Harness held together by that especial Providence which watches over negro mendingsHarness held together by that especial Providence which watches over negro mendings
In an old buff-painted brick building standing on the corner of Commerce and Bibb Streets, the Confederate Government had its first offices, and from this building, if I mistake not, was sent the telegraphic order to fire on Fort Sumter. Another historical building is the dilapidated frame residence at the corner of Bibb andLee Streets, which was the first "White House of the Confederacy." This building is now a boarding house, and is in a pathetic state of decay. But perhaps when Montgomery gets up the energy to build a fine tourist hotel, or when outside capital comes in and builds one, the old house will be furbished up to provide a "sight" for visitors.
There are several reasons why Montgomery would be a good place for a large winter-resort hotel, and if I were a Montgomery "booster" I should give less thought to free factory sites than to building up the town as a winter stopping place for tourists. The town itself is picturesque and attractive; as to railroads it is well situated (albeit the claim that Montgomery is the "Gateway to Florida" strikes me as a little bit exaggerated); the climate is delightful, and the surrounding country is not only beautiful but fertile. Furthermore, there are already two golf clubs—one for Jews and one for Gentiles—and the links are reputed to be good.
Unlike many southern cities of moderate size, Montgomery has well-paved streets, and the better residence streets, being wide, and lined with trees and pleasant houses, each in its own lawn, give a suggestion of an agreeable home and social life—a suggestion which, by implication at least, report substantiates: for it has been said that the chief industry of Montgomery is that of raising beautiful young women to make wives for the rich men of Birmingham.
On such pleasant thoroughfares as South PerryStreet, it may be noticed that many of the newer houses have taken their architectural inspiration from old ones, with the result that, though "originality" does not jump out at the passer-by, as it does on so many streets, North and South, which are lined with the heterogeneous homes of prosperous families, there is an agreeable architectural harmony over the town.
This is not, of course, invariably true, but it is truer, I think, in Montgomery than in most other cities, and if Montgomery is defaced by the funny little settlement called Bungalow City, that settlement is, at least, upon the outskirts of the town. Bungalow City is without exception the queerest real-estate development I ever saw. It consists of several blocks of tiny houses, standing on tiny lots, the scale of everything being so small as to suggest a play village for children. The houses are, however, homes, and I was told that in some of them all sorts of curious space-saving devices are installed—as, for instance, tables and beds which can be folded into the walls. Not far from this little settlement is an old house which used to be the home of Tweed, New York's notorious political boss, who, it is said, used to spend much time here.
The chief lion of the city is the old State House, which stands on a graceful eminence in a small well-kept park. Just as the New York State Capitol is probably the most shamefully expensive structure of the kind in the entire country, that of Alabama is, I fancy, the most creditably inexpensive. Building and grounds cost $335,000.Moreover, the Capitol of Alabama is a better-looking building than that of New York, for it is without gingerbread trimmings, and has about it the air of honest simplicity that an American State House ought to have. Of course it has a dome, and of course it has a columned portico, but both are plain, and there is a large clock, in a quaint box-like tower, over the peak of the portico, which contributes to the building a curious touch of individuality. At the center of the portico floor, under this clock, a brass plate marks the spot where Jefferson Davis stood when he delivered his inaugural address, February 18, 1861, and in the State Senate Chamber, within—a fine simple room with a gallery of peculiar grace—the Provisional Government of the Confederacy was organized. The flag of the Confederacy was, I believe, adopted in this room, and was first flung to the breeze from the Capitol building.
It was past three in the afternoon when we left the State House, and we had had no luncheon.
"Now," said my companion as we returned to the automobile, "I think we had better have something to eat, and then go to the fair."
"But you were going to give up the fair," put in the secretary.
"Oh, no," we said in chorus.
"I have arranged about luncheon," he returned. "We will have it served at the hotel in a short time. But first there are some important sights I wish you to see."
"Man shall not live by sights alone," objected my companion. "What are you going to show us?"
"We have a beautiful woman's college."
"That," said my companion, "is the one thing that could tempt me. How many beautiful women are there?"
"It's not the women—it's the building," the secretary explained.
"Then," said my companion firmly, "I think we'd better go and have our lunch."
It seemed to me time to back him up in this demand. By dint of considerable insistence we persuaded our enthusiastic cicerone to drive to the hotel, where we found a table already set for us.
"I want to tell you," said the secretary as we sat down, "about the agricultural progress this section has been making. Until recently our farmers raised nothing but cotton; they didn't even feed themselves, but lived largely on canned goods. But the boll weevil and the European War, affecting the cotton crop and the cotton market as they did, forced the farmers to wake up."
