USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Creole families of New Orleans > Part 16
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Unfortunately for so distinguished a family, the genealogical tree gives no other information than the record of births, marriages and deaths- too long a list to insert here. But we may cull a few of the names bracketed together along the branches: François Enould Dugué de Livaudais and Aline de la Chaise; Henri Enould Dugué de Livaudais and Celestine Dreux; Sophie Enould Dugué de Livaudais and Pierre Auguste de la Chaise; Charles Jacques Enould de Livaudais and Eulalie Léocadie LeBreton des Chapelles; Jacques Philippe Enould Dugué de Livaudais and Rose Victoire Voisin; Jules Barth Enould Dugué de Livaudais and Marie Zunia Trudeau; Louis Adolphe de Livaudais and Irene Eulalie Frederic de St. Férol.
The good old names are repeated over and over again; the good lives that flow from them appear also in a monotonous repetition of able men and beautiful, noble-looking women. Joseph François Enould Dugué de Livaudais, born about 1784, was the first to sign and call himself François Dugué. He married Jeanne Marie Plique, and had, like his remote ancestor, a goodly number of children, who all are known as Dugués.
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Henri Philippe Dugué, the late distinguished lawyer, and Charles Oscar Dugué, a local poet of noble proportions, were his sons.
Henri Philippe Dugué married Celestine Dreux, the sister of the Confederate hero, Charles Dreux. Caught in the whirlpool of the Civil War, he was forced to take refuge in Havana. He left his native city a man of wealth; he returned, like most of his confreres with nothing left of all his former pos- sessions except his good reputation as a lawyer and two old slaves who, although free, insisted upon devoting to him their services until their death. Children and grandchildren survive him to carry on his good name and tradition.
A last reminiscence is given by an old writer and lover of New Orleans .*
"There was but one highway leading above the river, and this was 'The Tchoupitoulas Road.' Along this road commencing about Delord, the upper extremity of the Faubourg Ste. Marie, and extend- ing toward the magnificent Livaudais plantation, was a succession of beautifully located villas and agricultural establishments. All along Tschoupitoulas Street there ran a low levee planted with willow trees, and during the season of high water, when the batture then forming was thoroughly immersed, the long western keel boats and barges, as well as the unseemly flatboats, or chalands, would make fast to these trees and thence discharge their cargoes.
"After the receding of the spring and summer floods, these flat- boats, of enormous construction and unfit for a return voyage, would be left high and dry upon the batture front, and then be broken up for fuel and building purposes. The strong side pieces, or gunwales, were used in the suburbs as footpaths or side banquettest in lieu of our present brick-paved sidewalks. Upon these wooden trails, as it were, pedestrians had to make their way through immense vacant spaces, for there were but few buildings toward the rural precincts, leading to the Livaudais plantation, which constituted that portion of New Orleans which now forms the Fourth District.
* "New Orleans As It Was." Henry C. Castellanos.
t Sidewalks in New Orleans are still called banquettes.
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"On the way to that wealthy estate, the river front was lined with a continuous series of delightful rural residences, surrounded with orange hedges, orchards and well-tended gardens. The great Macarty crevasse, in the spring of 1816, submerged the rear portions of the numerous plantations. The Livaudais estate was one of the heaviest sufferers from this calamity. A great misfortune this, for Mr. François Livaudis. The planting of a crop or several hundred hogsheads only yielded twenty-eight hogsheads of sugar; and the splendid residence, commenced about that time, was never finished, affording even to these latter days the spectacle of an abandoned castle, that went afterward by the name of the 'Haunted House' (near Washington Avenue).
"The value of this plantation became greatly enhanced on ac- count of its being raised several feet by the remaining deposit, or alluvial settlement, of the Mississippi water. A company of specu- lators acquired by purchase a great part of this estate, which is now the beautiful Garden District, and which took its rise from this very circumstance of the overflow."
