USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Creole families of New Orleans > Part 12
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CHAPTER IX DE LA CHAISE
JACQUES DE LA CHAISE left behind him to Louisiana the traditions of an interesting and most impressive personality, joined to the reputation of a perfect official or representative type of the old French magistracy. He was one of the two com- missioners sent to Louisiana by the Company of the Indies in 1722, charged with inquisitorial powers to take information on the conduct of all the officers and administrators of the colony, and to make a report to the government. The brother com- missioner, de Saunoy, dying shortly afterwards, de la Chaise remained invested with the full power of the joint commission. He met, as was to be ex- pected, fierce opposition in the colony, but pro- ceeded unflinchingly in the discharge of his duties.
Gayarré, evidently speaking from intimate knowl- edge, calls him "one of the worthiest men the colony ever possessed," giving the following description of him:
"He was of patrician birth, a nephew of the confessor of Louis XIV. The Château d'Aix, the feudal castle of the family, was situ- ated in the Province of Forez. His father was the son of George d'Aix, Seigneur de la Chaise, who married Rénée de Rochefort, daughter of one of the noblest houses of France. Members of the family distinguished themselves in the army of France. In the time of the Regency one of them died, a Lieutenant-General, leaving a reputation for uncompromising integrity and unflinching attachment to duty."
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Jacques de la Chaise, to quote Gayarré again:
"was not gifted with superior intellect, but he was a solid square 'block of honesty' who moved solidly onward in the accomplishment of his mission, regardless of persons and consequences. The never ceasing repose of his handsome features was an unmistakable indica- tion of the unruffled serenity of his soul and the dignity of his person; and the measured propriety of his deportment and actions was such that it checked in others the ebullition of passion, forcing discussion to be courteous and anger, itself, to be respectful. With the blandest urbanity but with unswerving firmness, he called every one to ac- count and met serenely the opposition of those whom he goaded into fury by his steadiness of purpose. *
Bienville was recalled to France to answer the charges which his implacable enemies had for years been bringing against him; and his cousin, Bois- briant, appointed Governor ad interim, on de la Chaise's report, he also was summoned to France. Three members of the Council were dismissed from office; the Attorney-General's resignation was de- manded, and his office suppressed for the time being. The disgraced officers were ordered to appear before Perier and de la Chaise, and to stand trial for their official acts. Instructions were also issued to Perier, that he should be the executive and military com- mander of the colony, but that de la Chaise should have official supervision of its police and executive judicial administration.
It was a gloomy period in the history of Louisiana, and the distress of the colony had reached an acute stage. The supplies sent from France failing, famine began to threaten, and the distress was increased by a hurricane, which caused the most extensive damage; the paper currency had been reduced to such a state
* His portrait and that of his wife are possessed by Colonel Hugues de la Vergne.
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of discredit that it ceased to pass; hence a cessation of business. To make the situation worse, the Natchez Indians, goaded by the tyranny of the French officers over them, began murdering and pillaging traveling traders, while they secretly prepared for a general revolt and massacre of all the whites in their land. This was bloodily and successfully accom- plished in 1729.
It would seem, from the following letter, that at the time of the massacre, de la Chaise was making one of his official tours of inspection, accompanied by Governor Perier:
Fort Chartres, April 14th, 1730 .*
"The dugout of M. Périer and M. de la Chaise made - leagues to the place in all haste to advise us of the massacre of the French established at Natchez.
"TERRISSE DE TERNAN."
Le Page Dupratz concludes his account of the Natchez massacre with a panegyric on de la Chaise:
"Those orphans and widows who escaped from the Natchez mas- sacre would be extremely ungrateful if they did not all their lives pray for the soul of that good and charitable man."
But not only on the widows and orphans were his heart and mind directed, as the following document, remarkable for its time, shows:
"To the Councillors of the Superior Council of the Province of Louisiana:
"Exposed to a disaster like that which happened at Natchez, where all the inhabitants were inhumanly massacred, obliged to have recourse to all sorts of means to baffle these barbarians, the most pressing need was speedily to advise the distant posts to be on the alert. M. Périer found men of good will who offered to
* Wrong date. The Natchez massacre took place in 1729; de la Chaise died in February, 1730 .- AUTHOR.
