Although Antoine Le Poupet de La Boularderie and his father Louis-Simon have been designated Canadian Historic Persons – individuals who made significant contributions to the history of Canada – their story has only ever been partially told. Part of their story can be found on Cape Breton Island, another part in France, and still another part in the American State of South Carolina. Who were the Boularderies? How did they impact the early history of Cape Breton Island and Canada? And how is it that their story is so fragmented? In order to answer these questions, we will reassemble the family’s entire story for the first time.

SPECIAL THANKS to the Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes & Drums for giving us permission to use their song “Village Dance” in this episode.

DISCLAIMER: The pictures, paintings and music used on the project “The Boularderies of Little Bras d’Or” are a mix of paid stock, by attribution, royalty-free, public domain, and other copyright-free sources. No copyright infringement is intended. All rights belong to their respective owners. If you are or represent the copyright owner of materials used in this video and have an issue with the use of said material, please send an email to lostworldofcapebretonisland@gmail.com and we will respond immediately.

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TRANSCRIPT

1. It’s late summer or early autumn in the community of Little Bras d’Or, a fishing and agricultural settlement located on the east coast of Cape Breton Island. A crisp breeze is blowing off the ocean and through the fields, carrying with it the scent of local vegetation like Golden Rod and Queen Anne’s Lace. These fields, along with the rest of the settlement, are owned by a man named Antoine de La Boularderie, a nobleman from France and one of Cape Breton’s most distinguished residents. On this pristine day, Antoine has decided to inspect the progress of his establishment. 

2. He lumbers down towards the shore, where the fishermen are hard at work. Although Antoine is only 49 years old, it’s likely that at this point in his life, he’s walking with a cane to alleviate the pain of old war wounds. But old wounds aren’t the only burden he carries – the loss of his house, barns and stable, burnt down by miscreants some six years ago, has also left its mark. Still, he walks on with dogged determination, the same determination that’s driving him to rebuild what little is left of his establishments.

3. Suddenly, La Boularderie finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun held by one of his own hired labourers. Although surrounded by this serene and peaceful landscape, Antoine’s life flashes before his eyes. We don’t exactly know why one of his workers has decided to kill him, but to think that Antoine will meet his demise, not on some distant battlefield but at the hand of one of his own employees takes him by surprise. The man pulls the trigger, and Antoine falls to the ground.

4. This is the untold story of the Boularderie family.

5. This is The Lost World of Cape Breton Island. It’s the aim of this project to reconstruct the lives of people long gone, walk roads that no longer exist, and retell long forgotten stories from Cape Breton’s past through the eyes of those who saw it for themselves. These primary sources tell the stories of a long lost landscape – each one a thread in the tapestries of Cape Breton’s vivid and engrossing history. 

6. Three generations of the La Boularderie family once lived in Cape Breton – Louis-Simon, who settled on the island in the 1720s, Louis-Simon’s only known son Antoine who was introduced at the beginning of this episode, and Antoine’s many children. Their story is not a happy one. It is the chronicle of an aristocratic family that made all the right moves but who always ended up on the losing side; a story that crescendos with hope and stability, only to collapse into poverty and disgrace once disaster befalls them. We will first follow the family to Cape Breton from France, then on to places like Québec, French Guiana, and finally to the American state of South Carolina.

7. France’s Archives Nationale d’Outre-mer located in Aix-en-Provence is home to an abundance of 18th century documentation about the La Boularderie family. These documents, which include land grants, military appointments, and handwritten testimonies provide a fascinating glimpse into the world they once knew. Although these documents aren’t as rich and descriptive as, say, a journal or memoir, they do give us the chance to read the story of the La Boularderie family told by the La Boularderies. These documents will serve as the historical foundation of our episode. More information pertaining to the family’s time in Cape Breton will be taken from Les Derniers Jours de l’Acadie, a collection of correspondence that passed through Cape Breton Island during the mid-18th century and also the work of historian Dale Miquelon. 

