HISTORY, THE CREOLE, AND HIS DUELS
Canal Street is to New Orleans much more than Main Street is to Buffalo,
much more than Broad Street is to Philadelphia, much more than Broadway
and Fifth Avenue are to New York, for Canal Street divides New Orleans
as no other street divides an American city. It divides New Orleans as
the Seine divides Paris, and there is not more difference between the
right bank of the Seine and the Latin Quarter than between American New
Orleans and Creole New Orleans: between the newer part of the city and
the _vieux carré_. The sixty squares ("islets" according to the Creole
idiom, because each block was literally an islet in time of flood) which
comprise the old French town established in 1718 by the Sieur de
Bienville, are unlike the rest of the city not merely in architecture,
but in all respects. The street names change at Canal Street, the
highways become narrower as you enter the French quarter, and the
pavements are made of huge stone blocks brought over long ago as ballast
in sailing ships. Nor is the difference purely physical. For though they
will tell you that this part of the city is not so French and Spanish as
it used to be, that it has run down, that large parts of it have been
given over to Italians of the lower class, and to negroes, it remains
not only in appearance, but in custom, thought and character, the most
perfectly foreign little tract of land in the whole United States. Long
ago, under the French flag, it was a part of the Roman Catholic
bishopric of Quebec; later under the Spanish flag, a part of that of
Havana; and it is charming to trace in old buildings, names, and customs
the signs of this blended French and Spanish ancestry.
La Salle, searching out a supposed route to China by way of the
Mississippi River, seems to have perceived what the New Orleans
Association of Commerce perceives to-day: that the control of the mouth
of the river ought to mean also the control of a vast part of the
continent. At all events, he took possession in 1682 in the name of the
French King, calling the river St. Louis and the country Louisiana. The
latter name persisted, but La Salle himself later rechristened the
river, giving it the name Colbert, thereby showing that in two attempts
he could not find a name one tenth as good as that already provided by
the savages. The "St. Louis River" might, from its name, be a fair-sized
stream, but "Colbert" sounds like the name of a river about twenty miles
long, forty feet wide at the mouth, and five feet deep at the very
middle.
La Salle intended to build a fort at a point sixty leagues above the
mouth of the river, but his expedition met with disaster upon disaster,
until at last he was assassinated in Texas, when setting out on foot to
seek help from Canada. In 1699 came Iberville, the Canadian, exploring
the river and fixing on the site for the future city. Iberville
established settlements at old Biloxi (now Ocean Springs) and Mobile,
but before he had time to make a town at New Orleans he caught yellow
fever at Havana, and died there. It therefore remained for his brother,
Bienville, actually to establish the town, and New Orleans is
Bienville's city, just as Detroit is Cadillac's, and Cleveland General
Moses Cleveland's.
Bienville's settlers were hardy pioneers from Canada, and presently we
find him writing to France: "Send me wives for my Canadians. They are
running in the woods after Indian girls." The priests also urged that
unless white wives could be sent out for the settlers, marriages with
Indians be sanctioned.
Having now a considerable investment in Louisiana, France felt that a
request for wives for the colony was practical and legitimate. Louisiana
must have population. A bonus of so much per head was offered for
colonists, and hideous things ensued: servants, children, and helpless
women were kidnapped, and the occupants of hospitals, asylums, and
houses of correction were assembled and deported. Incidentally it will
be remembered that out of these black deeds flowered "the first
masterpiece of French literature which can properly be called a novel,"
the Abbé Prévost's "Manon Lescaut," which has been dramatized and
redramatized, and which is the theme of operas by both Massenet and
Puccini. Though a grave alleged to be that of Manon used to be shown on
the outskirts of the city, there is doubt that such a person actually
existed, although those who wish to believe in a flesh-and-blood Manon
may perhaps take encouragement from the fact that the arrival in the
colony of a Chevalier des Grieux, in the year 1719, fourteen years
before the book appeared, has been established, and, further, that the
name of the Chevalier des Grieux may be seen upon a crumbling tomb in
one of the river parishes.
