Long life for thrice widowed Anne Mius

By Laurent d’Entremont

By the time Anne Mius was 34 years of age, she had been married and widowed three times.

Her last husband left her a huge fortune in France where she spent the rest of her days in luxury.

Anne Mius was born at the Manor House in the Barony of Poumbcoup (Pubnico) in 1694. Her mother was Anne de La Tour and her father was Jacques Mius d’Entremont, the oldest son of our founder, Baron Philippe Mius d’Entremont. The early Governor of L’Acadie, Charles de La Tour was her grandfather.

Anne Mius had just entered her early teens when a junior grade lieutenant of the French Navy stationed at Port Royal asked for her hand in marriage. His name was Antoine de Sallien, originally from the southeast of France.

As the church registers had been lost in a fire, there was no way to know for sure if young Anne was old enough to marry. Her mother, Anne de La Tour, felt she was of age and the marriage took place at Port Royal on July 18, 1707. This concludes that the young bride was only 13.

Unfortunately, the marriage lasted less than seven weeks. Her husband, Antoine de Sallien died of wounds suffered while defending Port Royal against the troops of Colonel John Marsh of Boston. Here it is almost safe to say that Anne Mius became the youngest widow that Acadie had ever known.

As the widow of a soldier she was entitled to some sort of pension, but the minister in France wrote to Governor Subercase of Acadie that she did not qualify for a pension because the marriage had not lasted long enough. Anne had no choice, but to return to her father’s Manor House.

The young widow did not spend the rest of her life pining away and feeling sorry for herself though, for on Feb. 12,1716, now a woman of 22 years and living in Louisburg, she remarried Philippe de Pastour de Costebelle, the governor of Cape Breton.

They had been married for only a few months when the governor had to leave for France. His new bride accompanied him on the voyage.

Governor Costebelle and his new wife arrived in France, landing on the island of Belle-Ile-en-Mer, located just off the coast of Brittany, on Christmas Day. From there they settled in Paris where Anne gave birth to a daughter on April 11, 1717. The baby was baptized and given the name of Marie-Josephe, and Anne’s sister, Marie Mius, who was in France stood as Godmother of the newborn child.

Happiness would not last. I August of the same year Governor Costebelle left France with his wife and baby to return to his duties in Cape Breton. Sadly, Costebelle became very sick on the way home and died of his illness shortly after arriving at Louisburg in early October. By unfortunate events, the second marriage of Anne Mius had lasted a little less than two years.

Apparently, Anne was not a quitter. Two years later in August of 1719 she married for a third time, in Paris France, a long way from her native home.

The new husband was Laurent de Namailles-Labatut, Lay Abbot of Asson, from the southwestern part of France, bordering on Spain. This time she married into money and riches beyond expectations.

From this marriage, Anne had five children; two boys and three girls. By this time she was known as Madame la Baronne de Labatut.

Shortly before she married the baron, she had lost most of her belongings to help pay the debts of her second husband. Now she was living in a castle with lots of servants, and went by the title of La Baroness. What a difference two years make.

This last and final marriage lasted longer than the other two, yet it was only nine years later at the age of 34 that Anne found herself a widow for the third time. She fared out very well and was left a huge fortune, a number of castles, feudal estates with yearly income, hundreds of acres of fertile land, orchards -- it is not a coincidence that the Annapolis Valley has lots of orchards -- vineyards, animals and poultry. Even the church at Labatut belonged to her.

Strangely, it was only now that she needed no more that the French government decided to compensate her for being left penniless as the widow of the governor of Cape Breton, a grant which amounted to 17,000 pounds.

After a widowhood of half a century, Anne from Acadie, the Baroness of Labatut, died in October of 1778 in one of her castles. She was 84. She had outlived three husbands, a son-in-law and a grandson who had died in Haiti.

After researching her story we can be sure of one thing: Anne Mius was not the type to marry the boy next door. laudent@hotmail.com