[Illustration: (EXTRAIT De Régistres, des Audiances du Conseil
Supérieur, de la Province de la Loüisiane. Du 7. May 1765. ENTRE
L'ABBE DE L'ISLE DIEU, Vicaire Général du Diocèse de Québec, & de
cette Province, Demandeur en Requête, le Procureur Général du Roi,
joint.)]
Only after printing penetrated the Thirteen Colonies did the French
printer Denis Braud carry the art to Louisiana. His earliest known
work, an official broadside concerning the transfer of Louisiana from
French to Spanish ownership, was printed at New Orleans in 1764.
The earliest Louisiana imprint in the Library of Congress is the
second extant example of Louisiana printing. The Library's unique copy
is a four-page, folio-sized document signed by Garic, clerk of the
Superior Council of Louisiana, and headed, "EXTRAIT De Régistres, des
Audiances du Conseil Supérieur, de la Province de la Loüisiane. Du
7. May 1765. ENTRE L'ABBE DE L'ISLE DIEU, Vicaire Général du Diocèse
de Québec, & de cette Province, Demandeur en Requête, le Procureur
Général du Roi, joint." It is a decree restricting the activities
of the Capuchin friar Hilaire Genoveaux and suppressing a catechism
circulated by him which apparently had also been printed at New
Orleans. The title of the catechism, as preserved in the text of the
decree, is _Catechisme pour la Province de la Loüisianne, &c. Rédigé
par le R. P. Hilaire, Protonotaire du St. Siége & Supérieur Général de
la Mission des Capucins en ladite Province, pour être seul enseigné
dans sadite Mission_. The contemporary importance of the surviving
document lay in its connection with a far-reaching struggle between
the Jesuit and Franciscan orders over ecclesiastical authority in
Louisiana. Although it contains no imprint statement naming place of
publication or printer, typographical features of the document serve
to identify it as the work of Denis Braud.[28]
That this unique copy belonged to an official archive--presumably
that of the Superior Council of Louisiana--the following manuscript
additions make apparent. There is first a notation: "Joint a la lettre
de M. Aubry, Command. a la Louisianne du 7. May 1765." (Aubry had
succeeded d'Abbadie as commandant, or governor, after the latter's
death in February 1765.) A second column in manuscript contains the
same date as a filing guide and this descriptive title: "Arrest du
Conseil Superieur de la Louisianne portant deffense au Pere Hilaire
Capucin de simississer [_i. e._ s'immiscer] dans aucune Jurisdiction
Ecclesiastique autre que celle qui lui est permise par son seul titre
de superieur de la mission des RR. PP. Capucins de cette Colonie." At
the end of the column is a cross reference: "Voyez les lettres de M.
l'Abbe de LIsle Dieu Vicaire g[e]n[er]al de M. de Quebek en 1759 et
1760 et sa Correspond. a ce sujet."
The subsequent history of this document has not been traced before
October 17, 1905, when C. F. Libbie & Co auctioned it off with the
library of Israel T. Hunt, a Boston physician. The Library of Congress
was able to obtain it on that date for $10.45.
[Footnote 28: See Douglas C. McMurtrie, _Early Printing in New
Orleans_ (New Orleans, 1929), p. 25-26 and 88. McMurtrie mistakenly
locates the original at the New York Public Library, which owns a
photostat copy.]