St. Anthony's Garden, where duels originating at the quadroon balls were foughtSt. Anthony's Garden, where duels originating at the quadroon balls were fought
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, adare-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 becontinued, 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 reappearedwearing 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'scolichemardewas 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.
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 shopUnknown to many men;Thereat do I intend to stopWhen 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!
Down south there is a curio shopUnknown to many men;Thereat do I intend to stopWhen 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'clocka. 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—
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 sinThat he doesn't spend his money—he simply blows it in!
The curio collector is so blindly lost in sinThat 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, orGrand Zombi, who is the voudou god. These saints, however, are given voudou names, St. Michael, for example, beingBlanc 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 awanga, 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 theseséances, 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 othervaluable, 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, andchênières, 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 raisingdiamond-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, theDestrehan, 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, theyhave, 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 tohave 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 ofHohenlinden, 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. Itis 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 thevieux 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 thesoutheast 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.
Courtyard of the old Orleans HotelCourtyard of the old Orleans Hotel
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 theremiseof 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, includingfiléfor 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!
The mysterious old Absinthe House, founded 1799The mysterious old Absinthe House, founded 1799
Antoine's is to me one of the four or five most satisfactory restaurants in the United States,—two of the others being the Louisiane and Galatoire's. But one has one's slight preferences in these things; and just as I have a feeling that the cuisine of the Hotel St. Regis in New York surpasses, just a little bit, that of any other eating place in the city, I have a feeling about Antoine's in New Orleans. This is not, perhaps, with me, altogether a culinary matter, for whereas I remember delightful meals at the Louisiane and Galatoire's—meals which, indeed, could hardly be surpassed—I lived for a week at Antoine's, and felt at home there, and became peculiarly attached to the quaint, rambling old restaurant, up stairs and down.
Antoine's has never been "fixed up." The café makes one think of such old Parisian restaurants as the Boeuf à la Mode, or the Tour d'Argent. Far from being a showy place, it is utterly simple in its decorations and equipment, but if there is in this country a restaurant more French than Antoine's, I do not know where that restaurant is.
Antoine Alciatore, founder of the establishment, departed nearly forty years ago to the realms to which great chefs are ultimately taken. Coming from France as a young man he established himself in a small café opposite the slave market, where he proceeded to cook and let his cooking speak for him. His dinde à la Talleyrand soon made him famous, and he prospered, moving before long to the present building. His sons, Jules and Fernand, were sent to Paris to learn at headquarters the best traditions of the haute cuisine, doing service as apprentices in such establishments as the Maison d'Or and Brabant's. Jules is now proprietor of Antoine's, while Fernand is master of the Louisiane.
The two brothers are of somewhat different type. Fernand is, above all, a chef; I have never seen him outside his own kitchen. His son, Fernand Jr., superintends the front part of the Louisiane, which he has transformed into a place having the appearance of a New York restaurant. The young man has made a successful bid for the fashionable patronage of New Orleans, and there is dancing in the Louisiane in the evening. Jules, upon the other hand, is perhaps more the director than his brother Fernand—more the suave delightful host, less the man of cap and apron. Jules loves to give parties—to astonish his guests with a brilliant dinner and with his unrivaled grace as gérant. That he is able to do these things no one is better aware than my companion and I, for it was our good fortune to be accepted by Jules as friends and fellow artists.
Never while my companion and I lived at Antoine'sdid we escape the feeling that we were not in the United States, but in some foreign land. To go to his rooms he went upstairs, around a corner, down a few steps, past a pantry, and a back stairway by which savory smells ascended from the kitchen, along a latticed gallery overlooking a courtyard like that of some inn in Segovia, along another gallery running at right angles to the first and overlooking the same court, including the kitchen door and the laundry, and finally to a chamber with French doors, a canopied bed, and French windows opening upon a balcony that overlooked the side street. His room was called "The Creole Yacht," while mine was the "Maison Vert."