When the girls arrived they were on inspection in the daytime, but at
night were carefully guarded by soldiers, in the house where they were
quartered together. Miss Grace King, in her delightful book, "New
Orleans, the Place and the People," tells us that in these times there
were never enough girls to fill the demand for wives, and that in one
instance two young bachelors proposed to fight over a very plain
girl--the last one left out of a shipload--but that the commandant
obliged them to settle their dispute by the more pacific means of
drawing lots. As the place became settled Ursuline sisters arrived and
established schools. And at last, a quarter of a century after the
landing of the first shipment of girls, the curious history of female
importations ended with the arrival of that famous band of sixty
demoiselles of respectable family and "authenticated spotless
reputation," who came to be taken as wives by only the more prosperous
young colonists of the better class. The earlier, less reputable girls
have come down to us by the name of "correction girls," but these later
arrivals--each furnished by the Company of the West with a casket
containing a trousseau--are known to this day as _les filles à la
cassette_, or "casket girls."
A curious feature of this bit of history, as it applies to present-day
New Orleans, is that though one hears of many families that claim
descent from some nice, well-behaved "casket girl," one never by any
chance hears of a family claiming to be descended from a lady of the
other stock. When it is considered that the "correction girls" far
outnumbered their virtuous sisters of the casket, and ought, therefore,
by the law of averages, to have left a greater progeny, the matter
becomes stranger still, taking on a scientific interest. The explanation
must, however, be left to some mind more astute than mine--some mind
capable, perhaps, of unraveling also those other riddles of New Orleans
namely: Who was the mysterious chevalier who many years ago invented
that most delectable of _sucreries_, the praline, and whither did he
vanish? And how, although the refugee Duc d'Orleans (later Louis
Philippe of France) stayed but a short time in New Orleans, did he
manage to sleep in so many hundred beds, and in houses which were not
built until long after his departure? And why are so many of the signs,
over bars, restaurants, and shops, of that blue and white enamel one
associates with the signs of the Western Union Telegraph Company? And
why is the nickel as characteristic of New Orleans as is the silver
dollar of the farther Middle West, and gold coin of the Pacific
Slope--why, when one pays for a ten-cent purchase with a half-dollar,
does one receive eight nickels in change? Ah, but New Orleans is a
mysterious city!
Once, when the French and English were fighting for the possession of
Canada and New Orleans was depending for protection on Swiss
mercenaries, the French officer in command of these troops disciplined
them by stripping them and tying them to trees, where they were a prey
to the terrible mosquitoes of the Gulf. One day they killed him and
fled, but some of them were captured. These were taken back to New
Orleans, court-martialed, and punished according to the regulations:
they were nailed alive to their coffins and sawed in two.
Ceded to Spain by a secret clause in the Treaty of Paris, of which she
did not know until 1764, Louisiana could not believe the news. Even when
the Acadians, appeared, after having been so cruelly ejected from their
lands in what is now New Brunswick, Louisiana could not believe that
Louis XV would coldly cast off his loyal colony. The fact that he had
done so was not credited until a Spanish governor arrived. For three
years after, there was confusion. Then a strong force was sent from
Spain under Count O'Reilly, a man of Irish birth, but Spanish
allegiance, and the flag of Spain was raised. O'Reilly maintained
viceregal splendor; he invited leading citizens to a levee; here in his
own house he caused his soldiers to seize the group of prominent men who
had attempted to prevent the accomplishment of Spanish rule, and five
of these he presently caused to be shot as rebels.
Spanish governors came and went. The people settled down. At one time
Padre Antonio de Sedella, a Spanish Capuchin, arrived with a commission
to establish in the city the Holy office of the Inquisition, but he was
discouraged and shipped back to Cadiz. Miss King tells us that when,
half a century later, the calaboose was demolished, secret dungeons
containing instruments of torture were discovered.
