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When I spoke to him, he was unconscious and he never fully recovered his senses. Alas! he lay in a few weeks, beneath the sod of Grand Calumet Island, and France is ignorant of the fact that a true aristocrat and simple-hearted gentleman existed in the humble person of my friend the habitant, Etienne Guy Chezy D'Alencourt, alias "Netty." Descendez a L'Ombre, ma Jolie Blonde.
April passed, and May, and with the hot weather Etienne, whose health gave way all at once, would have to return for a short visit to the old mother all by herself on the island of Grand Calumet. I feared to let him go, he looked more delicate in my eyes every day, but I knew it would be good for him in many ways. So a day came that saw my friend D'Alencourt go back to his northern home.
I was for weeks haunted by that terrible sight, half ludicrous, half awful, and I have, now that I am married, a strong dislike to scarlet in the gowns or head-gear of my wife and daughter." The Story of Etienne Chezy D'Alencourt As my friends know, I was born an Englishman, spending the first twenty-four years of my life in England.
That must only be a nickname." "Mais oui Monsieur. My name is much longaire than dat. My whole name is Etienne Guy Chezy D'Alencourt, but no man call me dat, specially in de mill. 'Netty' dey all know 'Netty." It was a long name, truly, and a high-sounding one, but I preferred thinking of him by it than by the meaningless soubriquet of "Netty."
Lying on my sofa, he had in one hand the scarlet-edged missal, and in the other the book I have referred to, which contained a short sketch of Guy Chezy D'Alencourt the handsome and reckless lieutenant of La Nouvelle France.
The letter itself ran: "Dear Sir, The frend of Etienne D'Alenconrt, he can write you he can send you a lettre from the Grand Calumet, his island that is green, Monsieur, and full of sweet berries. If you would come, Mossier, you would find Etienne and his mother reddy to do all they can. Still, Monsieur shall in this please alway himself, the friend and benefactor of Etienne Chezy D'Alencourt."
In my reading I read for two, and made notes of anything I thought would interest Etienne. One day I came across the same name as his own, borne by a certain young soldier, a sprig of the French noblesse who had followed in the train of Bigot, the dissolute and rapacious Governor of New France. I meditated long over this. The name was identical Guy Chezy D'Alencourt.
And the Gatineau, that is a river, is it not? What pretty names these French ones are! Gatineau!" I repeated thinking. "That comes, I fancy having heard somewhere, from Demoiselle Marie Josephe Gatineau Duplessis, wife of one of the first French settlers. By the way your name is a curious one. Say it again." Netty very gravely repeated, "Etienne Guy Chezy D'Alencourt."
Tree letter oui, vite, cher mosdieu, vite!" I had to look very closely indeed to decipher these, but with the aid of a small lens I found them to be "G. C. D'A." There could be little doubt but that Etienne was the lineal descendant of Guy Chezy D'Alencourt, native of Rouen, who came to Canada in the same year as Bigot.
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