ORONO – You don’t have to be Franco-American to have your heart broken when Michael Doucet sings plaintively of Le Grand Derangement, the 1755 exportation of his Acadian ancestors from what is now Nova Scotia.

On Tuesday, Doucet and freres in the Cajun band Beausoleil brought their story from the bayous of Louisiana to the Maine Center for the Arts and a welcoming audience.

Surely the most poignant moment was Doucet’s rendition of “Recherche d’Acadie”:

Quand je reve

De ma vie en Acadie

Moi j’ai vu mes voisins

Et les familles

Devant leurs maisons

Toutes brulees

A leurs genoux

Ils ont crie

Pourquoi le bon Dieu

Nous a abandonne

Recherche d’Acadie

When I dream

Of my life in Acadie

I see my neighbors

And their families

Outside their houses

Burning down

On their knees

They cried,

Why has the good Lord

Abandoned us?

In search of Acadie

Doucet clearly enjoyed the opportunity to speak a little French for the benefit of his many distant cousins in the audience. But speaking the language wasn’t necessary to enjoy both his music and the stories he shared in English.

“Varise” paid tribute to his 1974 visit with Varise Conner, the great fiddler from Lac Artur, La.

“He said he hadn’t played in a long time, and he didn’t know if he remembered,” Doucet recalled. “We played until the sun came up the next day.”

The tune showed off band member Jimmy Breaux’ ample talents on the accordion.

Doucet also was a friend of Dennis McGee, whose mother was Cajun. McGee, who lived until 1990, did one of the first recordings of Cajun music in 1929.

“We’d just go visit him and learn his songs,” Doucet explained before launching into “Choupique,” a tune named for a mudfish that gets little respect.

Doucet shared the secrets for preparing the fish – “red pepper, black pepper, green pepper, purple pepper, and you bake it on a plank of cypress. Then you throw away that Choupique and eat the board,” he said to the audience’s laughter.

The rhythmic “Le Grand Mamou,” a traditional song named for a town in Louisiana’s Evangeline Parish, showed off the abilities of guest Carl Landry on saxophone and band member Billy Ware on the frottoir – a “rubboard” he wears like a vest.

Beausoleil showed diversity from a Creole arrangement of “It’s You I Love” – an audience favorite – to the rockabilly “Can’t You See?” to “Zydeco X.”

Zydeco originated with black musicians in Louisiana, Doucet said, but it has some of the same elements as Cajun music.

Doucet brought a great group to the University of Maine Tuesday. Dummer Tommy Alesi, brother David Doucet on guitar and bassist Al Tharp rounded out the band, while other special guests were jazz violinist Darol Anger, guitarist Sonny Landreth and Cindy Cashdollar on steel guitar.

A definite treat was the post-intermission kickoff of Doucet playing in a trio with Tharp and Anger. Their pensive violin music transformed into reedy train-whistle sounds on their way to full-out, let-loose fiddling.

The Doucet brothers had played MCA during a fiddle fest in the 1980s. Blessings on them for bringing the entire band on its “Looking Back Forward” tour – and making their ancestors proud.