a tale of the dérangement published a few years later, told his readers that Providence had let the Acadians disappear. For a hundred years, the French of southwestern Nova Scotia were unchronicled in history. "God is too high and France too far!" they cried, when ignored by the Canadian Government and by organisations of the Church. In 1864 there were 85,000 French in the Maritime Provinces.[1]
In his sympathetic biography of Père Lefebvre, first missionary to the Acadians after the eviction, Pascal Poirier, a senator at Ottawa, describes the convention called in 1880 to discuss Acadian affairs. There was great rejoicing because this assemblage signified the re-uniting of a long-divided people. A flag and a national fete day were adopted. Three years later a company of Acadians returning from a second convention on Prince Edward Island, wept with joy to see their flag saluted by English vessels as it flew from the mast of their ship.
In 1890 the College of St. Anne was founded by the Eudist Fathers at Pointe de I'Église, eight miles below Weymouth by the shore road. Church Point is the heart of the Clare District. The tall church with its beautiful spire is the centre of community life. Grouped about it are the buildings of the Convent, College and Presbytery.
- ↑ The French population of Nova Scotia is 52,000 by the 1911 census, and of the Maritime Provinces, 150,000.
