FROM ANTIQUES TO PIRATES
The numerous antique shops of the French quarter, with their gray,
undulating floors and their piled-up, dusty litter of old furniture,
plate, glass, and china, and the equally numerous old book stores, with
their piles of French publications, their shadowy corners, their
pleasant ancient bindings and their stale smell, are peculiarly
reminiscent of similar establishments in Paris.
That Eugene Field knew these shops well we have reason to know by at
least two of his poems. In one, "The Discreet Collector," he tells us
that:
Down south there is a curio shop
Unknown to many men;
Thereat do I intend to stop
When I am South again;
The narrow street through which to go--
Aha! I know it well!
And maybe you would like to know--
But no--I will not tell!
But later, when filled with remorse over his extravagance in "blowing
twenty dollars in by nine o'clock A.M.," he reveals the location of his
favorite establishment, saying:
In Royal Street (near Conti) there's a lovely curio shop,
And there, one balmy fateful morn, it was my chance to stop--
So that, at least, is the neighborhood in which he learned that:
The curio collector is so blindly lost in sin
That he doesn't spend his money--he simply blows it in!
In his verses called "Doctor Sam," Field touched on another fascinating
side of Creole negro life: the mysterious beliefs and rites of
voodooism--or, as it is more often spelled, voudouism.
Until a few years ago it used to be possible for a visitor with a "pull"
in New Orleans to see some of the voudou performances and to have "a
work made" for him, but the police have dealt so severely with those who
believe in this barbarous nonsense, that it is practised in these times
only with the utmost secrecy.
Voudouism was brought by the early slaves from the Congo, but in
Louisiana the negroes--probably desiring to imitate the religion of
their white masters--appropriated some of the Roman Catholic saints and
made them subject to the Great Serpent, or _Grand Zombi_, who is the
voudou god. These saints, however, are given voudou names, St. Michael,
for example, being _Blanc Dani_, and St. Peter, _Papa Liba_. This
situation is the antithesis of that to be found in Brittany, where
Druidical beliefs, handed down for generations among the peasants, may
now be faintly traced running like on odd alien threads through the
strong fabric of Roman Catholicism.
Voudouism is not, however, to be dignified by the name "religion." It is
superstition founded upon charms and hoodoos. It is witchcraft of the
maddest kind, involving the most hideous performances. Moreover, it is
said that a hoodoo is something of which a French negro is very much
afraid, and that his fear is justifiable, for the reason that the
throwing of a _wanga_, or curse, may also involve the administering of
subtle poisons made from herbs.
Legend is rich with stories of Marie Le Veau, the voudou queen, who
lived long ago in New Orleans, and of love and death accomplished by
means of voudou charms. Charms are brought about in various ways. Among
these the burning of black candles, accompanied by certain performances,
brings evil upon those against whom a "work" is made, while blue candles
have to do with love charms. It may also be noted that "love powders"
can be purchased now-a-days in drug stores in New Orleans.
In the days of long ago the great negro gathering place used to be Congo
Square--now Beauregard Square--and here, on Sunday nights, wild dances
used to occur--the "bamboula" and "calinda"--and sinister spells were
cast. Later the voudous went to more secluded spots on the shores of
Lake Pontchartrain, and on St. John's Eve, which is their great
occasion, many of the whites of the city used to go to the lake in hopes
of discovering a voudou séance, and being allowed to see it. A friend of
mine, who has seen several of these séances, says that they are
unbelievably weird and horrible. They will make a gombo, put a snake in
it, and then devour it, and they will wring a cat's neck and drink its
blood. And of course, along with these loathsome ceremonies, go
incantations, chants, dances, and frenzies, sometimes ending in
catalepsis.
There are weird stories of white women of good family who have believed
in voudou, and have taken part in the rites; and there are other tales
of evil spells, such as that of the Creole bride of long ago, whose
affianced had been the lover of a quadroon girl, a hairdresser. The
hairdresser when she came to do the bride's hair for the wedding, gave
her a bouquet of flowers. The bride smelled the bouquet--and died at the
church door.
It was, I think, in an old book store on Royal Street--or else on
Chartres--that I found the tattered guide book to which I referred in an
earlier chapter. It was "edited and compiled by several leading writers
of the New Orleans Press," and published in 1885, and it contains an
introductory recommendation by George W. Cable--which is about the
finest guarantee that a book on New Orleans can have.
