In her hands, the University Archivist held a first edition of Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. More precisely, it was the first edition, second state, published in 1847 by William D. Ticknor and Company. This was the first time, she recollected, that she had read Longfellow's Evangeline outside of classroom assignments.
On a Sunday in the Library by herself, in her reading, she had reached the afternoon of September 5, 1755 in the village of Grand-Pre in Nova Scotia, the day when the men in the village were summoned to the Church by the soldiers, whose ships now lay in the Harbor. The women waited outside.
The citizens of Acadia had refused to sign an oath of loyalty to the British King. In the meadows of Acadia, there was a sound of harsh drums. The man who commanded the soldiers spoke from the steps of the alter. Longfellow had quoted his speech, word for word.
"Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal commission.
'You are convened this day,' he said, 'by his Majesty's orders.
Clement and kind has he been; but how you have answered his
kindness,
Let your own hearts reply! To my natural make and my temper
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be grievous.
Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our monarch;
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of all
kinds
Forfeited be to the crown; and that you yourselves from this
province
Be transported to other lands. God grant you may dwell there
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people.
Prisoners now I declare you; for such is his Majesty's pleasure!"
