Cape Breton Places & Foods

As we meet together under the Old Town Clock and look out over the habour, we might see an old sailing ship putting out to sea. Whenever this happens, my thoughts immediately go back to the days when all was sail and of the strange happenings which took place along our Coast, and so I have a story about sailing ships, a woman, and hardships and danger. The date of this story goes back to the middle of the sixteenth century, and our heroine is a French girl of noble birth who endured unbelievable hardships in order to be with the man she loved. Get out that map of North America and search out a small island, called the Isle aux Demons.

The First French governor of Canada, during the days of the intrepid Cartier, was Sieur de Roberval, appointed to King Francis the First as “Lord of Norembega, Viceroy, and Lieutenant General in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great bay, and Baccalaos.” With these high-sounding titles went the more practical awards of a grant of money with which to buy and equip five ships, and authority to settle the new land with convicts pardoned from French prisons.

Now at Roberval’s castle in Picardy lived his beautiful young niece Marguerite, a favourite with everyone at the court on account of her courage and daring, and her ever-gay spirits. But if she was a favourite with everyone, there was at least one at the court, a young man whose name has not come down to us., for whom she was the center of the universe. He was not of noble birth, however, and had no fortune; therefore, even though Marguerite shared his passion, there was little or no possibility of a marriage.

Hope dies very hard in young breasts, however, and when it was known that Roberval was sailing for the New World, and taking with him Marguerite, the young man volunteered to join the Viceroy’s party. In the hope that in Canada some lucky circumstance might enable them to disclose their secret love.

Their secret was disclosed, however, long before they wanted Roberval to know about it. Somehow, during the crossing of the Atlantic the Viceroy discovered the affair, and was exceedingly angry. It would seem from the meager records that he was not so angry with Marguerite for her attachment to one of low birth as he was for keeping the affair a secret. However that may be, he was so angry with his niece that he devised for her as terrible a punishment as one could imagine.

Some miles off the coast, there is a lonely, rocky island, rising sheer from the water, around which the winds moan with a sound that is scarcely earthly. Superstitious sailors believed it to be haunted, and called it Isle aux Demons, or Island of Devils, and gave it a very wide berth. Roberval decided to leave Marguerite on this barren island as punishment.

The little fleet put off its course to Isle aux Demons, and Roberval put Marguerite and her old nurse, who accompanied her on the voyage, into a boat and ordered them taken ashore. He allowed the unfortunate women a small supply of provisions, and gave them for guns and some ammunition to defend themselves against wild beasts, and to shoot game for food. Slowly the boat went ashore while the sailors crossed themselves as protection against the demons which, they were sure, were waiting to seize and devour them. As the boat’s keel grated against the rocky beach, Marguerite’s nurse begged and entreated not to be left on the island; but in vain, for the men was condemned criminals, whose only hope of freedom lay in complete obedience to the orders of Sieur de Roberval. As for marguerite, she sat calmly in the boat, too proud to ask for mercy, until one of the seamen offered to help her ashore. Then, refusing his offer, she placed one foot on the gunwale of the boat, and leaped to the barren shore of Isle aux Demons.

In the meantime, Marguerite’s lover was standing by the rail of the ship, hardly believing that Roberval would really carry out so atrocious a plan. When he saw the boat returning, however, and glimpsed the figures of Marguerite and her nurse on the beach, and heard orders given to prepare to sail, he knew that the punishment was indeed going to be carried out. He turned from the rail, rushed to his quarters, seized his two guns and some ammunition, and, returning to the deck, leaped into the water. Weighted down as he was, he managed to swim to shore, and three figures stood unhappily on the cliffs of Isle aux Demons and watched the white sails of Roberval’s fleet grow smaller and smaller, and at last fade into the distance.

When the last sail had disappeared below the horizon, the three marooned people took stock of their situation. Fortunately it was during the summer that they were marooned, for their chance of surviving without preparation for the North Atlantic winter would have been very small indeed. They looked over their slender stock of supplies, decided how long the food would last, and went to work at once preparing temporary shelters until such time as they could build something more permanent.

That evening, Marguerite and her lover knelt on the rocky heights of Isle aux Demons, and with joined hands, prayed to god to consecrate their marriage.

During the weeks that passed, while they worked hard at building shelters against the coming winter, and stocked a larder with wild fowl and with game, both of which were, fortunately, abundant on the island, Marguerite’s good spirits were almost invaluable. She laughed, sang old songs of Picardy, reminded her lover that at last they had their wish to be together, and was far, far jollier than I am afraid most of us would be under the circumstances.

