In June 1883, a new step was taken concerning the choice of a national flag. It was suggested that those who had concepts for an Acadian flag send them to Pierre Amand Landry and that a special issue of the Moniteur acadien would publish them afterwards. The final choice would be decided by parish assemblies (the religious parish still being the unit of reference at the time) chaired by the clergy. Things weren’t going to stop there, however. In August of the same year, a big picnic took place in Bouctouche to celebrate August 15th. An important part of the Acadian elites were present there, such as Pierre Amand Landry, Pascal Poirier and the politician Gilbert Girouard. This Bouctouche meeting was important in the history of the first Acadian National Conventions, so much so that historian Perry Biddiscombe calls it a “Semi-convention”. It was decided that the second convention would be held in Miscouche, Prince Edward Island, in mid-August 1884, the parish of Conservative MLA Joseph-Octave Arsenault. In fact, the organizing committee for this second convention was dominated by elements of the Conservative party, such as the Girouard, Landry and Poirier. In Bouctouche it was also decided that a commission would examine the question of the choice of a national flag and a national song. The members of this commission would be Father Stanislaus-J. Doucet, vicar of Tracadie (NB), and Father André Cormier, c.s.c., of Memramcook. Doucet being ill, he was replaced by Abbé Marcel-François Richard who, according to Biddinscombe, “…had apprently maneuvered himself into a position from which he could succeed his ailing friend”.
Like the other participants in the Miscouche convention, Abbé Richard crossed the Northumberland Strait and arrived there on August 14, having in his luggage the flag prepared by Marie Babineau. The organization of this convention was certainly not facilitated by the bishop of Charlottetown, Msgr. Peter McIntyre, who had summoned for the occasion all the Catholic clergy of the island in closed retreat. Moreover, it should be remembered, certain Acadian leaders, supporters of Saint-Jean-Baptiste as a national holiday, had not accepted the choice of August 15 as a national holiday. They tried to revive the debate in Miscouche, but Abbé RIchard’s network succeeded in stifling what the historian Robert Rumilly described as a “cabal”. The convention reconfirmed the choice made by the delegates in Memramcook in 1881 of the Assumption as the national Acadian holiday.
August 15, 1884, in Miscouche was another great day for Father Marcel-François Richard, because it was at this time that he gave his speech on the choice of the Acadian flag.
Speech on the choice of a national flag Rev. M.-F. Richard
Mr. President and dear compatriots,
We are meeting for the second time in convention in the interest of the small Acadian people, so worthy of our sympathy and our devotion.
In 1881, we decided on a vital question, that of a national holiday for Acadia, and our choice has since received the unanimous approval of our bishops, which authorizes us to celebrate it freely and gives us the assurance that the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin will be a day of rallying, joy and gladness for the Acadians.
In 1881, at the beautiful convetnion held in Memramcook, we organized ourselves into an army arrayed in battle, not to make war on our co-religionist brothers, but to defend ourselves against any attack attempted against our national autonomy. We claim to have the right to exist on the soil of Acadia, cleared and watered by the sweats, tears and blood of our brothers. We want to respect and have respected the just aspirations of the child martyrs of Grand-Pré de Port-Royal, and we are determined to demonstrate that the Acadian, like the Canadian, the English, the Irish and the Scottish, has rights in this country and that it is determined to defend them against any attempt at invasion. “God and my right, Shame on whoever thinks of it.”
For an army, he makes a standard. The banner of the Assumption, naturally, will be carried with religious partisanship at the head of our religious processions. But we must have a national flag flying over our heads on the days of our national meetings or celebrations. Several forms of flags have been proposed. I don’t want to belittle the suggestions made in this regard; but I cannot agree with those who claim that we must choose a flag quite different from that which represents our mother country. The tricolor flag is the flag of France, of which we are the descendants, and this flag has the right to float for international convenience throughout the entire universe. For us Acadians, this flag simply tells us that we are French and that France is our motherland, just as the Irish flag reminds the Irish of their origin and their homeland.
However, I would like Acadie to have a flag that would remind it not only that its children are French, but that they are also Acadians. I therefore suggest and propose to the delegates of this convention the following plan of the national flag:
The tricolor flag as made would be that of Acadia by adding a star in the papal colors to it in the blue part. The star which represents the star of Mary, Stella Maris, will serve as a crest in our flag as that of Canada makes the English flag that of the confederation.