The secretary talked interestingly on this subject for perhaps a quarter of an hour, during which time we waited for luncheon to be served.
"You see," he said, "our climate is such that it is possible to rotate crops more than in most parts of the country. Cotton is now a surplus crop with us, and ourfarmers are raising cattle, vegetables, and food products."
"Speaking of food products," said my companion, "I wonder if we could hurry up the lunch?"
"It will be along in a little while," soothed the secretary. Then he returned to agriculture.
Ten minutes more passed. I saw that my companion was becoming nervous.
"I'm sorry to trouble you," he said at last, "but if we can't speed up this luncheon, I don't see how I can wait. You see, we are leaving town this evening, and I have an awful lot to do."
"I'll step back and investigate," the secretary said, rising and moving toward the kitchen door.
When he was out of hearing, my companion leaned toward me.
"I suspect this fellow!" he said.
"What of?"
"I think he's delaying us on purpose. He's a nice chap, but it's his business to boost this town, and he's artful. He doesn't want us to see the street fair. That's why he's stalling like this!"
Now, however, the secretary returned, followed by a waiter bearing soup.
The soup was fine, but it was succeeded by another long interval, during which the secretary said some very, very beautiful things about the charm of Montgomery life. However, it was clear to me that my companion was not interested. After he had looked at his watch several times, and drummed a long tattoo upon the table, he arose, declaring:
"I can't wait another minute."
"Sit down, my dear fellow," said the secretary in his most genial tone. "I am having some special southern dishes prepared for you."
"You're very kind," said my companion, "but I must get to work. It's half-past four now; we are leaving in a few hours. It will take me an hour to make my sketches, and the light will be failing pretty soon."
"What are you going to sketch?" It seemed to me that there was suppressed emotion in the secretary's voice as he asked the question.
"Why, the street fair."
"Surely, you're not going todrawit?"
"Why not?"
"It's not representative of Montgomery. You ought to do something representative! What pictures have you made here?"
"I made one of those negroes driving in to market," said my companion, "and one of the dancing cowgirls in the tent across the way—the ones who kept us awake last night."
"My God!" cried the secretary, turning to me. "You intend to print such pictures and say that they represent the normal life of this city?"
"No, I won't say anything about it."
"But—" the secretary arose and looked wanly at theillustrator—"but you haven't drawn any of our pretty homes! You didn't draw the golf clubs—not either one of them! You didn't draw the State House, or the Confederate Monument, or the Insane Asylum, or anything!"
"I haven't had time."
"Well, you have time now! I tell you what: We'll let this luncheon go. I'll take you to the top of our tallest building, and you can draw a panoramic bird's-eye view of the entire city. That will be worth while."
My companion reached out, helped himself to a French roll, and put it in his pocket.
"No," he said. "I will not go to the top of a high building with you."
"But why not?"
"Because," he replied, "I am afraid you would try to push me off the roof to prevent my drawing the street fair."
I do not remember that the secretary denied having harbored such a plan. At all events, he countermanded the remainder of the luncheon order and departed with us.
At the entrance of an office building he made one final desperate appeal: "Just come up to the top floor and see the view!"
But we stood firm, and he continued with us on our way.
The fair was strung along both sides of a wide, cobbled street. It was really a very jolly fair, with theusual lot of barkers and the usual gaping crowd, plus many negroes, who stood fascinated before the highly colored canvas signs outside the tents, with their bizarre pictures of wild animals, snake charmers, "Nemo, the Malay Prince," and "The Cigarette Fiend," pictured as a ghastly emaciated object with a blue complexion, and billed as "Endorsed by the Anti-Cigarette League of America." I wished to inquire why an anti-cigarette league should indorse a cigarette fiend, but lack of time compelled us to press on, leaving the apparent paradox unsolved.
It was a very jolly fair, with the usual lot of barkers and the usual gaping crowdIt was a very jolly fair, with the usual lot of barkers and the usual gaping crowd
As we progressed between the tents and the booths with their catchpenny "wheels of fortune," and ring-tossing enticements, the secretary maintained a protesting silence.
Near the end of the block we stopped to listen to a particularly vociferous barker. I saw my companion take his pad from his pocket and place it under his arm, while he sharpened a pencil.
"Come!" cried the secretary. "Come across the square and let me show you our beautiful bronze fountain. Draw that!"
But my companion was already beginning to sketch. He was drawing the barker and the crowd.
