Abbe Raynal, who never saw the Acadians, has made an ideal picture of them,[268] since copied and improved in prose and verse, till Acadia has become Arcadia.  The plain realities of their condition and fate are touching enough to need no exaggeration.  They were a simple and very ignorant peasantry, industrious and frugal till evil days came to discourage them; living aloof from the world, with little of that spirit of adventure which an easy access to the vast fur-bearing interior had developed in their Canadian kindred; having few wants, and those of the rudest; fishing a little and hunting in the winter, but chiefly employed in cultivating the meadows along the River Annapolis, or rich marshes reclaimed by dikes from the tides of the Bay of Fundy.  The British Government left them entirely free of taxation.  They made clothing of flax and wool of their own raising, hats of similar materials, and shoes or moccasons of moose and seal skin.  They bred cattle, sheep, hogs, and horses in abundance; and the valley of the Annapolis, then as now, was known for the profusion and excellence of its apples.  For drink, they made cider or brewed spruce-beer.  French officials describe their dwellings as wretched wooden boxes, without ornaments or conveniences, and scarcely supplied with the most necessary furniture.[269] Two or more families often occupied the same house; and their way of life, though simple and virtuous, was by no means remarkable for cleanliness.  Such as it was, contentment reigned among them, undisturbed by what modern America calls progress.  Marriages were early, and population grew apace.  This humble society had its disturbing elements; for the Acadians, like the Canadians, were a litigious race, and neighbors often quarrelled about their boundaries.  Nor were they without a bountiful share of jealousy, gossip, and backbiting, to relieve the monotony of their lives; and every village had its turbulent spirits, sometimes by fits, though rarely long, contumacious even toward the cure, the guide, counsellor, and ruler of his flock.  Enfeebled by hereditary mental subjection, and too long kept in leading-strings to walk alone, they needed him, not for the next world only, but for this; and their submission, compounded of love and fear, was commonly without bounds.  He was their true government; to him they gave a frank and full allegiance, and dared not disobey him if they would.  Of knowledge he gave them nothing; but he taught them to be true to their wives and constant at confession and Mass, to stand fast for the Church and King Louis, and to resist heresy and King George; for, in one degree or another, the Acadian priest was always the agent of a double-headed foreign power,—­the Bishop of Quebec allied with the Governor of Canada.[270]

[Footnote 268:  Histoire philosophique et politique, VI. 242 (ed. 1772).]

[Footnote 269:  Beauharnois et Hocquart au Comte de Maurepas, 12 Sept. 1745._]