It was in the autumn of 1846 La Belle Creole carried me, a young girl, to Dr. Doussan’s home, on the coast, above New Orleans. I was sent there to learn to speak French, which I had been fairly well taught to read and write. Both Dr. and Mme. Doussan were past middle life. The doctor was a native of France, madame a Creole, and the few arpents they owned were her inheritance. Their home was surrounded by a settlement of Creoles, pure and simple Creoles, such as I doubt exists to-day in the changed conditions that seventy years bring.
The simple natives, who had little patches, some of which amounted to little over an arpent (about an acre), were domiciled so conveniently near that it afforded an unending source of interest to a wide-awake American girl to see, listen to, and talk with them. They were not “poor folks” except possibly in the one meaning of the term. There was a family of Grandprés in that little settlement. Hearing the name Grandpré would instantly call to mind the Grandprés of Louisiana’s early days. Was not a Grandpré Governor, or Captain General, or something else as notable and commanding in Louisiana history, in the French, or more likely Spanish, occupancy of the country? This family descended from the original proud stock. The children, grown, half-grown, babies, at the time of which I write actually had a resident tutor, M. Marr, a man of no mean ability. I do not know how far they advanced in other branches of education, but their beautiful chirography would put to the blush any college graduate who hovers around our young girls to-day, and they signed themselves, too, with a grand flourish, De Grandpré. My old red and gilt album (every girl had an album and her friends wrote fulsome nonsense in it) has a “Je suis très flatté, mademoiselle, de pouvoir m’inscrire,” etc. signed L. De Grandpré. Looks as if I had flattered a nobleman of France! Doesn’t it?
That flock of children of all ages and sizes were being educated well for their day and generation, albeit Grandpré mère strolled about in a gingham blouse volante, her frosty hair covered with a plaid tignon; and Grandpré père sniffled around (he had some catarrhal trouble, I guess) in carpet slippers. I do not think he ever did anything but bear the high-sounding name, and I never heard, after those album days, that the sons did either.
A family of Lafitons lived so near that we heard their parrot screaming for “mon déjeuner” every morning, long before it was time for anybody’s breakfast. I think the bond of friendship that existed between le vieux Lafiton and Dr. Doussan must have been that they came from the same province in France. Most nights, Sundays as well, “mon voisin,” as the doctor called him, came for a game at cards. Long after my supper was served on a tray, and I was safely tucked into bed, madame presided at a banquet of gumbo, jumbalaya and salad, with their beloved Bordeaux, which was spread for the old gentlemen. Lafiton had straggling locks of white hair, falling over the collar of his great coat, reminding me of the picture of Little Nell’s grandfather, and the home of the Lafitons carried out the simile, for it was as melancholy and cheerless as any “Old Curiosity Shop” could be. There were two bright, capable girls in it, though, who never knew or saw anything better than the rickety old house, way up on stilts, that they lived in. There they stitched and darned and mended and patched all day (Creole women are not lazy), and managed to make a creditable appearance for an afternoon promenade on the levee.
The two grown sons caught driftwood and fish, and when they tired of that exertion made crawfish nets. (En parenthèse, when I had a fifteenth birthday, Pete, the long-legged one, gave me a finger ring he had made of the tooth of a shell comb.) They did not own a skiff, much less a horse or voiture. For ever so long I thought Mme. Lafiton had chronic toothache, or some trouble in her jaws, for she always wore a handkerchief over her head, tied under the chin, and also a look of discomfort. In time I discovered that style of headdress, and that troubled smile, were peculiarly her own, and did not signify anything in particular.
We had other neighbors less picturesque than those I have mentioned. Madame had a cousin living quite near, who had, as had all Creole women in those days, a great flock of children. The Dubroca family seemed to be fairly well-to-do. Mr. Dubroca was sugar-maker for a nearby planter. Madame and her daughter Alzire were thrifty, hospitable and kindly. The sons, as they grew up, were sent to schools and colleges. Madame was a sister of Mrs. (Judge) Eustis of New Orleans, both being daughters of Valèrie Allain, a planter of means, whose property when divided among his children did not amount to much for each.
That brings me to the Favrot family. Judge Favrot was a prominent citizen of the parish, and his son, a law student when I knew him, was much above the average. I scarce should mention this family that I saw almost daily and knew so well in connection with the obscure Creoles of the simpler life that I met and knew quite as intimately. The judge, and his son, were violinists. It was no unusual thing for him to play dance music for us, accommodating old gentleman that he was! We always had to adjourn to Lafiton’s to “trip the light fantastic,” for there was a great barn of a room, with bare floor, and no furniture to mention, which they called le salon.