Meanwhile an expression of horror came into the secretary's face. Looking at him, I became conscience-stricken.
"Come away," I said gently, taking him by the arm. "Don't watch him draw. He draws wonderfully, butArt for Art's sake doesn't appeal to you just now. The better he draws the worse it will make you feel. Let me get your mind off all this. Let me take you over to the autodrome, where we can see Mr. O. K. Hager and his beautiful sister, Miss Olive Hager, the 'Two Daredevil Motorcyclists, in the Thrilling Race against Death.' That will make you forget."
"No," said the secretary, shaking his head with a despondency the very sight of which made me sad; "I have letters to sign at the office."
"And we have taken up your whole day!"
"It has been a pleasure," he said kindly. "There is only one thing that worries me. Those drawings are not going to represent what is typical of Montgomery life. Not in the least!"
There arose in me a sudden desire to comfort him.
"How would it be," I suggested, "if I were to print that statement in my book?"
He looked at me in surprise.
"But you couldn't very well do that, could you?"
"Certainly," I replied.
His face brightened. It was delightful to see the change come over him.
"For that matter," I went on, "I might say even more. I could say that, while I admire my companion as a man, and as an artist, he lacks ingenuity in ordering breakfast. He always reads over the menu and then orders a baked apple and scrambled eggs and bacon. Would you like me to attack him on that line also?"
"Oh, no," said the secretary. "Nothing of that kind. It's just about these pictures. They aren't representative. If you'll say that, I'll be more than satisfied."
Presently we parted.
"Don't forget!" he said as we shook hands in farewell.
And I have not forgotten. Moreover, to give full measure, I am going to ask the printer to set the statement in italics:
The drawings accompanying this chapter are not representative of what is typical of Montgomery life.
The drawings accompanying this chapter are not representative of what is typical of Montgomery life.
With this statement my companion is in full accord. He admits that he would have drawn the State House had there been no fair, to interfere. But, as with certain items on the breakfast bill, street fairs are a passion with him. And so they are with me.
When a poet, a painter, or a sculptor wishes to personify a city, why does he invariably give it the feminine gender? Why is this so, even though the city be named for a man, or for a masculine saint? And why is it so in the case of commonplace cities, commercial cities, and ugly, sordid cities? It is not difficult to understand why a beautiful, sparkling city, like Washington or Paris, suggests a handsome woman, richly gowned and bedecked with jewels, but it is hard to understand why some other cities, far less pleasing, seem somehow to be stamped with the qualities of woman-nature rather than man-nature. Is it perhaps because the nature of all cities is so complicated? Is it because they are volatile, changeful, baffling? Or is it only that they are the mothers of great families of men?
When I arrive in a strange city I feel as though I were making the acquaintance of a woman of whom I have often heard. I am curious about her. I am alert. I gaze at her eagerly, wondering if she is as I have imagined her. I try to read her expression while listening to her voice. I consider her raiment, noticing whether it is fine, whether it is good only in spots, and whetherit is well put together. I inspect the important buildings, boulevards, parks, and monuments with which she is jeweled, and judge by them not only of her prosperity, but of her sense of beauty. Before long I have a distinct impression of her. Sometimes, as with a woman, this first impression has to be revised; sometimes not. Sometimes, on acquaintance, a single feature, or trait, becomes so important in my eyes that all else seems inconsequential. A noble spirit may cover physical defects; beauty may seem to compensate for weaknesses of character. The spell of a beautiful city which is bad resembles the spell of such a city's prototype among women.
Some young growing cities are like young growing women of whom we think: "She is as yet unformed, but she will fill out and become more charming as she grows older." Or again we think: "She is somewhat dowdy and run down at the heels but she is ambitious, and is replenishing her wardrobe as she can afford it." One expects such failings in young cities, and readily forgives them where there is wholesome promise for the future. But where old cities become slovenly, the affair is different, for then it means physical decay, and physical decay should never come to a city—for a city is not only feminine, but should be immortal. The symbol for every city should be a goddess, forever in her prime.