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undertake the perilous journey. They were accompanied by a few negroes, chosen from among the boldest, and they were promised freedom if they inviolably kept their word. There are also several other negroes who at the time of the Natchez siege gave proofs of valor and attachment to the French nation, and exposed them- selves to peril with intrepidity. Some were even wounded, and as this is a very important affair, and as it is a question of holding the negroes and attaching them, so that we may rely on them on such occasions, the question is to find means the best calculated to attain that end. We believe we cannot reward them otherwise than by granting them freedom. That will give others a great desire to deserve similar favors by material services; and, besides, a company may be formed of free negroes that can be placed in the posts which the commander will judge proper, which company is to be always ready to march on short notice.
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"As there were then a great number of negroes at Natchez, I do not exactly know who did best and who will be rewarded; therefore - : they will be chosen from the reports and testimony of the officers in this war and on the account given by them to M. Périer, who will choose them. We cannot do better than to refer this to him ; and beg him to demand an account of their good and bad qualities. This considered, may it be your pleasure to grant freedom to the negroes who went to Illinois, and to whom M. Périer judges it to be proper to give the same. In the report made to him, conditions and clauses prescribed by the 'Black Code' must be adhered to."*
De la Chaise found at Natchez Le Page du Pratz, the historian who had been living among the Indians there for eight years, perfecting the invaluable study of the tribe, their language and their customs, that fill the best pages of his history. This historian, who was also a botanist, made a study of the medi- cinal plants used by the Natchez, and a collection of three hundred of them, which the enlightened de la Chaise sent to France, with a Memoir on the sub- ject by du Pratz. The plants were confided to the
* From the Louisiana Historical documents.
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Jardin des Plantes, of Paris, where there still exists a record of them.
Before Bienville's departure (1724), and almost the last act under his rule, was the promulgation of the "Code Noir" by the Superior Council. De la Chaise's signature follows that of Bienville on this most important document. In the division of au- thority between Périer who succeeded Bienville and de la Chaise, as Dart says:
"De la Chaise became apparently the sole law officer of the Crown, at any rate for the time being, and devoted himself earnestly to his judicial duties, settling disputes and simplifying the law. . . .
His power to override constitution and customs is illustrated by Gayarré, in the action of the Su- perior Council on a question of community. To continue the interesting quotation from Dart:
"There had been intermarriages between French emigrants and Indian women, and, upon the death of the husband, it was usual for the wife to return to her people, failing to pay the debts of the dece- dent and carrying off the property to her tribe, without observing the formalities required by and inherent to the local laws of succession. De la Chaise recommended and the Superior Council decreed that thereafter on the death of a Frenchman married to an Indian woman. the property left by the decedent should be administered by a tutor if there were minor children; if none, by a curator to vacant estates. who should pay annually to the widow one third of the revenue of the estate; which payment should cease in case she returned to dwell with her tribe."
In the records of the Superior Council is preserved an instance of de la Chaise's unswerving directness of purpose in pursuit of justice. He proceeds against Bienville in the one clearly proven instance of injus-
* "The Legal Institutions of Louisiana." W. P. Dart, Esq.
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tice recorded by history against Bienville, in evicting Pauger, the Royal Engineer, from the land upon which he had settled and which he had improved.
Petitioning as executor for the late M. de Pauger, de la Chaise recalls the land suit between M. de Bienville and M. de Pauger, wherein M. de Pauger was worsted, on the subject of compensation for im- provements on the land at issue. The sum of one thousand francs was allowed but it was afterwards claimed by M. de Bienville, against the valid rights of Pauger's estate. "Let M. de Bienville be cited in the person of his nephew, M. de Noyan, and the thousand francs be entered to the account of the estate." It is painful to record that the Superior Council sustained Bienville and not his ill-treated antagonist in the decision of the case.
De la Chaise died in 1730, his sudden death giving rise to dark rumors of poison by those who had cause to fear his investigations. He was accompanied to Louisiana by his wife, Marguerite le Cailly, who, according to a popular report, still believed and repeated (although unproven), was related to the family of Jeanne d'Arc.