But on stormy nights, when fall set in, and the wind howled and shrieked around the little island, and waves pounded with deep throbs against the rocks, it was hard to keep cheerful. The old superstitions rose in their minds, and Marguerite, when the wind gave a more than usually demon like howl, crossed herself and breathed a short prayer foe safety against the powers of the lower world that held this land in their sway.

With the coming of the next summer, a baby was born to Marguerite-the first European baby to be born in North America to a family living on this continent. This event opened for Marguerite new interests, and new motives for living. But her husband, in spite of Marguerite’s efforts to be gay, began to lose his spirits. The thought of Marguerite deprived on his account of all the things to which she ha been accustomed, the thought of this unfortunate infant, probably destined never to see a human face other than those of its father and mother and the nurse, weighed heavily upon him, and he began to fail rapidly. So weak did he become that with the first chill weather he fell victim to what was probably pneumonia, and died.

Doggedly refusing to give up, Marguerite buried his body, and took upon herself the task of providing food for the three remaining persons. In a few weeks ,however, death struck again, this time taking Marguerite’s baby. Even this terrible blow did not dishearten her. She carried on, with indomitable spirit, while her sole remaining companion, the old nurse gave up entirely, and fell an easy prey to disease. Marguerite was alone.

Even yet, this amazing girl-for she was scarcely more than that- refused to abandon hope. Sometimes, on the far horizon, during sunny days, she would catch a glimpse of a white sail, whose mariners were keeping far from the fearsome, haunted Isle aux Demons. “One day,” she thought, “a ship will come close enough for me to signal it, and I shall be rescued.”

Against wild animals-two beautiful pelts of white bears were among her trophies-against her own superstitions, against the paralyzing cold, against starvation, and-even worse-against insanity from the horrible conditions and her almost hopeless situation, Marguerite waged her lone battle. Three mounds of earth stood just outside her shelter to remind her of what she might expect, and the sails that she saw were far, far away on the horizon, just near enough for her to see them, but to far away for them to see her. Even if they had seen her from a distance, it is doubtful they would have come to the island, for seamen feared the Isle aux Demons as they would have the mouth of the bottomless pit.

Nevertheless, Marguerite watched all day for the sail which might come. She made herself a seat on a rocky pinnacle of the island, and on every clear day, winter and summer, she sat there watching the horizon-watching-watching.

Two winters and two summers passed, with Marguerite still alone on the Isle aux Demons-alone, save for her memories, three mounds and the hope that could not be quenched in her breast, kept ever burning, like a beacon fire that she maintained at her point of vantage from which she watched the horizon.

Then, just as the third winter was about to wrap its icy blanket about Isle aux Demons, Marguerite sighted a sail-much nearer than any that had ever before come into sight.

She rushed to her fire, and heaped green wood on it. Soon a pillar of grey smoke was rising skyward, a beacon that the men on the ship could scarcely miss. Hardly daring to look, Marguerite turned her back on the approaching sail and counted slowly to a hundred. Then she turned again to see if the vessel was coming closer. It was! It was now close enough for her to distinguish the figures on the deck, close enough for her to see that it was a fishing vessel that had wandered from its usual course. Warily the vessel approached the island. Quite evidently the superstitious seamen feared that the smoke was simply a trick of the devils to lure them to their destruction; but their curiosity was overcoming their fear.

Marguerite raced to the beach, and signaled frantically to the vessel. Amazed, but still cautious, the ship came closer, closer, and at last put a boat that came near enough for marguerite to tell the men who she was, and what she was doing on this lonely and much feared island.

The boat came to shore, and took Marguerite off her horrid island prison. The crew of the ship did all they could for her comfort, and carried her with them back to France to civilization. Marguerite de Roberval’s lonely exile was over.

After knowing this story, one cannot help but feel just a little glad that the cruel Sieur de Roberval did not prosper as Gove nor and Viceroy of New France. His convict colony, held together only by force, soon broke up when a famine struck it, and his days came to an inglorious end when he was killed in a tavern brawl in Paris some years later.

Of the later days of Marguerite, little is known. Of this, however, we may be sure; that wherever she was, and however how much of a favourite she was, her heart was buried with two mounds, one large, one small, on the lonely Isle aux Demons.