On Good Friday, 1788, fire broke out, and as the priests refused to let
the bells be rung in warning, saying that all bells must be dumb on Good
Friday, the conflagration gained such headway that it could not be
checked, and a large part of the old French town was reduced to ashes.
Six years later another fire equally destructive, completed the work of
blotting out the French town, and the old New Orleans we now know is the
Spanish city which arose in its place: a city not of wood but of adobe
or brick, stuccoed and tinted, of arcaded walks, galleries, jalousies,
ponderous doors, and inner courts with carriage entrances from the
street, and, behind, the most charming and secluded gardens. Also, owing
to premiums offered by Baron Carondelet, the governor, tile roofs came
into vogue, so that the city became comparatively fireproof. Much of the
present-day charm of the old city is due also to the noble Andalusian,
Don Andreas Almonaster y Roxas, who having immigrated and made a great
fortune in the city, became its benefactor, building schools and other
public institutions, the picturesque old Cabildo, or town hall, which is
now a most fascinating museum, the cathedral, which adjoins the Cabildo,
and which, like it, faces Jackson Square, formerly the Place d'Armes. In
front of the altar of his cathedral Don Andreas is buried, and masses
are said, in perpetuity, for his soul. When the Don's young widow
remarried, she and her husband were pursued by a charivari lasting three
days and three nights--the most famous charivari in the history of a
city widely noted for these detestable functions. The Don's daughter, a
great heiress, became the Baronne Poñtalba and resided in magnificence
in Paris, where she died, a very old woman, in 1874.
In the Place d'Armes much of the early history of New Orleans, and
indeed, of Louisiana, was written. Here, and in the Cabildo, the
transfers from flag to flag took place, ending with the ceding of
Louisiana by Spain to France, and by France to the United States. At
this time New Orleans had about ten thousand inhabitants, most of the
whites being Creoles.
Harris Dickson, who knows a great deal about New Orleans, declared in an
article published some years ago, that outside lower Louisiana the word
"Creole" is still misunderstood, and added this definition of the term:
"A person of mixed French and Spanish blood, born in Louisiana." As I
understand it, however, the blood need not necessarily be mixed, but may
be pure Spanish or pure French, or again, there may be some admixture
of English blood. The word itself was, I am informed, originally
Spanish, and signified an American descended from Spaniards; later it
got into the language of the French West Indies, whence it was imported,
to Louisiana, about the end of the eighteenth century, by refugees who
arrived in considerable numbers from San Domingo, after the revolution
of the blacks there. Thus, the early French settlers did not use the
word.
If any misapprehension as to whether a Creole is a white person does
still exist, that misunderstanding is, I believe, to be traced to the
doors of an old-time cheap burlesque theater in Chicago, where the late
impresario, Sam T. Jack, put on a show in which mulatto women were
billed as "a galaxy of Creole beauties." This show traveled about the
country libeling the Creoles and doubtless causing many persons of that
class which attended Sam T. Jack's shows, to believe that "Creole" means
something like "quadroon." But when the show got to Baton Rouge the
manager was waited upon by a committee of citizens who said certain
things to him which caused him to give up his engagement there and
cancel any other engagements he had in the Creole country.
True, one frequently hears references in New Orleans to "Creole
mammies," and "Creole negroes," but the word used in that sense merely
indicates a negro who has been the servant of Creoles, and who speaks
French--"gombo French" the curious dialect is called. Similarly one
hears of "Creole ponies"--these being ponies of the small, strong type
used by the Cajan farmers. According to the Louisiana dialect
Longfellow's "Evangeline" was a Cajan, the word being a corruption of
"Acadian." About a thousand of these unfortunate expatriates arrived in
New Orleans between 1765 and 1768. Within a century they had multiplied
to forty times that number, spreading over the entire western part of
the State.
Much of the temperament, the gaiety, the sensitiveness of New Orleans
comes from the Creole. He was Latin enough to be a good deal of a
gambler, to love beautiful women, and on slight provocation to draw his
sword.