Mr. President and gentlemen, does it not seem to you that you are already ready to adopt this flag which awakens in you the feeling that you are and that you must remain French, and that you are Acadians and that you want to remain Acadians and carry this flag to victory? In the future, when the enemies will want to disregard our rights, the sight of this flag will remind us of our duties and will encourage and cheer us up in the fight. Looking at the star that adorns your standard, you will remember that to fight under the aegis of Mary is to be assured of a victory, perhaps late, but certain.
For my part, I already seem to hear my heart beating at the thought that Acadia, having its national holiday, will, by our authorized choice, also possess a national flag, which will fly on the days of our festivities and serve us standard in the fights that we will be called upon to support for the defense of our often misunderstood and despised rights.
I ask Mr. President to propose to the vote of the delegates the choice of the Acadian flag and I dare to hope that the plan I have just drawn up will meet with the approval of my fellow Acadians.
The vote was taken with the most touching enthusiasm, some weeping, and all greeted this choice with joy. The tricolor with its star became from that moment the flag of Acadia.
The Reverend Father Richard also spoke on the advisability of having a national song, but made no suggestions.
The proposed songs did not meet his views. The question of a national song was postponed.
In the evening, in the deliberation room, all the delegates were assembled. We talked with great pleasure and joy about the chosen flag and we discussed the question of a national song. Father Richard asks permission to say a few words and explain an indiscretion committed. He told them that before leaving his parish he had had a flag made according to his ideal.
Source: History of the Acadian Flag, Maurice Basque & André Duguay, Editions de la Francophonie
Pascal Poirier: Witness to the adoption of the Acadian flag at the National Acadian Convention in Miscouche, August 15, 1884
We were warned that a movement at the head of which was a very influential laywoman and a very restless religious, both Acadians, was organizing, I could say was hatching, to have the Assumption revoked and him substitute Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day as the national Acadian holiday.
I got scared. Returning to Baie Sainte-Marie, I held assemblies there in various parishes, where I had the choice of the Assumption as the national holiday of the Acadians ratified. Then I labeled the abridged text, which I put in the form of telegraphic dispatches. These dispatches, which I paid for myself, were to have been addressed to me at Miscouche, the day before the Congress, independently of another dispatch, this one addressed to the President General.
When the Congress opened, I gave, in the presence of four or five thousand people, the reading of the despatches from Baie Sainte-Marie. The communication was greeted with cheers from the crowd. There was no mistaking the feeling of the Acadians for what went to the choice of a national holiday. The question of the substitution of Saint-Jean-Baptiste for Assoption was not raised. It would have been useless, moreover. The Acadians did not want, and do not want, any other patroness than Marie. They are the weakest on earth; they need the most powerful support in heaven.
Most of the resolutions taken at the Miscouche Congress relate to the need for us to preserve our ancestral language. The loss of our language would be for us the final loss of our French nationality, and perhaps, in the long term, the loss of our religious faith, its weakening in any case.
It was infinitely painful to us to find that whole groups of our people were talking among themselves in English, even at the Congress, so deeply had the English language penetrated, even to the intimate hearth, among our brothers on the island.
The Congress was to meet the following day, at nine o’clock, for the adoption of the reports which the various Commissions were charged with drawing up. The commission to which had been left the choice of a flag and a national song meets in one of the rooms of the Convent. There was then, and there is still today, a French convent in Miscouche, run by the Sisters of the Congrégation Notre-Dame.
The question of the flag was first settled; our flag would be that of France, its three colors, blue, white, red, with a star of ore maris stella in the blue.
The evoked image of distant and always loved France, mixed with that of ancient Acadia, both vanished, had stretched the fibers of our souls to the point of bursting them. The atmosphere was vibrating with electric sparks, when the question of the choice of a national song ended. At first a great silence reigned. Everyone was waiting for some inspiration from above.
Suddenly, M. Richard got up and intoned, with all his voice, the Ave Maris Stella. Everyone is on their feet, quivering; everyone changes the sacred hymn. – Our national song was found, fallen from the sky.
I have never, in all my life, been seized with such an emotion as that which seized me at that moment.
The next day, as we left the harbor of Summerside, singing in chorus, on the deck of the St. Lawrence, our national air our new flag hoisted just below that of England, a corvette detached from the British fleet, which was anchored not far from the quay, put its colors to the wind, thinking it was saluting the flag of France. It was our own flag, the Acadian flag, which she saluted. The flag of France does not have a gold star in the blue!…
Source: Pascal Poirier, “Memoir of Pascal Poirier”, CSHA, vol. 4, no. 3 (October-November-December 1971), p. 117-119