I remember a room in that curious little hotel opposite the Café du Dôme, in Paris (the hotel in which it is said Whistler stayed when he was a student), which almost exactly resembled my room at Antoine's, even to the dust which was under the bed—until 'Génie got to work with broom and brush. Moreover, connected with my room there was a bath which actually had achaufbainto heat the water: one of those weird French machines resembling the engine of a steam launch, which pops savagely when you light the gas beneath it, and which, as you are always expecting it to blow up and destroy you, converts the morning ablutions from a perfunctory duty into a great adventure.
Then too, there was Marie who has attended to thelingeat Antoine's for the last fifty years, and who helped the gray-haired genial Eugénie to "make proper therooms." Ever since 'Génie—as she is called, for short—came from her native Midi, she has been at Antoine's; and like François—the gentle, kindly, white-mustached old waiter who, when we were there, had just moved up to Antoine's after thirty-five years' service at the Louisiane—'Génie is always ready with a smile; yes, even in the rush of Mardi Gras!
Antoine's does not set up to be a regular hotel, and we stopped there because, during the carnival, all rooms in the large modern hotels across Canal Street were taken. The carnival rush made room-service at Antoine's a little slow, now and then; sometimes the bell would not be answered when we rang for breakfast; or again, our morning coffee andcroissantswould be forty minutes on the way; sometimes we became a little bit impatient—though we could never bring ourselves to say so to such amiable servitors. As a result, when we were leaving the city for a little trip, we determined to stay, on our return, at the Grunewald, a hotel like any one of a hundred others in the United States—marble lobbies, gold ceilings, rathskellers, cabaret shows, dancing, and page boys wandering through the corridors and dining-rooms, calling in nasal, sing-song voices: "Mis-terShoss-futt!Mis-terAhm-kaplopps!Mis-terPraggle-fiss!Mis-ter Blahms!"
We did return and go to the Grunewald. But comfortable as we were made there, we had to own to each other that we missed Antoine's. We missed our curious old rooms. I even missed mychaufbain, and was boredat the commonplace matutinal performance of turning on hot water without preliminary experiments in marine engineering. We thought wistfully of 'Génie's patient smile, and of her daily assurance to us, when we went out, that "when she had made the apartments she would render the key to the bureau,alors,"—which is to say, leave the key at the office. We yearned for the café, for good François, for the deliciously flavored oysters cooked on the half-shell and served on a pan of hot rock-salt which kept them warm; for the cold tomatoesà la Jules César; for the bisque of crayfishà la Cardinal; for the bouillibasse (which Thackeray admitted was as good in New Orleans as in Marseilles, and which Otis Skinner says is better); for the unrivaled gomboà la Créole, and pompanoen Papillotte, and pressed duckà la Tour d'Argent, and orange Brulôt, and the wonderful Café Brulôt Diabolique—that spiced coffee made in a silver bowl from which emerge the blue flames of burning cognac, and in honor of which the lights of the café are always temporarily dimmed.
The lights are always lowered at Antoine's when the spectacular Café Boulot Diabolique is servedThe lights are always lowered at Antoine's when the spectacular Café Boulot Diabolique is served
Nor least of all was it that we wished to see again the mother of Jules, who sits back of thecaisseand takes in the money, like many another good French wife and mother—a tiny little old lady more than ninety-five years old, who came to New Orleans in 1840 as the bride of the then young Antoine Alciatore.
The little lady who sits behind the desk is more than ninety-five years old, and came to New Orleans as the bride of AntoineThe little lady who sits behind the desk is more than ninety-five years old, and came to New Orleans as the bride of Antoine
So we put on our hats and coats when evening came, and went back to Antoine's for dinner, and as long as we were in New Orleans we kept on going back.
That is not to say, of course, that we did not go also to the Louisiane and Galatoire's, or that we did not drop in for luncheon, sometimes, at Brasco's, in Gravier Street, or at Kolb's, a more or less conventional German restaurant in St. Charles Street; or that we failed to go out to Tranchina's at Spanish Fort, on Lake Pontchartrain, or to the quainter little place called Noy's where, we learned, Ernest Peixotto had been but a short time before, gathering material for indigestion and an article in "Scribner's Magazine." But when all is said and done there remain the three restaurants of the old quarter.