The street names of New Orleans--not only those of the French Quarter,
but of the whole city--reflect his various tastes. Many of the streets
bear the names of historic figures of the French and Spanish régimes;
Rampart Street, formerly the rue des Ramparts marks, like the outer
boulevards of Paris, the line of the old city wall. Other streets were
given pretty feminine names by the old Creole gallants: Suzette,
Celeste, Estelle, Angelie, and the like. The devout doubtless had their
share in the naming of Religious Street, Nuns Street, Piety Street,
Assumption Street, and Amen Street. The taste for Greek and Roman
classicism which developed in France at the time of the Revolution,
found its way to Louisiana, and is reflected in New Orleans by streets
bearing the names of gods, demi gods, the muses and the graces. The
pronunciation given to some of these names is curious: Melpomene,
instead of being given four syllables is called Melpomeen; Calliope is
similarly Callioap; Euterpe, Euterp, and so on. This, however, is the
result not of ignorance, but of a slight corruption of the correct
French pronunciations, the Americans having taken their way of
pronouncing the names from the French. The Napoleonic wars are
commemorated in the names of Napoleon Avenue, and Austerlitz and Jena
Streets, and the visit of Lafayette in the naming for him of both a
street and an avenue. But perhaps the most striking names of all the old
ones were Mystery Street, Madman's Street, Love Street (Rue de l'Amour),
Goodchildren Street (Rue des Bons Enfants), and above all those two
streets in the Faubourg Marigny which old Bernard Marigny amused himself
by naming for two games of chance at which, it is said, he had lost a
fortune--namely Bagatelle and Craps--the latter not the game played with
dice, but an old-time game of cards.
The French spoken by cultivated Creoles bears to the French of modern
France about the same relation as the current English of Virginia does
to that of England. Creole French is founded largely upon the French of
the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, just as many of the
so-called "Americanisms" of older parts of the country, including
Virginia and New England, are Elizabethan. The early English and French
colonists, coming to this country with the language of their times,
dropped, over here, into a linguistic backwater. In the mother
countries language continued to renew itself as it flowed along, by
elisions, by the adoption and legitimatizing of slang words (as for
instance the word "cab," to which Dean Swift objected on the ground that
it was slang for "cabriolet"), and by all the other means through which
our vocabularies are forever changing. But to the colonies these changes
were not carried, and such changes as occurred in the French and English
of America were, for the most part, separate and distinct (as exampled
by such Creole words as "banquette" for "sidewalk," in place of the
French word _trottoir_, and the word "baire," whence comes the American
term "mosquito bar.") The influence of colloquial French from Canada may
also be traced in New Orleans, and the language there was further
affected by the strange jargon spoken by the Creole negro--precisely as
the English dialect of negroes in other parts of the South may be said
to have affected the speech of all the Southern States.
Between the dialect of the Louisiana Cajan and that of the French
Canadian of Quebec and northern New York there is a strong resemblance;
but the Creole negro language is a thing entirely apart, being made up,
it is said, partly from French and partly from African word sounds, just
as the "gulla" of the South Carolina coast is made up from African and
English. The one is no more intelligible to a Frenchman than the other
to a Londoner. The ignorant Creole negro wishing to say "I do not
understand," would not say "moi je ne comprends pas," but "mo pas
connais"; similarly for "I am going away," he does not say, "je m'en
vais," but "ma pe couri"; while for "I have a horse," instead of "j'ai
un cheval," he will put the statement, "me ganyé choue." It is a dialect
lacking mood, tense, and grammar.
