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Updated: June 28, 2025
At Fort Beauséjour the treacherous priest Le Loutre continued to pursue his insidious designs of creating dissatisfaction among the French Acadians and pressing on them the necessity of driving the English from the former possessions of France.
It was partly from this source that the hostile designs of the French became known to the authorities of Halifax, and more especially the proceedings of "Moses," by which name Pichon always designated Le Loutre, because he pretended to have led the Acadians from the land of bondage.
Fools and revilers!" exclaimed a deep and cutting voice behind them; and turning with a start they saw the dreaded Le Loutre standing in their midst. Lecorbeau and Pierre became pale with apprehension and superstitious awe, while the old sergeant laughed awkwardly, abashed though not dismayed.
Then the red files marched sullenly back to their boats; while a body of Indians, reappearing from the woods, yelled and danced their defiance, and the French across the river shouted their mocking ballads. When it was seen that the English were actually reembarking, a fierce indignation broke out against Le Loutre for the useless cruelty and precipitancy of his action.
His later years, when he reached France, do him some credit. By that time the Acadians had been driven from their homes. There were nearly a thousand exiles in England. Le Loutre tried to befriend these helpless people and obtained homes for some of them in the parish of Belle-Isle-en-Mer in France.
These poor peasants had many of them been the owners of happy homes, whence the merciless fiat of Le Loutre had banished them. The hill of Beausejour lies open to the four winds of heaven, one or the other of which is pretty sure to be blowing at all seasons; and some of the dispirited toilers had not even rawhide moccasins to protect their feet from the biting frost.
As already stated, the English authorities in Halifax had been warned of the movements of the Indians though they could only guess the part that Le Loutre had in them. Without delay they had sent small bands of troops to each of the exposed settlements, but that dispatched to Kenneticook arrived, as we have seen, too late.
A few weeks later there was an act of treachery which greatly embittered the British soldiers. This was the murder of Captain Howe, one of the British officers, by some of Le Loutre's Micmacs. It was stated that Le Loutre was personally implicated in the crime, but there appears not the slightest foundation for this charge.
Pierre himself, seeing that Le Loutre was sticking to his promise, found a good word to say for him, for the first time that he could remember. That same evening, supper being over about dusk, Pierre said he would go up to the fort and see the old sergeant. As he got to the cabin door he turned and threw a kiss to the dear ones he was leaving.
"I have already," adds Prévost, "paid him 11,183 livres for his daily expenses; and I never cease advising him to be as economical as possible, and always to take care not to compromise himself with the English Government." In consequence of "good service to religion and the state," Le Loutre received a pension of eight hundred livres, as did also Maillard, his brother missionary on Cape Breton.
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