I should like to give some history of Galatoire's as well as of the other two, but when I asked thepatronfor the story of his restaurant, he smiled, and with a shrug replied: "But Monsieur, the story is in the food!"
Do not expect any of these places to present the brilliant appearance of distinguished New York restaurants. They are comparatively simple, all of them, and are engaged not with soft carpets and gilt ceilings, but with the art of cookery.
I have been told that some of them have what may be termed "tourist cooking," which is not their best, but if you know good food, and let them know you know it, and if you visit them at any time except during the carnival, then you have a right to expect in any one of these establishments, a superb dinner. For as I once heard my friend Col. Beverly Myles, one of the city's most distinguishedgourmets, remark: "To talk of 'tolerablygood food' in a French restaurant is like talking of 'a tolerably honest man.'"
The carnival of Mardi Gras and the several days preceding, is one of those things about which I feel as I do concerning Niagara Falls, and gambling houses, and the red light district of Butte, Montana, and the underground levels of a mine, and the world as seen from an aëroplane, and the Quatres Arts ball, and a bull fight—I am glad to have seen it once, but I have no desire to see it again. During the carnival my companion and I enjoyed a period of sleepless gaiety. To be sure, we went to bed every morning, but what is the use in doing that if you also get up every morning? We went to the street pageants, we went to the balls at the French Opera House, we saw the masking on the streets, and when the carnival was finished we were finished, too.
The great thing about the carnival, it seems to me, is that it bears the relation to the life of the city, that a well-developed hobby does to the life of an individual. It keeps the city young. It keeps it from becoming pompous, from taking itself too seriously, from getting into a rut. It stimulates not alone the young, but the grave and reverend seigniors also, to give themselves up for a little while each year to play, and moreover to use their imaginations in annually devising new pageants and costumes. From this point of view such a carnival would be a good thing for any city.
But that is where the Latin spirit of New Orleanscomes in, with its pleasing combination of gaiety and restraint. You could not hold such a carnival in every city. You could not do it in New York. For more important even than the pageants and the balls, is the carnival frame of mind. To hold a carnival such as New Orleans holds, a city must know how to be lively and playful without becoming drunk, without breaking barroom mirrors, upsetting tables, annoying women, thrusting "ticklers" into people's faces, jostling, fighting, committing the thousand rough vulgar excesses in which New York indulges every New Year's Eve, and in which it would indulge to an even more disgusting extent under the additional license of the mask.
The carnival—carne vale, farewell flesh—which terminates with Mardi Gras—"Fat Tuesday," or Shrove Tuesday, the day before the beginning of Lent—comes down to us from pagan times by way of the Latin countries. The "Cowbellions," a secret organization of Mobile, in 1831 elaborated the idea of historical and legendary processions, and as early as 1837 New Orleans held grotesque street parades. Twenty years later the "Mystic Krewe," now known as "Comus," appeared from nowhere and disappeared again. The success of Comus encouraged the formation of other secret societies, each having its own parade and ball, and in 1872, Rex, King of the Carnival, entered his royal capital of New Orleans in honor of the visit of the Grand Duke Alexis—who, by the way, is one of countless notables who have feasted at Antoine's.
The three leading carnival societies, Comus, Momus, and Proteus, are understood to be connected with three of the city's four leading clubs, all of which stand within easy range of one another on the uptown side of Canal Street: the Boston Club (taking its name from an old card game); the Pickwick (named for Dickens' genial gentleman, a statue of whom stands in the lobby); the Louisiana, a young men's club; and the Chess, Checkers and Whist Club. The latter association is, I believe, the one that takes no part in the carnival.