To this day one may occasionally see in New Orleans and in other lower
river towns an old "mammy" wearing the bandanna headdress called a
_tignon_, which, toward the end of the eighteenth century, was made
compulsory for colored women in Louisiana. The need for some such
distinguishing racial badge was, it is said, twofold. Yellow sirens from
the French West Indies, flocking to New Orleans, were becoming
exceedingly conspicuous in dress and adornment; furthermore one hears
stories of wealthy white men, fathers of octoroon or quadroon girls, who
sent these illegitimate daughters abroad to be educated. The latter, one
learns from many sources, were very often beautiful in the extreme, as
were also the Domingan girls, and history is full of the tales of the
curious, wild, fashionably caparisoned, declassé circle of society,
which came to exist in New Orleans through the presence there of so many
alluring women of light color and equally light character. Some of these
women, it is said, could hardly be distinguished from brunette whites,
and it was largely for this reason that the _tignon_ was placed by law
upon the heads of all women having negro blood.
No morsels from the history of old New Orleans are more suggestive to
the imagination than the hints we get from many sources of wildly
dissipated life centering around the notorious quadroon balls--or as
they were called in their day, _cordon bleu_ balls. An old guide book
informs me that the women who were the great attraction at these
functions were "probably the handsomest race of women in the world, and
were, besides, splendid dancers and finished dressers." Authorities seem
to agree that these balls were exceedingly popular among the young
Creole gentlemen, as well as with men visiting the city, and that duels,
resulting from quarrels over the women, were of common occurrence. If a
Creole had the choice of weapons slender swords called _colichemardes_
were used, whereas pistols were almost invariably selected by Americans.
Duels with swords were often fought indoors, but when firearms were to
be employed the combatants repaired to one of the customary dueling
grounds. Under the fine old live oaks of the City Park--then out in the
country--it is said that as many as ten duels have been fought in a
single day. Duels having their beginnings at the quadroon balls were,
however, often fought in St. Anthony's Garden, for the ballroom was in a
building (now occupied by a sisterhood of colored nuns) which stands on
Orleans Street, near where it abuts against the Garden. This garden,
bearing the name of the saint whose temptations have been of such
conspicuous interest to painters of the nude, is not named for him so
much in his own right, as because he was the patron of that same Padre
Antonio de Sedella, already mentioned, who came to New Orleans to
institute the Inquisition, but who, after having been sent away by
Governor Miro, returned as a secular priest and became much beloved for
his good works. Padre Antonio lived in a hut near the garden, and it is
he who figures in Thomas Bailey Aldrich's story "Père Antoine's Date
Palm."
To the Creole, more than to any other source, may be traced the origin
of dueling in the United States, and no city in the country has such a
dueling history as New Orleans. The American took the practice from the
Latin and by the adoption of pistols made the duel a much more serious
thing than it had previously been, when swords were employed and first
blood usually constituted "satisfaction." Up to the time of the Civil
War the man who refused a challenge became a sort of outcast, and I have
been told that even to this day a duel is occasionally fought. Governor
Claiborne, first American governor of Louisiana, was a duelist, and his
monument--a family monument in the annex of the old Basin Street
division of St. Louis cemetery--bears upon one side an inscription in
memory of his brother-in-law, Micajah Lewis, "who fell in a duel,
January 14, 1804."
Gayarré, in his history of Louisiana, tells a story of six young French
noblemen who, one night, paired off and fought for no reason whatever
save out of bravado. Two of them were killed.
Two famous characters of New Orleans, about the middle of the last
century, were Major Joe Howell, a brother-in-law of Jefferson Davis, and
Major Henry, a dare-devil soldier of fortune who had filibustered in
Nicaragua and fought in the Mexican War. One day while drinking together
they quarreled, and as a result a duel was arranged to take place the
same afternoon. Henry kept on drinking, but Howell went to sleep and
slept until it was time to go to the dueling ground, when he took one
cocktail, and departed.
Feeling that a duel over a disagreement the occasion for which neither
contestant could remember, was the height of folly, friends intervened,
and finally succeeded in getting Major Henry to say that the fight could
be called off if Howell would apologize.
"For what?" he was asked.
"Don't know and don't care," returned the old warrior.
