Page 58 - Yvon LeBlanc, Architect Fortress of Louisbourg

ISSUE : Issue 34

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1983/8/1

tion. And they were planning the gate in that year, so it became the Porte Dauphine in his honour. There's a little wee gate called the Queen's Gate, that was on the other side. Now, why did the queen get such a small gate to her name? Poor Queen Mary, she was a shy kind of girl; all she did was make kids for the king. She took a second seat; she wasn't very outgoing. She was the daughter of the king of Poland, who was exiled in eastern France because he had lost the throne of Poland. And they needed a royal personnage to marry the king. There are some ghost stories starting to come around here. People have been hearing things, have been seeing things, over the last several years. One day, somebody saw a person in a red costume coming, and they thought it was me. The people who saw him did not recognize his face, or see it very much. I'm not too sure. Because those stor? ies, you know, they sort of grow. There's also somebody hearing things, steps in the house--in the Duhaget house. In the bakery, the baker one day swore he felt a presence behind him and saw something. It's all things that could be imagination, there's no doubt about that. But anyway, I hear that, and I say, Geez, wouldn't I like to see one, to talk to him, 'cause I'd like to know this: it's either of two things. Either our work is so good that they feel at home. Or it's so bad that they're com? ing to haunt us. So I'd dearly like to know. I'd like to come back in 50 or 100 years. To see how this thing has lived. Because right now, you see, the reality of Louis- bourg is this one, not that one from the past. It's this one, because it's here and it's living. With all its problems, its present-day conditions. And this is the one which is interesting to me, to see what will have happened to it, how it will have lived over the time, how it will have adapted. One thing that I can see is that in time it will become interpreted com? pletely in English, in its English reality, which is the "now" one. Which starts with the sieges. It's just a feeling I have. Be? cause when you come to think of it, all this heritage business--nobody has any her? itage from Louisbourg, nobody at all. It's meaningless. Except to, maybe, the descen? dants of the New Englanders, They are the ones who have ancestors buried here, who came and suffered here, and died here. May? be the descendants of some of the French ones, too, We Acadians, we have no real heritage here. Canada doesn't, because this is a very short interlude of French history, and is only connected with Acadia in a by-the-way sort of thing, because the Acadians were up there in Nova Scotia, and traded with Louisbourg. And only a few came to settle in Cape Breton. The ones who have really close feelings are those Americans. So, to me, that is the reality of Louisbourg, And I would be willing to bet that in 50 or 100 years, that will be the one which will have taken over. It has been rebuilt as much as pos? sible as a French thing--that's fine. But with the other thing superimposing itself on it, (In what way?) That it becomes lived in by English-speaking people, who can handle it and tell the story, I illus- trate it this way. When a study has been PIPER'S TRAILER COURT Featuring: Fully Licensed Dining Room * Guest House * Swimming Pool Ocean-Side Campsites * Latmdromat * Mini-Mart 929-2233 Indian Brook on the Cabot Trail ?? JCJ C-C-JJ Halfway Between Baddeck and Ingonish Take Home A Bit Of CapeBretan Culture! The College of Cape Breton Press Cape Breton is renowned not only for its rugged beauty but also for its coal mines, steel mills, its fiddlers, good humour and high spirits. The College of Cape Breton Press has captured much of the flavour of the is? land in its original recordings and books of Cape Breton. While touring the island this summer, look for the following records and books: RECORDS: -Cape Breton's Greatest Hits • The Rise and Follies of Cape Breton Island (1977, 1980, 1981) • Glendale BOOKS: -The Cape Breton Fiddler • Songs & Stories • Cape Breton Historical Essays from Deep Cove • Patterson's History of Victoria County -Still Standing NEW RELEASES: -Mining Photographs and Other Pictures by Leslie Shedden • The Well-Watered Garden: The Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 1798-1860 by Laurie Stanley In book and record outlets and most island craft stores or send to: The College of Cape Breton Press P. 0. Box 5300 Sydney, N. S. BIP 6L2 (58)

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