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FAMOUS FOLKS
According to the reports of d'Aulnay's
men, which provide the only account of what happened next, Françoise was
at first allowed a certain amount of freedom. But this ended abruptly when she
attempted to send a letter to La Tour. When Françoise's attempt was
discovered, retribution fell heavily. She was "put under restraint"
(ressèrée) and told she would be sent back to France under close
guard to stand trial for treason before the King's council.
In the end Françoise gave way to despair. All that
lay ahead were more months of rigorous imprisonment, heavy sentence for
rebellion, punishment, possibly torture and execution. The drain on her
strength and vitality had been heavy for a long time, culminating in a siege in
the depth of winter, the battle, the terrible deaths of her men. After such an
expenditure of strength, infections and illnesses which might ordinarily have
been thrown off take firm hold.
She now fell ill. La
Tour's servants said it was from sadness and resentment; the Capucins and
d'Aulnay's provost recorded that she fell sick from rage. Most said she died
three weeks after the fall of the fort in spite of efforts made to save
her.
What pressures she may have been under, and the
precise cause of her death, will probably never be known. William Crowne, an
associate of La Tour's in later years, said the Acadians believed she had been
poisoned. It is not likely to have been necessary.
The
Capucins said she was interred with solemn ceremony "so that she should be
recognized" somewhere behind the fort in the same general area as the soldiers'
graves. D'Aulnay sent her son back to France in the care of her waiting woman,
where the boy vanished from history.
Even
Françoise Jacquelin's enemies acknowledged her stature – her
courage, resourcefulness and strength of purpose which far surpassed the
ordinary. D'Aulnay paid tribute to these qualities when he accorded her funeral
honours which, in the words of one of his most ardent partisans, the historian
Celestin Moreau, were clearly her due because of "the rank she had occupied and
the role she had played in the colony."
Somewhere as yet
undiscovered behind the ruins of Fort La Tour lie the remains of a woman who
was truly the heroine of Acadia.
M.A. MacDonald is a research
associate at the New Brunswick Museum.
She is the author of Fortune &
La Tour: The Civil War in Acadia.
Check out the links listed
below for more on Lady LaTour and the progress of the fort
reconstruction.
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