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CHAPTER XIII SONIAT DU FOSSAT
A CHARMING bit of family reminiscence is conveyed in a few simple lines written by the late Charles T. Soniat du Fossat for the Louisiana State Historical Society :
"While visiting the great Paris Exposition in 1900, I had the pleasure of receiving a charming invitation from my cousin, Henri de Pousargues, a General of the French Army, the owner of the Chateau du Fossat, the cradle of the family of Soniat du Fossat." He goes on to describe it: "In a charming valley of the picturesque stream, the Lot, near its juncture with the Garonne, the château appeared a very citadel of strength. Built of solid stone and masonry, it had withstood well the ravages of time. The grand old oaks at the entrance-hoary with age-seemed to have braved numerous tempests. It was in 1538 that my ancestor, François de Saunhac de Belcastel, took possession of the château, which has been continuously owned by the family ever since."
Taken into the spacious rooms where the heir- looms of the family were stored, our writer found among them papers and documents relating to the American branch of the family, which his kind host allowed him to bring to New Orleans with him. Among them was an old and faded manuscript, written in French, entitled "A Brief History of Louisiana." The document was unknown to Mr. Charles Soniat du Fossat, a student himself of Louisiana history. The page where the name of the author should have been signed was torn; the handwriting was peculiar and difficult to decipher.
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He, nevertheless, translated and published it; sought and found the name of the author, who was the Chevalier Guy Soniat du Fossat, the first of his name in Louisiana and the founder of the Ameri- can branch of the family. Born in the château in 1726, he entered the French Army as volunteer in 1746. By 1747 he was a lieutenant in the Regiment of Monaco and in 1748 was wounded in the siege of Maestrich.
In 1751, during the reign of Louis XV, when the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor of Louisiana, made an appeal for troops, France sent a reinforcement of five thousand men. Among them was the young lieutenant, Guy Saunhac du Fossat. He was sta- tioned in New Orleans. Following the example of young French officers of family, he married shortly after his arrival in the city, taking as his wife Claudine Dreux, the daughter of one of the most prominent families of the city-that of Mathurin Dreux, the "Sieur de Gentilly," the aristocratic and wealthy planter on the Bayou St. Jean.
Being an engineer of ability, Soniat was appointed a captain in 1759, and sent to Illinois to construct and repair forts. Owing to him, Fort Chartres and the Kaskaskias were put in a state to ensure the protection of the Western colonies for years. He rendered good service in the colonies against the English, and was recommended by Kerlerec for the Cross of St. Louis. It is not definitely known when the ancient name of Saunhac was changed to its Louisiana version, Soniat.
He was recalled to New Orleans in 1761, where he continued in the service of France until 1766, when Ulloa came to Louisiana to take possession of the
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colony in the name of the King of Spain. In accordance with a permission granted by the King of France, in 1769, he entered the service of the King of Spain in Louisiana. After O'Reilly had assumed control of the colony, in 1769, he was made captain in the Battalion of Louisiana and was therefore one of the officers who, according to Gayarre, impressed O'Reilly so forcibly with their distinction of appear- ance that he regretted his inability to take some of them with him to Spain, as specimens of the new subjects acquired by His Catholic Majesty
In 1772, Soniat was retired from active service and was appointed Alcalde by Unzaga. Returning to civil life he bought in 1778, from the Ursuline Nuns, the plantation seven miles below the city of New Orleans, which he afterwards exchanged with Bernard Marigny for the one above the city on the river still retained in the family. Marigny even- tually sold the tract to Jacques Philippe Villeré, and it is known in history as a part of the field of Chal- mette, upon which was fought the Battle of New Orleans.
In 1786 Soniat was reappointed Alcalde by Gover- nor Miro, and in 1794 he died and was buried in New Orleans. From his marriage with Françoise Claudine Dreux he had three sons: François Guy Soniat du Fossat, who married, first, Anne Arnout; second, Louise Duralde; Joseph Soniat du Fossat, and Juan Baptiste, under whose name the significant and discreet record is written-"Il réussit auprès de la Reine d'Espagne." He had (consequently we may assume) to leave Spain and come to Louisiana in 1800. He died unmarried.