According to the Census of 1726, de la Chaise, with his wife and two children, occupied a large house on Chartres Street. He left the following children:
Marie Louise, born in Nantes; married in 1729 to Louis Prat, physician and Councillor, of the Superior Council, "a man of regular habits, approved honesty, and a practical Catholic," according to the report of the Clerk of the Council.
Alexandrine, born in Nantes; married to Jean Pradel, Captain of Infantry.
Félicité, born in Nantes; married in 1732 to Louis Dubreuil Villars.
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Marie Marguerite, married to Louis Joseph Bizo- ton de St. Martin, "officier de Marine."
Jacques, married to Marguerite d'Arensbourg.
Councillor Prat, acting as guardian of the minor children, petitioned the Superior Council in June, 1730, for authority to pay them quarterly install- ments yearly, advanced from their portions of the estate for their support, "as the Council may ap- prove"; Madame Pradel also to receive an allowance up to the date of her marriage.
The estate of de la Chaise showed no accumulation of wealth during his terms of office. The inventory of it is in the archives of the Louisiana Historical Society, but unfortunately is not available for scrutiny. His plantation, situated above the city, facing the river, was not a large one, its working force consisting of only thirty-five slaves. The upper districts of the city were known at one time as de la Chaise, Gayarre mentioning that the de Boré plantation was situated in de la Chaise. One street in New Orleans remains to bear the name.
A few outstanding debts were presented to the Council for payment: One for two hundred and twenty francs due on "wig" supplies; another for thirty francs for making a "fine shirt" for the late M. de la Chaise. And, again, "R. B. Petit, of the S. J., claims two hundred and twenty-eight francs for some wrought iron made by the Society's blacksmith for use on the de la Chaise plantation."
Auguste de la Chaise, the son of Jacques de la Chaise and Marguerite d'Arensbourg, attained a lurid notoriety in his day as a member of the Society of French Jacobins, established in Philadelphia in 1794. The distribution of their inflammatory * Parish Register of St. Louis Cathedral.
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addresses in New Orleans through secret agents caused great uneasiness and alarm to Carondelet. The alarm was increased by Carondelet's knowledge of the efforts being made by Genet, the French Minis- ter, to raise an expedition against Louisiana, with the aid of the discontented people of Kentucky and Tennessee. De la Chaise was sent to Kentucky by Genet to recruit forces, and he was counted upon to lead the invaders down the Ohio and Mississippi.
Gayarré writes that of all the agents employed by Genet, de la Chaise was the one most feared by Carondelet, on account of his rash intrepidity, his indefatigable activity, and his exquisite address; and because, being a native of Louisiana, and be- longing to one of its most powerful families, he exer- cised considerable influence in the city .*
But, as we know, the firm interference of Washing- ton checked the intrigue of Genet, and the revolu- tionary plan aborted. In his disappointment, de la Chaise abandoned his hopes of wresting Louisiana from the power of Spain. He retired from Kentucky and took service in the French Army, leaving behind him this document as his last political testament and will:
Address of de la Chaise, laid before the Democratic Society of Lexington:
"Citizens:
"Unforseen events, the effects of causes which it is unnecessary to develop here, have stopped the march of two thousand brave Kentuckians, who, strong in their courage, in the justness of their rights, in the purity of their cause, and in the general assent of their fellow-citizens, and convinced of the brotherly dispositions of the Louisianians, waited only for their orders to go and take away, by
* "Spanish Domination." Gayarré.
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the irresistable power of their arms, from those despotic usurpers, the Spaniards, the possession of the Mississippi, secure for their country the navigation of it, break the chains of the Americans and of their French brethren in the province of Louisiana, hoist up the flag of liberty in the name of the French Republic, and lay the foundations of the prosperity and happiness of two nations destined by nature to be but one and so situated as to be the most happy in the universe.
"Citizens, the greater the attempts you have made towards the success of that expedition, the more sensible you must be of the impediments which delay its execution, and the more energetic should your efforts be towards procuring new means of success. There is one from which I expect the greatest advantages, and which may be decisive-that is an address to the national convention, or to the Executive Council of France. In the name of my countrymen, of Louisiana, in the name of your own interest, I dare once more ask you this new proof of patriotism.