Among southern cities Richmond is thegrande dame; she is gray and distinguished, and wears handsome oldbrocades and brooches. Richmond is aquiline and crisp and has much "manner." But though Charleston is actually the older, the wonderful beauty of the place, the softness of the ancient architectural lines, the sweet scents wafting from walled gardens, the warmth of color everywhere, gives the place that very quality of immortal youth and loveliness which is so rare in cities, and is so much to be desired. Charleston I might allegorize in the person of a young woman I met there. I was in the drawing-room of a fine old house; a beautifully proportioned room, paneled to the ceiling, hung with family portraits and other old paintings, and furnished with mahogany masterpieces a century and a half old. The girl lived in this house. She was not exactly pretty, nor was her figure beautiful in the usual sense; yet it was beautiful, all the same, with a sort of long-limbed, supple, aristocratic aliveness. Most of all there was about her a great fineness—the kind of fineness which seems to be the expression of generations of fineness. She was the granddaughter of a general in the Civil War, the great-granddaughter of an ambassador, the great-great-granddaughter of a Revolutionary hero, and though one could not but be thankful that she failed of striking resemblance to the portraits of these admirable ancestors, nevertheless it seemed to me that, had I not known definitely of their place in her family history, I might almost have sensed them hovering behind her: a background, nebulous and shadowy, out of which she had emerged.
Memphis, upon the other hand, will always be to me a lively modern débutante. I vision her as dancing—dancing to Handy's ragtime music—all shoulders, neck, and arms, and tulle, and twenty-dollar satin slippers. Atlanta, too, is young, vivid, affluent, altogether modern; while as for Birmingham, she is pretty, but a little strident, a little overdressed; touched a little with the amiability, and the other qualities, of thenouveau riche.
The beauty of New Orleans is of a different kind. She is a full-blown, black-eyed, dreamy, drawly creature, opulent of figure, white of skin, and red of lip. Like San Francisco she has Latin blood which makes her love and preserve the carnival spirit; but she is more voluptuous than San Francisco, for not only is she touched with the languor and the fire of her climate, but she is without the virile blood of the forty-niner, or the invigorating contact of the fresh Pacific wind. In my imaginary picture I see her yawning at eleven in the morning, when her negro maid brings black coffee to her bedside—such wonderful black coffee!—whereas, at that hour, I conceive San Francisco as having long been up and about her affairs. Even in the afternoon I fancy my New Orleans beauty as a little bit relaxed. But at dinner she becomes alive, and after dinner more alive, and by midnight she is like a flame.
I must admit, however, that of late years New Orleans has developed a perfect case of dual personality, and that, as often happens where there is dual personality, one side of her nature seems altogether incompatible with the other. The very new New Orleans has no resemblance to the picture I have drawn; moreover, my picture is not her favorite likeness of herself. She prefers more recent ones—pictures showing the lines of determination which, within the last ten years have stamped themselves upon her features, as she has fought and overcome the defects of character which logically accompanied her peculiar, temperamental type of charm. I, upon the other hand, am like some lover who values most an older picture of the woman he adores. I admire her for building character, but it is by her languorous beauty that I am infatuated, and the portrait which most effectively displays that beauty is the one for which I care.
Her very failings were so much a part of her that they made us the more sympathetic; she was too lovely to be greatly blamed for anything; gazing into her eyes, we hardly noticed that there was dust under the piano and in the corners; dining at her sumptuous table, we gave but little thought to the fact that the cellar was damp, the house none too healthy, and that there were mosquitoes and rats about the place; nor did it seem to matter, in face of her allurements, that she was shiftless, extravagant, improvident in the management of her affairs. If these things were brought to our attention, we excused them on the grounds of Latin blood and enervating climate.
But if we excused her, she did not excuse herself. Without being shaken awake by an earthquake, orforced to action by a devastating fire or flood, she set to work, calmly and of her own volition, to reform her character.
First she cleaned house, providing good surface drainage, an excellent filtered water supply from the river in place of her old mosquito-breeding cisterns, and modern sewers in place of cesspools. She killed rats by the hundreds of thousands, rat-proofed her buildings, and thus, at one stroke, eliminated all fear of bubonic plague. She began to take interest in the public schools, and soon trebled their advantages. She concerned herself with the revision of repressive tax laws. She secured one of the best street railway systems in the country. But, perhaps most striking of all, she set to work to build scientifically toward the realization of a gigantic dream. This dream embodies the resumption by New Orleans of her old place as second seaport city. To this end she is doing more than any other city to revive the commerce of the Mississippi River, and is at the same time making a strong bid for trade by way of the Panama Canal, as well as other sea traffic. She has restored her forty miles of water front to the people, has built municipal docks and warehouses at a cost of millions, and has so perfectly coördinated her river-rail-sea traffic-handling agencies that rates have been greatly reduced. Upon these, and related enterprises, upward of a hundred millions are being spent, and the vast plan is working out with such promise that one almost begins to fear lest New Orleans become too muchenamored of her new-found materialism—lest the easy-going, pleasure-loving, fascinating Creole belle be transformed into the much-less-rare and much-less-desirable business type of woman: a woman whose letters, instead of being written in a fine French hand and scented with the faint fragrance of vertivert, are typewritten upon commercial paper; whose lips, instead of causing one to think of kisses, are laden with the deadly cant of commerce; whose skin, instead of seeming to be made of milk and rose leaves, is dappled with industrial soot.