Mr. Cable, of course, more than all the rest of the people who have
written of New Orleans put together, placed the city definitely in
literature. And it is interesting, if somewhat saddening, to recall that
for lifting the city into the world of belles lettres, for adorning it
and preserving it in such volumes as "Old Creole Days," "The
Grandissimes," "Madame Delphine," and other valuable, truthful, and
charming works, he was roundly abused by his own fellow-townsmen. Far
from attacking Mr. Cable, New Orleans ought to build him a monument, and
I am glad to say that, though the monument is not there yet, the city
does seem to have come to its senses, and that the prophet is no longer
without honor in his own country.
Some further leaves are added to the literary laurels of the city by
what Thomas Bailey Aldrich has written of it, and the wreath is made the
greater by the fact that in New Orleans was born "the only literary man
in New York," Professor Brander Matthews.
Another distinguished name in letters, connected with the place, is that
of Lafcadio Hearn, who was at one time a reporter on a New Orleans
newspaper, and who not only wrote about the French quarter, but
collected many proverbs of the Creoles in a book which he called "Gombo
Zebes." In his little volume, "Chita," Hearn described the land of
lakes, bayous, and _chênières_, which forms a strip between the city and
the Gulf, and which, with its wild birds, wild scenery, and wild storms,
and its extraordinary population of hunters and fishermen--Cajuns,
Italians, Japanese, Spanish, Kanakas, Filipinos, French, and half-breed
Indians, all intermarrying--is the strangest, most outlandish section of
this country I have ever visited. The Filipinos, who introduced shrimp
fishing in this region, building villages on stilts, like those of their
own islands, were not there when Hearn wrote "Chita," nor was Ludwig
raising diamond-back terrapin on Grand Isle, but the live-oaks, draped
with sad Spanish moss, lined the bayous as they do to-day, and the
alligators, turtles and snakes were there, and the tall marsh grass, so
like bamboo, fringed the banks as it does now, and water hyacinth
carpeted the pools, and the savage tropical storms came sweeping in, now
and then, from the Gulf, flooding the entire country, tearing everything
up by the roots, then receding, carrying the floating debris back with
them to the salt sea. One has to see what they call a "slight" storm, in
that country, to know what a great storm there must be. Hearn surely saw
storms there, for in "Chita" he describes with terrifying vividness that
historic tempest which, in 1856, obliterated, at one stroke, Last
Island, with its fashionable hotel and all the guests of that hotel. I
have seen a "little" thunderstorm in Barataria Bay and I do not want to
see a big one. I have seen brown men who, in the storm of 1915 (which
did a million dollars' worth of damage in New Orleans), floated about
the Baratarias for days, upon the roofs of houses, and I have seen
little children, half Italian, half Filipino, who were saved by being
carried by their parents into the branches of an old live-oak, where
they waited until good Horace Harvey, "the little father of the
Baratarias," came down there in his motor yacht, the _Destrehan_,
rescued them, warmed them, fed them, and gave them back to life. I was
told in New Orleans that there were ten seconds in that storm when the
wind reached a velocity of 140 miles per hour at the mouth of the
Mississippi, that it blew for four hours at the rate of 90 miles, and
that the lowest barometrical reading ever recorded in the United States
(28.11) was recorded in New Orleans during this hurricane.
Of the summer climate of New Orleans I know nothing at first hand, and
judging from what people have told me, that is all I want to know. The
winter climate suited me very well while I was there, although the boast
that grass is green and roses bloom all the year round, does not imply
such intense heat as some people may suppose. Furthermore, I believe
that the thermometer has once or twice in the history of the city
dropped low enough to kill any ordinary rose, for a friend of mine told
me a story about some water pipes that froze and burst during an
unprecedented cold snap which occurred some years ago. He said that an
English colonel, whom he knew, was visiting the city at the time and
that, finding himself unable to get water in his bathtub, he sent out
for several cases of Apollinaris, and with true British phlegm proceeded
to empty them into the tub and get in among the bubbles.
Still another figure having to do with literature, and also with the
history of New Orleans, is Jean Lafitte, known as a pirate, whose life
is said to have inspired Byron's poem, "The Corsair." There was a time,
long ago, when Lafitte, together with his brother, his doughty
lieutenant, Dominique You, and his rabble of Baratarians, caused New
Orleans a great deal of annoyance, but like many other doubtful
characters, they have, since their death, become entirely picturesque,
and the very idea that Lafitte was not a first-class blood-and-thunder
pirate is as distasteful to the people of New Orleans to-day, as his
being any kind of a near-pirate at all, used to be to their ancestors.