François Guy, the eldest son, a soldier like his
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father, followed the campaigns of Galvez against the English. He was present at the capture of Baton Rouge and Manchac, and witnessed the storming of Mobile and Pensacola. For signal bravery on the field of battle he was promoted to lieutenant in the Battalion of Louisiana in 1780, after which he was recalled to France by the death of his uncle, le Baron Jean du Fossat, to take posses- sion of the château, with the title of Baron.
He presented a memorial to Louis XVIII, asking as recompense of his services the Cross of St. Louis. To support his claim, he mentions also the services rendered by his father to France; among them a "Memorial" of Louisiana. It seems doubtful whether the manuscript ever left the author's pos- session. It is probable that, once finished, it was laid away in the old cabinet among his family papers, and that it lay there until Mr. Charles Soniat of New Orleans discovered it.
There is no mention of it by other historians and no evidence of its ever having been read even by such meticulously careful historians as Gayarré and Martin, or by his kinsman, Alcée Fortier. The author himself quotes from no written authorities; in fact, when he wrote there would have been none available to him. He tells a plain historical story as he heard it, with a simplicity and an originality of judgment which makes him a refreshing com- panion over a road that has become monotonous and dusty from constant travel upon it.
The geographical description of the province with which it opens, is what we are accustomed to, except when he relates such "peculiarities" as in the village of the Cohoes, "where are to be seen tombs
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ranging from seven to eight feet long, and they seemed to have contained bodies of that size, judging by the skeletons found therein," to which he added his own version of that weird, apochryphal legend of "The Man Plant."
"In going up the Missouri River, about three hundred leagues, some travelers discovered on its banks the trunk of a plant resembling a human figure. Having approached near enough they saw that it looked like the body of a woman, with arms, legs, hands and breasts. At the extremities of the hands, fingers and breasts there were filaments serving as roots, leading into the ground, and the head was crowned with a small tree, with some foliage. The travelers searched in the vicinity and found others of the same kind and after having dug to the roots of the plants, they found bodies of the same nature as the first, designating males and females. The travelers, with their sense of curiosity and wonder, brought with them to the Illinois post a few of the curiosities, which brought about several theories. Some contended that it was a root to which nature had given the form of a human figure. Others argued that they were real bodies that had been buried standing, according to the custom of certain nations, and that they had vegetated in a soil proper thereto. The first theory prevailed over the other. Awaiting further investigation which may settle the question, we had in our possession an arm from said plant, which resembled in every respect the arm of a man."
It is, however, Soniat's frank and judicial opinion upon historical events and men of his day that is of most value to the student, weary of the constant repetition of the almost mechanical opinions found in other histories.
"It was," he says, "the dissensions between Bienville and Noyan, captain of the vessels and commander of the troops, that were the cause of Bienville's failure, in his expedition against the Chickasaws and Cherokees." Of the Governors, as an observer at close range, he says, "M. de Vaudreuil was kind and peaceful and did much for public welfare. . . .
M. de Kerlerec was a man full of vanity and of an intriguing and selfish disposition. . He considered
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Louisiana as his prey and did all he could to reap all the fruits pos- sible. . . Under him the good will and cordiality which had existed between the inhabitants during previous administrations, vanished entirely. During the time of Bienville and Périer, those who composed the colony lived in perfect accord with one another, so much so that they seemed to form part of one large family visiting one another and holding reunions and meetings at which harmony and gayety invariably prevailed. The food products, and hunting and fishing, were in abundance. The women were neatly dressed without ostentation. Living was cheap."
His impression of Ulloa, the sinister author of Louisiana's tragedy, bears out the judgment of the "patriots" upon him, and his description of the revolt against Spanish authority is the coolest- worded one of the event that we have
"Ulloa had been the traveling companion of M. de la Condamine (in Peru) but did not create the impression in any one, by his ap- pearance or conversation, that he had taken any great part in these discoveries . . . a man of talent, very self-opinionated, incapable of putting in his official acts such care and attention as were neces- sary to gain the confidence of a people just experiencing a change of government.