8. At the end of the War of Spanish Succession in 1713, France ceded the colonies of Acadia and Newfoundland to Great Britain. However, France would retain control over the islands in the Gulf of St Lawrence, the most important of these being Ile Saint Jean (present-day Prince Edward Island) and the island of Cape Breton. As per the treaty signed at the end of the war, the population of Placentia, Newfoundland and the islands of St Pierre and Miquelon would be uprooted and transferred to French territory. The French administration decided that these people would be transferred to Cape Breton Island where a new settlement would be founded at l’Havre à l’Anglois, or English Harbour. The administration soon changed the name of this settlement to Louisbourg, and Cape Breton Island to Île Royale. To help this fledgling colony, the colonial administration in New France arranged for soldiers and equipment to be sent to Louisbourg, but since no naval ships were available at the time they instead contracted a merchant ship in Quebec to do the job, a ship commanded by a man named Louis-Simon de La Boularderie. 

9. Louis-Simon was born around 1674 in Paris, France. In 1693, he entered the colonial troops and served in both Newfoundland and Acadia. Although a naval officer by trade, by 1713 he was forced to find other kinds of employment and so got involved in merchant shipping. It was at this point that he was contracted by the colonial administration in New France to carry supplies to this new settlement on Cape Breton Island.

10. It was likely in the month of August 1713 when Louis-Simon sailed into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and down the northeastern coast of Cape Breton toward Louisbourg. Perhaps it was at this time that La Boularderie first laid eyes on the island that would bear his name, an island that sat in the entrance of Cape Breton’s vast inland sea, the Bras d’Or Lakes, like a cork in a bottle. If observed from offshore, the island would have appeared only a few kilometres wide, but in reality the island proved to be some 10 kilometres wide, and well over 35 kilometres long. To reward him for his services, Historian J.S. McLennan explains that in 1719 the King granted him a concession of land which included all of the island that sat in the entrance to the Bras d’Or Lakes, and we quote “the opposite southern shore to a league in depth, the island at Ingonish, [and] exclusive beach rights for one hundred fishers.” unquote. This concession was unique in that it was designated “franc-alleu noble”. It meant that Louis-Simon owned his land outright, and was not required to pay dues or taxes to the King unlike the seigneurial concessions of Canada and France. Louis-Simon was, in effect, the true lord of the land. 

11. Today the island, which is known locally as “Boulandrie Island”, is best known for its rolling farmland and strong Gaelic and Scottish ties. It is bisected by the Trans-Canada Highway which runs from St Andrew’s Channel to the Seal Island Bridge. The community of Point Aconi, located on the northern coast of Boularderie Island, together with the community of Alder Point that sits on the opposite shore, mark the present-day location of La Boularderie’s 18th century settlement known as La Petite Brasdor, or “Little Bras d’Or” in English. 

12. A “decoding” of Louis-Simon’s name provides us with rich detail not only about the individual, but also the entire Boularderie family. But it’s important to note that “La Boularderie” is not the family’s name, although for the sake of simplicity we will continue to use it as such. Louis-Simon’s family name was actually “Le Poupet”. In France’s Ancien Régime, when someone’s first name and family name were followed immediately by the particle “de” and by a territorial designation, it was usually because they were of the nobility. Therefore, there are 4 components to Louis-Simon’s name – his first name, Louis-Simon, his family name, Le Poupet, the particle indicating nobility, “de”, and the estate to which his nobility was linked – in this case, an estate in Normandy known as “La Boularderie”. Putting it all together, we get Louis-Simon Le Poupet de La Boularderie. The names of Louis-Simon’s descendants would, in fact, incorporate other family estates into their own names, such as Saint-Aubin, Treville, Vesly, Cou, and Benneville, although each of these designations would be preceded by the family name “Le Poupet”. 

13. While Louis-Simon focused his attention on his growing settlement at Little Bras d’Or and his fishery at Ingonish, his only son, Antoine, now about 15 years old, was busy leading a very different kind of life. 

14. Antoine was born in Port Royal, Acadia (present-day Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia) in 1705. His mother’s name was Madeleine Melançon, and was likely of Acadian descent. Little to nothing is known about Antoine’s early years in Acadia, but at about the same time that his father acquired his noble concession at Little Bras d’Or, young Antoine was serving as a page in the household of the Duke of Orléans in France. At this time, the Duke of Orléans, Philippe II, was serving as regent, caring for the affairs of France until King Louis XV, who was only about 10 years old, was old enough to rule. For Antoine, a young nobleman with strong political connections, serving as a page to the most powerful man in the country set him on a path to glory. It exposed him to a powerful network of highly placed individuals and groomed him for either public or military service. Typically, a page cared for the daily needs of his master, such as dressing him, carrying personal letters and attending to him at court. No doubt Antoine’s daily tasks were similar. The Duke of Orléans lived at the Palais-Royal, a royal residence located in the heart of Paris, and during these years, the palace served as the seat of government for the entire country. In this environment, young Antoine would have not only served in the presence of the men who ran France but also the monarchs and foreign heads of state who ran Europe. Today, you can visit the Palais-Royal in Paris and see where Antoine would have spent his formative years. It is a short walk from the Louvre, in Paris’ 1st arrondissement. 