As Howell would not apologize, navy revolvers were produced and the two
faced each other, the understanding being that they should begin at ten
paces with six barrels loaded, firing at will and advancing. At the word
"Fire!" both shot and missed, but Howell cocked his revolver with his
right thumb and fired again immediately, wounding Henry in the arm.
Henry then fired and missed a second time, while Howell's third shot
struck his antagonist in the abdomen. Wounded as he was, Henry managed
to fire again, narrowly missing the other, who was not only a giant in
size, but was a conspicuous mark, owing to the white clothing which he
wore. At this Howell advanced a step and took steady aim, and he would
almost certainly have killed his opponent had not his own second
reached out and thrown his pistol up, sending the shot wild. This
occurred after the other side has cried "Stop!"--as it had been agreed
should be done in case either man was badly wounded. A foul was
consequently claimed, the seconds drew their pistols, and a general
battle was narrowly averted. After many weeks Henry recovered.
A great number of historic duels were over politics. Such a one was the
fight which took place in 1843, between Mr. Hueston, editor of the Baton
Rouge "Gazette" and Mr. Alcee La Branche, a Creole gentleman who had
been speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives, and was running
for Congress. Mr. La Branche was one of the few public men in the State
who had never fought a duel, and in the course of a violent political
campaign, Hueston twitted him on this subject in the columns of the
"Gazette," trying to make him out a coward. Soon after the insulting
article appeared, the two men met in the billiard room of the old St.
Charles Hotel, and when La Branche demanded an apology, and was refused,
he struck Hueston with a cane, or a cue, and knocked him down. A duel
was, of course, arranged, the weapons selected being double-barreled
shotguns loaded with ball. At the first discharge Hueston's hat and coat
were punctured by bullets. He demanded a second exchange of shots, which
resulted about as before--his own shots going wild, while those of his
opponent narrowly missed him. Hueston, however, obstinately insisted
that the duel be continued, and the guns were loaded for the third
time. In the next discharge the editor received a scalp wound. It was
now agreed by all present that matters had gone far enough, but Hueston
remained obdurate in his intention to kill or be killed, and in the face
of violent protests, demanded that the guns again be loaded. The next
exchange of shots proved to be the last. Hueston let both barrels go
without effect, and fell to the ground shot through the lungs. Taken to
the Maison de Santé, he was in such agony that he begged a friend to
finish the work by shooting him through the head. Within a few hours he
was dead.
The old guide book from which I gather these items cites, also, cases in
which duels were fought over trivial matters, such, for instance, as a
mildly hostile newspaper criticism of an operatic performance, and an
argument between a Creole and a Frenchman over the greatness of the
Mississippi River.
Professor Brander Matthews tells me of an episode in which the wit
exhibited by a Creole lawyer, in the course of a case in a New Orleans
court, caused him to be challenged. The opposing counsel, likewise a
Creole, was a great dandy. He appeared in an immaculate white suit and
boiled shirt, but the weather was warm, and after he had spoken for
perhaps half an hour his shirt was wilted, and he asked an adjournment.
The adjournment over, he reappeared in a fresh shirt, but this too
wilted presently, whereupon another adjournment was taken. At the end of
this he again reappeared wearing a third fresh shirt, and in it managed
to complete his plea.
It now became the other lawyer's turn. He arose and, speaking with the
utmost gravity, addressed the jury.
"Gentlemen," he said (Professor Matthews tells it in French), "I shall
divide my speech into three shirts." He then announced: "First
shirt"--and made his first point. This accomplished, he paused briefly,
then proclaimed: "Second shirt," and followed with his second point.
Then: "Third and last shirt," and after completing his argument sat
down. The delighted jury gave him the verdict, but his witticism
involved him in a duel with the worsted advocate. The result of this
duel Professor Matthews does not tell, but if the wag's _colichemarde_
was as swift and penetrating as his wit, we may surmise that his
opponent of the Code Napoléon and the code duello had a fourth shirt
spoiled.