"O'Reilly, who simulated good will towards the inhabitants (deceiving the revolutionists), arrived quietly in New Orleans, and made all preparations for disembarking, as if an army were before him, ready to oppose him. . . . He took possession of the colony, a formality which his predecessor had neglected. . . Unzaga, reputed to have been unjust in other governmental positions and who, in the beginning, had by his coarse, repellent manners given poor hopes, became popular and was well liked and applauded."
To the usual heavy historical laudation of Galvez, Soniat substitutes new and original version of his character and campaigns, written with the sharp pen of a discriminating French officer-perhaps dictated by his son who fought under Galvez.
"Don Bernardo de Galvez succeeded Don Luis de Unzaga; he was the nephew of a Minister of that name who ruled Spain and who,
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having no male children of his own, took occasion to favor his nephew, who was not slow in taking advantage of the good will of his superior. He started his nephew's fortune by sending him to Louisiana in the capacity of Colonel and Governor ad interim.
"That Minister, well posted concerning the secrets of the Cabinet, saw that Louisiana was destined to be the siege of war, and the place where his nephew could make his mark. He furnished him the means to that end in his capacity as Minister of 'Indies,' and he planned everything so advantageously that an officer with any ordinary capacity should have succeeded within a year. Don Bernardo de Galvez was subsequently appointed Governor, with full title. He had properly made use of his time in endearing himself to the inhabitants by means of flattery, caresses and even by pro- curing to them new pleasures. He appeared sympathetic, just and disinterested, even assisting the natives. His conduct, supported by his uncle, conciliated everybody. He was not slow in making use of all the advantages that were thrown in his path by the Minister who, ever mindful of all that could turn to his advantage, and seeing that war was inevitable with England, apprised his nephew beforehand that war would be declared; by which means, Bernardo de Galvez knew of the declaration of war in Louisiana before it was known in Madrid, and he acted in consequence. ..
"Galvez, having made the necessary arrangements, issued a proclamation summoning the colony to arms, and marched with his forces towards post Manchac. There he published the news of war, and by that means surprised the English, who were in pos- session of that fort. The latter, finding it impossible to defend that post, which was of little importance, abandoned it and retreated to Baton Rouge, which they fortified in haste, the day after their retreat. During the night, Don Bernardo de Galvez, apprised of the evacuation, disposed his troops to advantage, ordered the assault and entered the fort which had only twenty men, who made no resistance.
"The news of this conquest, conveyed to the Court under the most glowing colors, brought to Galvez the title of Brigadier. He employed part of the winter in making preparations for the siege of Mobile. He demanded of the authorities of Havana men and vessels for the purpose of attacking it with advantage and with all possible security ..
"He embarked with a small number of soldiers and inhabitants of the colony, and arrived on the ninth of March, 1780, in Mobile
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Bay, where a severe tempest destroyed several of his ships, which foundered in the pass of the bay. These ships carried many men, who spent more than thirty hours on the débris of the vessels. The calm, which came in due time, permitted the launches, or ship's boats, which had resisted the tempest, to pick up the unfortunates, who, with eyes and hands raised towards the heavens, were implor- ing aid and succor. Their prayers were answered and they were all saved. . . . They were landed on the coast of the bay. At that moment the army was in such a bad condition that if the English had had a single detachment on the parapets, as they should have had, they would have taken all these unfortunates that had been saved from the storm, and thereby not only would they have pre- served their post but would have easily conquered Louisiana, which had been left without a defender.
"After that, there remained to the English in the Gulf of Mexico only a single possession which was Pensacola. . . . Galvez was anxious to effect this conquest. He finally undertook it, and, with that end in view, sent M. Miro to Havana, to ask for all that was necessary for the enterprise. He obtained soldiers, vessels and artillery. All left in the year 1781.
"Galvez succeeded in passing the fort and its artillery, and landed without obstacle. The English offered feeble opposition. . . Half of the garrison perished; the fortification, which was of wood, was burnt. . . . Galvez took possession of his conquest and came back triumphant to New Orleans. Don Bernardo de Galvez gathered all the fruits of that war. He obtained promotion from Captain of Infantry to Lieutenant-General and Viceroy of Mexico, where he died.