"Being deprived of my dearest hopes, and of the pleasure, after an absence of fourteen years and a proscription of three, of returning to the bosom of my family, my friends, and my countrymen, I have only one course to follow-that of going to France and express- ing to the representatives of the French people the cry, the general wish of the Louisianians to become part of the French Republic- informing them at the same time, of the most ardent desire which the Kentuckians have had, and will continue to have forever, to take the most active part in any undertaking tending to open to them the free navigation of the Mississippi. The French Republicans, in their sublime constitutional act, have proffered their protection to all those nations who may have the courage to shake off the yoke of tyranny. The Louisianians have the most sacred right to it. They are French but they have been sacrificed to despotism by arbitrary power. The honor, the glory, the duty of the National Convention is to grant them their powerful support.
"Every petition or plan relative to that important object would meet with the highest consideration. An address from the Demo- cratic Society of Lexington would give it greater weight.
"Accept citizens the farewell, not the last, of a brother who is determined to sacrifice everything in his power for the liberty of his country, and the prosperity of the generous inhabitants of Kentucky. Salut en la patrie.
"AUGUSTE LA CHAISE."
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De Pontalba, in a letter to his wife, October 13th, 1794, speaking of the general uneasiness in the city over its impending Jacobin uprising, adds:
"Madame Marre has just come from Charlestown; she has been to the Government (house) and repeated that la Chaise told her in New England, where he is, that it was he who fomented the troubles which we had had in Point Coupée, adding that he had not suc- ceeded that time, but that he would do better next time; he told her he was only waiting for his dispatches as Consul of France, to come here by way of Kentucky, and that he would show there instructions that would make the negroes know what their rights were.
"Madame Marre protested that Louisiana was his country, that his parents were there and his friends, and that this should deter him from bringing trouble there, with horror, ruin, and assassination; he replied that humanity came before such titles, and that the negro men were his compatriots as well as the white men. Madame Marre gave the names of persons who heard this conversation; they are all here and their declarations will be taken, a summary made, and afterwards, orders will be given to high and low, that he must not be allowed to enter the colony if he seeks to. He has done every- thing that he could to excite the negress of Madame Marre; telling her she was free, that slavery was horrible, that no one had the right to hold her in it-either her or any of those held so in Louisiana. Such a subject is a great curse to this province."
Auguste de la Chaise married the daughter of Pierre Foucher, the granddaughter of de Boré. There is no further record in Louisiana of the name. He perished in an ambuscade in St. Domingo in 1803, shortly after his elevation to the grade of General. Gayarré concludes his account of him with the not very enthusiastic praise:
"Had not death stopped him in his career, when he was still in the meridian of life, it is to be presumed, from what he had already accomplished, he would have risen to higher honors; and might have left behind him a memory of which his native country, Louisiana, would have been proud."
CHAPTER X
LAFRÉNIÈRE
TICOLAS DE LAFRENIÈRE stands in the his- tory of Louisiana and in the annals of New Orleans upon a pedestal that raises his heroic gfiure even above that of Bienville, whose long devoted life of hard service missed the consecration of a glorious death.
Lafréniere, like Bienville, belonged to a family that seemed sent by history into the new country on a mission.
Like the Lemoynes, the Chauvins came from France to the new world to seek their fortune in the strenuous pioneer days of Canada. Pierre Chauvin, a native of Anjou, the first of the name, son of Réné and Catherine Avard de Solesne, lived in Montreal in 1658, receiving his grant of land in 1654.
He married Marthe Autreuil, daughter of Réné and Françoise Lachaunerlin. Four of their seven sons followed Bienville to Louisiana. Like the Lemoynes, they affixed to their family names titular designations: De Léry, Beaulieu, de Lafrénière, Boisclair, and the like.
As Ulloa, in his report upon the insurrection in Louisiana, succinctly states:
"Of the common people Bienville brought over with him were four brothers who afterwards assumed different surnames in Louis- iana, one causing himself to be called Lafrénière; the other Léry; the third, Beaulieu; the fourth, Chauvin. These four Canadians
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were so low in extraction and had so little education, that they could not write and had come with an axe on their shoulders to live by their manual labor. The sons of these men are now the chiefs of the rebellion."