Nevertheless Frank R. Stockton, who made a great specialty of pirates,
says of Lafitte: "He never committed an act of piracy in his life; he
was [before he went to Barataria] a blacksmith, and knew no more about
sailing a ship or even the smallest kind of a boat than he knew about
the proper construction of a sonnet.... It is said of him that he was
never at sea but twice in his life: once when he came from France, and
once when he left this country, and on neither occasion did he sail
under the Jolly Roger." According to Stockton, Lafitte, when he gave up
his blacksmith shop (in which he is said to have made some of the fine
wrought iron balcony railings which still adorn the old town), and went
to Barataria, became nothing more nor less than a "fence" for pirates
and privateers, taking their booty, smuggling it up to New Orleans, and
selling it there on commission.
But if the fact that he was not a gory-handed freebooter is against
Lafitte, there is one great thing in his favor. When the British were
making ready to attack New Orleans in 1814, they tried both to bribe and
to browbeat Lafitte into joining forces with them. As the American
government was planning, at this very time, a punitive expedition
against him, it would perhaps have seemed good policy for the
pseudo-pirate to have accepted the British offer, but what Lafitte did
was to go up and report the matter at New Orleans, giving the city the
first authentic information of the contemplated attack, and offering to
join with his men in the defense, in exchange for amnesty.
A good many people, however, did not believe his story, and a good many
others thought it beneath the dignity of the government to treat with a
man of his dubious occupation. Therefore poor Lafitte was not listened
to, but, upon the contrary, only succeeded in stirring up trouble for
himself, for an expedition was immediately sent against him; his
settlement at Barataria--on the gulf, about forty miles below the
city--was demolished and the inhabitants driven to the woods and swamps.
But in spite of this discouraging experience, Lafitte would not join the
British, and it came about that when the Battle of New Orleans was about
to be fought, Andrew Jackson, who had a short time before referred to
Lafitte and his men as a band of "hellish banditti," was glad to accept
their aid. Dominique You--with his fine pirate name--commanded a gun,
and the others fought according to the best piratical tradition. After
the battle was won, the Baratarians were pardoned by President Madison.
Incidentally it may be remarked here that the American line of defense
on the plains of Chalmette, below the city, had been indicated some
years before by the French General Moreau, hero of Hohenlinden, as the
proper strategic position for safeguarding New Orleans on the south.
Even after he had been pardoned, Lafitte felt, not without some justice,
that he had been ill-used by the Americans, and because of this he
determined to leave the country. He set sail with a band of his
followers for other climes, but what became of them is not known. Some
think their ship went down in a storm which crossed the Gulf soon after
their departure; others believe that they reached Yucatan, and that
Lafitte died there. Whatever his fate, he did not improve it by
departing from New Orleans, for had he not done so he would, at the end,
have been given a handsome burial and a nice monument like that of
Dominique You--which may be seen to this day in the old cemetery on
Claiborne Avenue, between Iberville and St. Louis Streets.
Having disposed of literary men and pirates, we now come in logical
sequence to composers and actors. Be it known, then, that E.H. Sothern
first raised, in the house at 79 Bienville Street, the voice which has
charmed us in the theater, and that Louis Gottschalk, composer of the
almost too well-known "Last Hope," was also born in New Orleans.
The records of the opera and the theater might, in themselves, make a
chapter. As early as 1791 a French theatrical company played in New
Orleans, using halls, and in 1808 a theater was built in St. Philip
Street. It is said that the first play given in the city in English was
performed December 24, 1817, the play being "The Honey Moon," and the
manager Noah M. Ludlow; but it was not until some years later that the
English drama became a feature of the city's life, with the
establishment of a stock company under the management of James H.
Caldwell. Edwin Forrest appeared, in 1824, with Mr. Caldwell's company
at the Camp Street Theater, which he built on leaving the Orleans
Theater. The former was, when opened, out in the swamp, and people had
to walk to it from Canal Street on a narrow path of planks. It was the
first building in the city to be lighted by gas.
The annals of the old St. Charles theater, called "old Drury," are rich
with history. Practically all our great players from 1835 until long
after the Civil War, appeared in this theater, and an old prompter's
book which, I believe, is still in existence, records, among many other
things, certain details of the appearance there, in 1852, of Junius
Brutus Booth, father of Edwin Booth, and mentions also that Joseph
Jefferson (Sr.) then a young man, was reprimanded for being noisy in his
dressing-room.
New Orleans was, I believe, the first American city regularly to support
grand opera and to give it a home. For a great many years before 1859
(in which year the present French Opera House on Bourbon Street was
built) there was a regular annual season of opera at the Orleans
Theater, long since destroyed.
