aroma of a rapidly changing
civilization. Much of what de Gaspé has so vividly painted from his
boyish reminiscences had faded out of the life upon which his alert
eyes rested in old age. The origin of the romance, as given by his
biographer, the Abbé Casgrain, is as follows:
When, in 1861, that patriotic French-Canadian publication the _Soirées
Canadiennes_ was established, its inaugurators adopted as their motto
the words: "Let us make haste to write down the stories and traditions
of the people, before they are forgotten." M. de Gaspé was struck with
the idea; and seeing that the writers who were setting themselves the
laudable task were all young men, he took the words as a summons to his
old age, and so the book came to be written.
Patriotism, devotion to the French-Canadian nationality, a just pride
of race, and a loving memory for his people's romantic and heroic
past--these are the dominant chords which are struck throughout the
story. Of special significance, therefore, are the words which are put
in the mouth of the old seigneur as he bids his son a last farewell.
The father has been almost ruined by the conquest. The son has left
the French army and taken the oath of allegiance to the English crown.
"Serve thy new sovereign," says the dying soldier, "as faithfully as I
have served the King of France; and may God bless thee, my dear son!"
In the present day, when nationalism in Quebec appears rather given
to extravagant dreams, it would be well for the distant observer to
view the French Canadians through the faithful medium which de Gaspé's
work affords him. Under constitutional forms of government it is
inevitable that a vigorous and homogeneous minority, whose language
and institutions are more or less threatened by the mere preponderance
of the dominant race, should seem at times overvehement in its
self-assertion. A closer knowledge leads us to conclude that perhaps
the extreme of Quebec nationalism is but the froth on the surface of a
not unworthy determination to keep intact the speech and institutions
of French Canada. However this may be, it is certain that the point of
contact between the two races in Canada is at the present day as rich
a field for the romancer as de Gaspé found it at the close of the _old
régime_.
According to the Histoire de la littérature Canadienne of Edmond
Lareau, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé was born in Quebec on the 30th of
October, 1786. He died in 1871. He belonged to a noble French-Canadian
family. At the manor of St. Jean-Port-Joli, of which he was seigneur,
he passed a large part of his life; and there he laid the chief scenes
of his great romance. He was educated at the seminary of Quebec, and
then studied law in the city, under Sewell, afterward chief-justice.
Only for a few years, however, did he devote himself to his
profession--one from which so many a poet and man of letters has broken
loose. He accepted the position of sheriff of Quebec, and afterward
came misfortunes which Lareau passes over with sympathetic haste. His
lavish generosity to his friends and the financial embarrassments into
which he fell, his four years' confinement in the debtors' prison, his
sufferings of soul and body, all doubtless contributed to the poignant
coloring with which he has painted the misfortunes of M. d'Egmont,
_le bon gentilhomme_. On his release from prison he retired to his
estate of St. Jean-Port-Joli, but not to the solitude and benevolent
melancholy of D'Egmont. The romancer was of too sunny a disposition,
he was too genuine and tolerant a lover of his kind, to run much
risk of becoming a recluse. A keynote to his nature may be found in
the bright _Bonsoir la compagnie_ with which, in the words of an old
French-Canadian song, he closed his literary labors at the age of
seventy-nine, when the last page of the Mémoires was completed.
The story we have translated, under the title of The Canadians of Old,
was published in 1862. It is accompanied in the original by a mass of
curious information, in the shape of notes and _addenda_, such as would
hardly interest the general reader. They will more than repay, however,
the attention of any one who wishes to study the French-Canadian people
as they were in their early days. The story itself has the air of being
the product of a happy leisure. The style is quaint and unhurried,
with no fear of the printer's devil before its eyes. The stream of the
narrative, while swift enough and direct enough at need, is taught
to digress into fascinating cross-channels of highly colored local
tradition, or to linger felicitously in eddies of feast and song.
The work begun in Les Anciens Canadiens De Gaspé carried to completion
in his second and last composition, the Mémoires, published in 1866.
As the former work is a vivid epitome of life at the _seigneuries_ and
among the _habitants_ of those days, so the latter reproduces and fixes
for us the picturesque effects of life in the city of Quebec itself in
the generation or two succeeding the conquest--a period during which
the French-Canadian _noblesse_ yet maintained, about the person of
the English governor, something of the remembered splendor of the old
vice-regal court.
C. G. D. R.
_Windsor, Nova Scotia, 1890._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
+Foreword+ ix
I. +D'Haberville and Cameron of Lochiel+ 19
II. +A Night with the Sorcerers+ 31
III. +La Corriveau+ 45
IV. +The Breaking up of the Ice+ 56
V. +A Supper at the House of a French-Canadian
Seigneur+ 76
VI. +D'Haberville Manor House+ 99
VII. +The May-Feast+ 115
VIII. +The Feast of St. Jean-Baptiste+ 124
IX. "+The Good Gentleman+" 137
X. +Madame D'Haberville's Story+ 154
XI. +The Burning of the South Shore+ 167
XII. +A Night Among the Savages+ 180