"When Galvez died, Don Estevan Miro became Governor of the Province of Louisiana. His solicitude for the welfare of his people, his honesty of purpose, and his sense of justice, made him an ad- mirable Governor. He was always attentive to duty and ever ready to obtain from the Court of Spain new favors for his people. He used his best endeavors to check the evils brought about by habits of luxury, which had been allowed to spread by the actions of his predecessors. M. Miro corrected as much as he could the many disorders that had crept into the community. He had already succeeded in giving splendor and éclat to all the affairs of the colony. .
The author was in New Orleans when the great
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conflagration occurred and gives this account of it:
"On Good Friday of the year 1788, a fire was caused by the negligence of a woman who thought of crowning her devotion by making a small altar in her house. She left several candles burning around it and went off to take her dinner. During her absence, a candle fell on some ornaments which took fire, and the house in an instant was in flames, which communicated to the adjoining house. The wind, which was strong at the time, spread the fire to the balance of the city, which in two hours was consumed.
"It would be difficult to depict the despair of the poor unfortunate persons, whose properties had suffered from the fire; these unhappy creatures who two hours before had enjoyed vast and commodious lodgings, with enough affluence to make one's life agreeable and easy, saw themselves and their children, in a moment, without resource. Some of them were obliged to take refuge in the woods, without necessary provisions and clothes. Some slept without cover under the broad canopy of the heavens. It was in that moment of necessity that the tender solicitude of Governor Miro showed itself. He opened his house to all who were seeking shelter, and he dispensed succor to the distressed families, caused the Royal stores, which had escaped the flames, to be opened; and he distributed the provisions therein contained. Recourse was had to the surrounding country for help; permits were given to vessels to bring goods from abroad; in short the Governor administered as a good paterfamilias. Poverty stared the people in the face; the inhabitants were in a state of consternation; one-sixth of the citizens died.
"Governor Miro tried to divert their attention and alleviate their sorrow by his care, his attention and his purse. He gave balls and amusements in order to lessen their sorrows and to divert their minds. . . . Eight hundred fine and commodious houses valued on an average at three thousand dollars each were destroyed, with- out prospect on the part of the owners of ever recovering anything except perhaps the bare hope of receiving some day some relief from the King."
After having spoken of Louisiana's soil, the author says of the Creoles:
"Creoles are defined to be the children of Europeans born in the colony. They in general measure about five feet, six inches, in
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height; they are all well shaped and of agreeable figure; they are lively, alert, and agile; notwithstanding the great heat of this climate, they are laborious. They are born with ambition and an honest self esteem. They are endowed with a natural disposition for all sciences, arts and exercises that amuse society. They excel in dancing, fencing, hunting, and in horsemanship. Nature has favored them with an active and penetrating mind; they are capable of being easily instructed. The lack of teachers renders their education somewhat incomplete, and it must be said, in all justice, that among the many qualities which they possess are politeness, bravery, and benevolence. They are good fathers, good mothers, good friends, and good kinsmen. The women besides having the qualities above enumerated are agreeable in figure and seldom deformed. They make good mothers and are devoted to their husbands and children."
The record closes all too soon at the end of the year 1791, when the administration of Miro ter- minated and that of Carondelet began, the author dying in 1794, during the incipient agitation that was to result in the recession of the colony to France and its transfer to the United States. The last pages of the manuscript are devoted to a description of birds, reptiles and animals of Louisiana, narrating many curious personal experiences. One of them about a crocodile seems worth quoting:
"A negro woman who was washing clothes on a bridge near the water's edge was perceived by a crocodile, which came swiftly swimming just under the surface of the water, and he tried to snap her by the hand, but she saw the creature and ran away. The crocodile, after several unsuccessful attempts, finding he could not accomplish his end, passed under the bridge and caught the negro woman's clothes from behind. Luckily I was within reach with my gun, and as she yelled, I flew to her rescue and released her from the clutches of that beast which would, beyond a doubt, have dragged her into the water but for my opportune presence and assistance."
Guy de Saunhac (Soniat) and Claudine Françoise Dreux left the following children: Françoise; Agathe
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