In the days of the city's operatic grandeur great singers used to visit
New Orleans before visiting New York, as witness, for example, the début
at the French Opera House of Adelina Patti. Since the time of the Civil
War, however, the city has suffered a decline in this department of art.
Opera seasons have not been regular, and in spite of occasional attempts
to revive the old-time spirit, the ancient Opera House, with its brave
columned front, its cracking veneer of stucco, and its surrounding of
little vari-colored one story cafés and shops (which are themselves like
bits of operatic scenery), does not so much suggest to the imagination a
home of modern opera, as a mournful mortuary chapel haunted by the
ghosts of old half-forgotten composers: Herold, Spontini, Mehul, Varney;
old conductors, long since gone to dust: Prevost, John, Calabresi; old
arias of Meyerbeer, Auber, and Donizetti; and above all, by the ghosts
of pretty pirouetting ballerinas, and of great singers whose voices
have, these many years, been still.
An old lady who knew Louisiana in the forties and fifties, has left
record of the fact that plantation negroes used to know and sing the
French operatic airs, just as the Italian peasants of to-day know and
sing the music of Puccini and Leoncavallo. But if opera no longer
reaches the negro, it cannot be said that it has failed to leave its
stamp on the French quarter. From open windows and doors, from little
shops and half-hidden courtyards, from shuttered second story galleries,
there comes floating to the ears of the wayfarer the sound of music. In
one house a piano is being played with dash; in another a child is
practising her scales; from still another comes a soprano voice, the sad
whistling of a flute, the tinkle of a guitar, or the anguished squeal of
a tortured violin. Never except in Naples have I heard, on one block, so
many musical instruments independently at work, as in some single blocks
of the _vieux carré_; and never anywhere have I seen a sign which struck
as more expressive of the industries of a locality, than that one which
I saw near the house of Mme. Lalurie, which read: "Odd Jobs Done, and
Music."
The reason for this musical congestion is twofold. Not only is the
Creole a great lover of good light music, but the whole region for
blocks about the Opera House is populated by old musicians from the
opera's orchestra, and women, some middle aged, some old, who used to be
in the ballet or the chorus, and who not only keep alive the musical
tradition of the district, but pass it on to the younger generation.
Indeed there are almost as many places in the French quarter where music
may be heard, as where stories are told.
In one street may be seen a house where the troubles with the Mafia
began. On a corner--the southeast corner of Royal and St. Peter--is
shown the house in which Cable's "'Sieur George" resided. This house is,
I believe, the same one which, when erected, caused people to move away
from its immediate neighborhood, for fear that its height would cause it
to fall down. It is a four story house--the first built in the city. At
the southeast corner of Royal and Hospital Streets stands that
"haunted" house of Mme. Lalaurie, who fled the town when indignation was
aroused because of devilish tortures she inflicted on her slaves. This
house is now an Italian tenement, but even in its decay it will be
recognized as a mansion which, in its day, was fit to house such guests
as Louis Philippe, Lafayette, and Ney. A guest even more distinguished
than these, was to have been housed in the mansion at the northeast
corner of St. Louis and Chartres Streets, for the Creoles had a plan to
rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and bring him here, and had this house
prepared to receive him.
And are we to forget where Andrew Jackson was entertained before and
after the Battle of New Orleans--where General Beauregard, military idol
of the Creoles, resided--where Paul Morphy the "chess king" lived--where
General Butler took up his quarters when, in 1862, under the guns of
Farragut's fleet, the city surrendered--? Shall we fail to visit the
curious old tenements and stables surrounding the barnyard which once
was the _remise_ of the old Orleans Hotel? Shall we neglect old Metaire
cemetery, with its graves built above ground in the days when drainage
was less perfect? Shall we fail to go to the levee (pronounced "levvy")
and see the savage flood of the muddy Mississippi coursing toward the
gulf behind the embankment which alone saves the city from inundation?
Shall we ignore the French Market with its clean stalls piled with fresh
vegetables, sea food, and all manner of comestibles, including _filé_
for the glorious Creole gombo. Shall we not view the picturesque if
sinister old Absinthe House, dating from 1799, with its court and
stairway so full of mysterious suggestion, and its misty
paregoric-flavored beverage, containing opalescent dreams? Shall we not
go to Sazerac's for a cocktail, or to Ramos' for one of those delectable
gin-fizzes suggesting an Olympian soda-fountain drink? Are we to ignore
all these wonders of the city?
Yes, for it is time to go to luncheon at Antoine's!