Each of the carnival organizations has its own King and Queen, and the connection between certain clubs and certain carnival societies may be guessed from the fact that the Comus Queen and Proteus Queen always appear on the stand in front of the Pickwick Club, to witness their respective parades, and that the Queen of the entire Carnival appears with her maids of honor on the stand before the Boston Club upon the day of Mardi Gras, to witness the triumphal entry and parade of Rex. As Rex passes the club he sends her a bouquet—the official indication of her queenship. That night she appears for the first time in the glory of her royal robes at the Rex Ball, which is held in a large hall; and the great event of the carnival, from a social standpoint, is the official visit, on the same night, of Rex and his Queen, attended by their court, to the King and Queen of Comus, at the Comus Ball, held in the Opera House.
Passing between the brilliantly illuminated flag-draped buildings, under festoons of colored electric lights, the street parades, with their spectacular colored floats, their bands, their negro torch-bearers, their strangely costumed masked figures, throwing favors into the dense crowds, are glorious sights for children ranging anywhere from eight to eighty years of age. Public masking on the streets, on the day of Mardi Gras, is also an amusing feature of the carnival.
Passing between the brilliantly illuminated buildings, under festoons of electric lights the Mardi Gras parades, with their floats, their bands, their torch-bearers, their masked figures, are glorious sights for children from eight to eighty years of agePassing between the brilliantly illuminated buildings, under festoons of electric lights the Mardi Gras parades, with their floats, their bands, their torch-bearers, their masked figures, are glorious sights for children from eight to eighty years of age
The balls, upon the other hand, are social events of great importance in the city, and as spectacles they are peculiarly fine. Invitations to these balls are greatly coveted, and the visitor to the city who would attend them, must exert his "pull" some time in advance. The invitations, by the way, are not sent by individuals, but by the separate organizations, and even those young ladies who are so fortunate as to have "call-outs"—cards inclosed with their invitations, indicating that they are to be asked to dance, and may therefore have seats on the ground floor—are not supposed to know from what man these cards come. Ladies who have not received call-outs, and gentlemen who are not members of the societies, are packed into the boxes and seats above the parquet floor, and do not go upon the dancing floor until very late in the evening. Throughout each ball the members of the society giving the ball continue to wear their costumes and their masks, so that ladies, called from their seats to dance, often find themselves treading a measure with some gallant who speaks in a strange assumed voice, striving to maintain themystery of his identity. The ladies, upon the other hand, are not in costume and are not masked; about them, there is no more mystery than women always have about them. After each dance the masker produces a present for his partner—usually a pretty bit of jewelry. Etiquette not only allows, but insists, that a woman accept any gift offered to her at a carnival ball, and it is said that by this means many a young gentleman has succeeded in bestowing upon the lady of his heart a piece of jewelry the value of which would make acceptance of the gift impossible under other than carnival conditions.
After the balls many of the younger couples go to the Louisiane and Antoine's, to continue the dance, and as my room at Antoine's was directly over one of the dancing rooms of the establishment, I might make a shrewd guess as to how long they stayed up, after my companion and I retired.
Let it not be supposed that we retired early. I remember well the look of the pale blue dawn of Ash Wednesday morning, and no less do I remember a conversation with a gentleman I met at the Louisiane, just before the dawn broke. I never saw him before and I have never seen him since; nor do I know his name, or where he came from. I only know that he was an agreeable, friendly person who did not wish to go to bed.
When I said that I was going home he protested.
"Don't do that!" he urged. "There's a nice Frenchrestaurant in this town. I can't think of the name of it. Let's go there."
"Well, how can we go if you don't know what place it is?" I asked, intending to be discouraging.
The young man looked dazed at this. Then his face brightened suddenly.
"Oh, yes!" he cried. "I remember the name now! It's the Louisiane! Come on! Let's get our coats an' go there!"
"But," I said, "this is the Louisiane right here."
The thought seemed to stagger him, for he swayed ever so slightly.
"All right," he said, regarding me with great solemnity. "Let's go there!"
I have wondered since if this same young man may not have been the one who, returning to the St. Charles Hotel in the early hours of that sad Ash Wednesday morning, was asked by the clerk, who gave him his key, whether he wished to leave a call.
"What day's this?" he inquired.
"Wednesday," said the clerk.
"All ri'," replied the other, moving toward the elevator. "Call me Saturday."