Lord Chesterfield in one of his letters to his son, intimated that beautiful women desire to be flattered upon their intelligence, while intelligent women who are not altogether ugly like to be told that they are beautiful. So with New Orleans. Speak of her individuality, her picturesqueness, her gift of laughter, and she will listen with polite ennui; but admire her commercial progress and she will hang upon your words. Gaiety and charm are so much a part of her that she not only takes them as a matter of course, but seems to doubt, sometimes, that they are virtues. She is like some unusual and fascinating woman who, instead of rejoicing because she is not like all other women, begins to wonder if she ought not to be like them. Perhaps she is wrong to be gay? Perhaps her carnival proves her frivolous? Perhaps she ought not to continue to hold a carnival each year?
Far to the north of New Orleans the city of St. Paul was afflicted, some years since, by a similar agitation.It will be remembered that St. Paul used to build an ice palace each year. People used to go to see it as they go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Then came some believer in the standardization of cities, advancing the idea that ice palaces advertised St. Paul as a cold place. As a result they ceased to be built. St. Paul threw away something which drew attention to her and which gave her character. Moreover, I am told this mania went so far that when folders were issued for the purpose of advertising the region, they were designed to suggest the warmth and brilliance of the tropics. Had St. Paul a bad climate, instead of a peculiarly fine one, we might feel sympathetic tolerance for these performances, but a city which enjoys cool summers and dry, bracing winters has no apologies to make upon the score of climate, and only need apologize if she tries to make us think that bananas and cocoanuts grow on sugar-maple trees. However, in the last year or two, St. Paul has perceived the folly of her course, and has resumed her annual carnival.
In the case of New Orleans I cannot believe there is real danger that the carnival will be given up. Instead, I believe that the business enthusiasts will be appeased—as they were a year or two ago, for the first time in carnival history—by the inclusion of an industrial pageant glorifying the city's commercial renaissance. Also the New Orleans newspapers soothe the spirit of the Association of Commerce, at carnival time, by publishing items presumably furnished by that capable organization, showing that business is going on as usual, that bank clearings have not diminished during the festivities, and that, despite the air of happiness that pervades the town, New Orleans is not really beginning to have such a good time as a stranger might suppose from superficial signs. With such concessions made to solemn visaged commerce, is the carnival continued.
There are at least six cities on this continent which every one should see. Every one should see New York because it is the largest city in the world, and because it combines the magnificence, the wonder, the beauty, the sordidness, and the shame of a great metropolis; every one should see San Francisco because it is so vivid, so alive, so golden; every one should see Washington, the clean, white splendor of which is like the embodiment of a national dream; every one should see the old gray granite city of Quebec, piled on its hill above the river like some fortified town in France; every one should see the sweet and aristocratic city of Charleston, which suggests a museum of tradition and early American elegance; and of course every one should see New Orleans.
As to whether it is best to see the city in everyday attire, or masked for the revels, that is a matter of taste, and perhaps of age as well. To any one who loves cities, New Orleans is always good to see, while to the lover of spectacles and fêtes the carnival is also worth seeing—once. The two are, however, hardly tobe seen to advantage simultaneously. To visit New Orleans in carnival time is like visiting some fine old historic mansion when it is all in a flurry over a fancy-dress ball. The furniture is moved, master, mistress and servants are excited, the cook is overworked and is perhaps complaining a little, and the brilliant costumes of the masquerade divert the eye of the visitor so that he hardly knows what sort of house he is in. Attend the ball if you like, but do not fail to revisit the house when normal conditions have been restored; see the festivities of Mardi Gras if you will, but do not fail to browse about old New Orleans and sit down at her famous tables when her chefs have time to do their best.
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 thevieux 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 toItalians 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 seekhelp 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 downto 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 asles 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 ofsucreries, 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, andgold 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 accomplishmentof 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 admixtureof 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 poniesof 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 ofthese 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 themother 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 wordtrottoir, 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 atignon, 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 thetignonwas 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 getfrom many sources of wildly dissipated life centering around the notorious quadroon balls—or as they were called in their day,cordon bleuballs. 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 calledcolichemardeswere 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."