Discover our Acadian resources: the early Acadian classics in Special Collections (Aug 7/24)

Diéreville (full name unknown) was a French surgeon who travelled to Port Royal in 1699 and spent a year in the colony. Having some literary inclinations (some of his poetry had been published in Le Mercure galant in his youth), the work is written partially in verse. He recorded information about the local flora and fauna, methods of cooking and food eaten in the colony, clothing and housing, and the social customs and practices of the Acadians. Diéreville was also charged with collecting botanical specimens from New France for the Royal Botanical Gardens in Paris, and he returned to France with samples of flowers and shrubbery hitherto unknown to French botanists.

Popular in Europe, Diéreville’s account was published in 1708 in Rouen and went through three printings. An unauthorized French edition of the work was published in Amsterdam in 1710. Ours is the third, and most complete, issue of the Rouen printings, and we also hold the unauthorized Amsterdam edition. This third printing is notable for including an appendix added by the publisher detailing the second attack on Port Royal by New Englanders in 1707. This account was reproduced from a February 1708 issue of the Gazette and is remarkable for being the first printed description of the event.