Marguerite  ROBICHAUD

Marguerite and Leprosy
'One sultry August afternoon in the year 1828 the Rev. Mr. de Bellefeuille, a missionary priest visiting Tracadie, was called upon to bury a woman named Ursule Landry who died of a mysteious and loathsome disease to which none could qive a name. Her flesh had become hard and scaly; hideous swellings distorted her face and form; spots of a brownish tint appeared upon her limb...

Pauvre Ursule! There are some in Tracadie who hate that woman, who say she brought a curse on all of us. But I don't blame her for 'La maladie' any more than I would blame the weather or the food that ue ate... though there are those who believe the climate, cold and damp, brought it to our shores or that it is caused by the salted fish.

I was a girl of fifteen when Ursule died; so I knew her, a small woman with rounded shoulders who used two walking sticks to stand. Her face was hidden under a veil qnd she always wore a bonnet.

For the last year of the disease, she stayed in her cabin with only her...Read full story


Children of Lararus: The Story of the Lazaretto at Tracadie; Provincial House, Bathurst, NB