15. After the Duke of Orléans died in 1723, Antoine found a new protector – the Duke of Richelieu. He joined the Duke’s regiment and became a lieutenant on January 1 1724. In 1733, he became a captain. By the 1730s, this regiment had been garrisoned all over France – from Collioure to Calais and from Bayonne to Lille. Antoine no doubt followed his regiment wherever it happened to be. 

16. Meanwhile in Cape Breton, things were not going smoothly for his father, Louis-Simon. Two attempts at creating a company to exploit the resources of the concession and the fisheries at Ingonish failed. Historian Dale Miquelon says that, finally quote “La Boularderie succeeded in 1723 in forming a company at Saint-Malo to provide the capital necessary to exploit his concessions. The enterprise began inauspiciously when he and the company’s director… were captured by pirates and set adrift in a small boat 100 miles from Île Royale. In 1726 La Boularderie had the new company evicted from his concessions because he believed, rightly or wrongly, that for three years it had neglected the duty of settlement while exploiting the lucrative fishery. In [1729] a new company was formed with eight merchants of Rouen and Le Havre. Unfortunately a managerial crisis in France caused the stoppage of supplies and obliged La Boularderie to return there in 1732 and 1735. The quarrelling associates dissolved their company, and La Boularderie returned to [Little Brasdor] to establish a shipyard. This last and most visionary of La Boularderie’s projects, which was to begin with the construction of a 1,200-ton vessel for the king of Spain, was blighted at the outset by La Boularderie’s shipwreck in the St Lawrence with necessary supplies, and by the withdrawal of his associate.” unquote.

17. In Europe, things were not going smoothly, either. In February of 1733, the King of Poland died, plunging Poland into a civil war. By October of that year, the European powers had chosen which side of the issue they were on. The Bourbon powers of France and Spain chose to oppose the Habsburgs of Austria, and armies were mobilized across Europe. 

18. In 1733 when the War of Polish Succession broke out in Europe, Antoine would have probably been garrisoned with his regiment in Selestat, a French town along the German border. It wasn’t long before they were on the move. First, the regiment moved north with a French army to lay siege to the German city of Kehl. The city surrendered in just two weeks. A year later, Antoine’s regiment was part of the French army that attacked the Fortress of Philippsburg. After a two month long siege, it, too, surrendered. Then, in 1735, La Boularderie and his company witnessed the French defeat at Clausen. Finally, after two long years of fighting, a peace treaty brought an end to the war. 

19. In a letter written some twenty years after the end of the war, Antoine summarizes the 1720s and 1730s – effectively two whole decades of his life – in a few nondescript sentences. After briefly mentioning that he had served as a page, a lieutenant and then as a captain, he skims over the two years he spent fighting in the war by saying that he had seen action at “Kehl, Philippsburg and Clausen”. It seems that he was strategically embellishing his sufferings while minimizing his successes in order to elicit the support of a new protector, much like the Duke of Orleans or the Duke of Richelieu. If we follow that course of logic, however, we could rightfully conclude that the 1720s and 1730s were actually very good years for Antoine. But as one continues to read that letter, and he starts writing about the 1740s and the 1750s, Antoine de La Boularderie seems to find his voice, and the embellishments begin taking on an air of desperation …

20. On June 6 1738, Louis-Simon de La Boularderie passed away. He was likely only in his sixties. It would have taken a few months for this news to travel across the Atlantic from Cape Breton to Paris. Antoine writes: quote “The king had given my father the rank of commandant for as long as he lived in all the extent of his lands and holdings… His Majesty thought fit to invest me with the same prerogatives. I therefore sold a house in Paris, the last of my assets, and went out to Ile Royale.” unquote. 1st March 1739, Antoine de La Boularderie inherited his fathers lands and rank in Cape Breton. He didn’t know it at the time, but his experiences in Cape Breton would change his life forever. [END]