The four brothers were:
Jacques (married to Jeanne Dauville); Joseph de Léry (married to Hypolite Mercier) ; Nicolas Lafrénière* (married to Marguerite Le Sueur) ;
Louis Chauvin de Beaulieu (married to Charlotte Dural).
There were two daughters, Barbe Thérèse (mar- ried to Ignace Hubert de Bellair) and Michelle Chauvin (married to Jacques Nepveu).
During the hard epoch of the settlement of the colony, when Bienville had to maintain himself against Spaniards, English and Indians as well as against domestic foes, and fight no less strenuously against starvation when the colony was forgotten or neglected by the mother country, he found in the men with the axe on their shoulders, the illiterate, hardy Canadian "coureurs de bois," his most effec- tive fighters against overwhelming odds. Indefati- gable in daring enterprise, courageous beyond all tests, indomitably loyal, unconquerable by famine, they, and not the feeble military garrison provided by the Royal Government, held the province for France, and kept the fleur-de-lis flying over the fort at Mobile.
The Chauvins are met in historical chronicles during this period whenever and wherever need was
* A recently discovered document in the Louisiana Historical Society collection states that Lafrénière, after his arrival in the colony, learned to read and write in four months.
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found for their services, if not in the lists of military promotions or awards of honors.
In 1716, when Louisiana was under the régime of the Crozat Charter, St. Denis, it may be recalled, was sent from Mobile to Mexico in an attempt to create an opening for French trade with the Spanish provinces. After many adventures, military and amorous, St. Denis returned to Mobile to report the utter failure of his commercial effort, but the complete success of his love affair with the daughter of the Spanish Viceroy, whom he married and left at the Presidio del Norte to await his return.
The three Chauvin brothers, De Léry, Lafrenière and Beaulieu, were then dispatched with merchan- dise from Mobile to engage in trade with Mexico. They acquitted themselves less romantically, but, balked by Spanish vigilance, they met with no better commercial success than St. Denis.
The Chauvins followed Bienville from Mobile to Biloxi, and to the proposed site of the city of New Orleans, there selecting for themselves choice con- cessions in the Tchoupitoulas district, where they established plantations. Working in their bold, energetic, enterprising way, they soon became known as money-makers. On a census taken at the time, de le Roy (Déléry) and Bellair are mentioned as set- tled on the immense concession that Bienville him- self had obtained, extending from New Orleans to the Tchoupitoulas, and upon this settlement lived Chauvin Deléry with three children, and Chauvin de Lafrénière, who also had a wife and three children.
There is record before the Superior Council, in 1724, of a sharp legal dispute between the Chauvins and the owner of the neighboring plantation, M.
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Céard, over the digging of a ditch and the raising of a levee which caused an overflow on the Céard lands. In spite of Lafrénière's spirited defense, the Council decided against him, ordering him to build a coffer dike for the protection of Céard's lands under the supervision of Broutin, the Royal Engineer-the costs of the court to be paid by the Chauvin brothers.
Nicolas Chauvin de Lafrenière, the third brother, had married Marguerite Le Sueur. Their son be- came Louisiana's famous man. Marguerite Le Sueur was presumably (but only presumably) the daughter of the celebrated explorer of the Upper Mississippi; and the ardent adventurer in search of copper mines. He was a Canadian and had followed Iberville to Louisiana, where he died, leaving his wife and family in Mobile.
There exists, unfortunately, no data concerning the early days of Lafrénière's childhood. Even the date of his birth is uncertain and can only be guessed at approximately as 1720. He was, doubtless, one of the three children that were taken to the plantation on the Tchoupitoulas Road and he must have received the elements of his education from some primary instructor such as generally at that time kept a small school for the children of planters in the neighborhood of rich plantations.
We come into the light of historic certainty with the authoritative statement of Gayarré that Lafrén- ière was sent to France for his education and there, during his long sojourn, studied civil law. He mar- ried Marguerite Hubert de Belair, a cousin, daughter of Ignace Hubert and Barbe Thérese Chauvin, half sister of Joseph Roy Villeré.
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