Mme. Doussan often visited friends, by rowboat, on the opposite side of the river. She felt the responsibility of the care of the young girls, so strangely placed in her hands, so she never embarked on her frequent visits by boat or voiture without the company of one she might have esteemed an incumbrance if I had not already been received into the holy of holies of her loving heart.
There were two families of Choppins we saw frequently. The daughter of one, quite a child then, became at a later date wife of Dauphin. The eldest son of the other Choppin family, a youth of less than twenty, was already studying medicine in the office of a country town doctor. We saw much of him, the bright, attractive fellow! as he used to row himself over to the impromptu dances in the Lafiton salon. Later his ambition carried him to Paris, and later still he returned, a distinguished physician and surgeon, to New Orleans. He was a devoted citizen also. None who heard his impassioned address, and his rendering in thrilling tones the inspiring “Aux Armes! Citoyens” of the Marseillaise from the steps of Clay’s monument, on Canal street, at the beginning of the war, ever forgot it.
Madame and I often visited other families in Baton Rouge, the Bonnecazes, Lanoues, Huguets and so on. As I remember, all lived over or in the rear of their shops. Very many families lived over shops in those days, not always over their own shops either. John Winthrop, a scion of the Massachusetts John Winthrop, and his aristocratic family lived over Symes’ lace store, on Royal street in New Orleans. There was a shoemaker’s establishment on the ground floor of the Miltenberger residence. My father’s family lived over an exchange broker’s office on Canal Street. In 1842, when a mob raided, or threatened to raid, banks and exchange brokers’ offices, the strong box of the firm in our basement was conveyed to my mother for safekeeping. But this was in New Orleans, and I see I am wandering from my Creole friends on the coast, where I delighted to visit with ma chère madame.
Twice during that lovely six months’ episode of my life, escorted by the doctor, we boarded the fascinating Belle Creole and made longer flights and longer visits to relatives of madame living beyond a voiture’s possibilities. Once it was to spend a few days with the Valcour Aimes at their incomparable home; at another time we had two never-to-be-forgotten days at Sosthène Allain’s, where I met two sweet girls of my own age. Then and there began a friendship that continued through our young ladyhood. We were three inseparable companions until three weddings sent us (as is the nature of things) on divergent paths. Celeste went to Paris, so remote then that she was practically lost to us. I do not suppose a single one of those who made those six months of my girlhood so happy is living to-day. Some have left no descendants; I do not know who has or who has not, but I pay this tribute to the Creole simple life, that seems in the retrospect almost ideal, and no episode of my checkered life is sweeter to recall.
Dr. Doussan was a botanist. His garden was the mecca of all lovers of plant life. I imagine it was excelled only by the noted grounds of the Valcour Aimes. Fruit and vegetables were sent daily in a skiff to the town market. Ma chère madame, in her black silk blouse volante and her cap, with stiff, fluted frill tied under the chin, often let me help her make the formal little bouquets for the market, the dear old stiff bouquets, flat as a plate and nestling in a frill of lace paper! The doctor spent hours in his cabinet with his botanical treasures. Daily I was summoned to read to him his Paris Journal, and to write a composition. No teacher could have been more painstaking; no scholar more appreciative.
Early in 1847 a nephew of the doctor’s arrived from France, a dapper, Frenchified youth of eighteen. The Doussans were childless, but they had adopted a young girl. At the time of which I write she was about my age, and was being educated at Sacré Cœur Convent. She was home only for Easter vacation. No one told me, no one even hinted it, but I intuitively understood that a mariage de convenance was planned for the dapper young Frenchman and the pretty blonde girl, and the visit was meant to introduce Marie to her prétendu; they seemed to accept the arrangement complacently, but I was most interested in watching the proceedings, and, to say the least, much entertained.
It was fully fifty years after these events when Doussan neveu and I met again, two old gray-haired folks. When the first frost of astonishment melted, and we could recognize each other, we had a grand time recalling places and people. How we laughed over the remembrance of the antics of the doctor’s pet monkey; and, oh yes! the voluble Lafiton parrot! For a brief hour we lived again the halcyon days of fifteen and eighteen. The following year Doussan passed away—severing for me the last living link that bound me to the simple Creole life, on the borders of which I had such a happy girlhood.