USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Creole families of New Orleans > Part 2
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On his arrival in France, Marigny petitioned Choiseul to know the cause of his ill treatment, accusing Kerlerec of abuse of power and other violations of duty. To his petition he annexed two certificates, one from Bienville and one from Vaudreul, containing the highest commendations of himself.
The officers were pardoned on promise of good behavior, but the arrival shortly afterwards of Kerlerec himself in Paris (recalled to answer the charges against him) proved too much for their submissive disposition. With vindictive pens they wrote and published a pamphlet against their adver- sary, who replied so promptly and effectively that the officers were now sent to the Bastille and kept there for a year and a month. On their release, neverthe- less, they returned to the charge, and making good their accusations against Kerlerec, the latter was con- demned to exile and was ordered not to approach Paris nearer than thirty leagues.
Antoine Philippe returned to New Orleans and died there in 1779. He was buried in the St. Louis Cathedral, his name being second on the family tombstone.
By his marriage with François de l'Isle, Antoine de Marigny had two children: Pierre Enguerrand de Marigny, born in New Orleans in 1750, and Madeleine Philippe de Marigny.
The name Enguerrand recalls the celebrated
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Enguerrand de Marigny, Superintendent of Finance under Philippe le Bel in 1315, who was hanged on the gibbet at Montfaucon, after an iniquitous trial. The name, however, was dropped by his Louisiana namesake, who retained only the less illustrious Pierre Philippe of his immediate ancestors. He married Jeanne Marie d'Estréhan, daughter of Jean Baptiste d'Estréhan, Treasurer of the King, a Frenchman of distinguished family, who had filled the post of Royal Treasurer until Kerlerec, ostensibly from motives of prudence, ordered him back to France as being "too rich and dangerous." D'Estré- han's wife was Catherine de Gauvry. (A Captain de Gauvry came to Louisiana and served under Bien- ville in Mobile in 1720.)
Jeanne Marie d'Estréhan had a sister married to Etienne de Boré (grandfather of Charles Gayarré the historian), and another to Favre d'Aunoy, the French Royal Commissioner at New Orleans. Her brother married a Miss Maxent, who subsequently became the wife of Governor Bernardo de Galvez, thus binding by marriage more of the great French families together.
Of Marigny's wife we have no record, but Charles Gayarré has contributed to literature a pretty description of her sister, his grandmother. And it is not of record or tradition that any of the d'Estré- han sisters differed from Madame de Boré, a perfect type of the grande dame of St. Cyr, where she was educated.
Pierre Philippe de Marigny was too young at the time to take part in the revolt against Ulloa; and, therefore, had no share in the glory of the French patriots, who sacrificed their lives in their devotion
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to France. As he grew to manhood under the Spanish Domination, he accepted it calmly, conform- ing successfully to its régime, with which he was connected intimately as brother-in-law to Governor Galvez.
He was made Colonel of Militia, and put in com- mand of the new Spanish town of Galvezton, near Baton Rouge. He became a friend and associate of Carondelet, whom he knew as a man of character and ability; but, according to his son Bernard, he knew how to oppose him when he thought it neces- sary. At the time when the inimical demonstrations of the West against Spain threatened the security of the city, Carondelet called upon all Louisiana to take arms, and he had the militia organized by Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville.
He it was who built up the colossal Marigny for- tune, reputed to be seven millions at the time of his death. To concessions obtained from France by his father, he added large concessions granted to him by Spain, and, profiting by opportunities such as always are offered during a period of political reconstruction to speculators, he invested in real estate, buying large plantations above the city on the river front, which, added to his large plantations below the city, made him not only the greatest landowner of New Orleans, but also its richest citizen.
Marigny purchased also a princely tract of mag- nificently wooded land on the opposite shore of Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans which, in honor of its growth of trees, he called Fontainebleau. He built here the wooden cottage (of the modest New Orleans type) which still exists, where with his family and a great retinue of servants he was wont to pass the hot
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months of summer. His city residence, as described by those who remember it, was situated in local parlance "on the levee," facing the river, in the territory of the old Marigny plantation, somewhere (vaguely located) between the Esplanade and the Champs Elysées, where he lived in princely state with his large family, surrounded by a village of slaves.
The house is remembered by those who have seen it, as the usual plantation mansion of Louisiana, of massive timber, with a gallery supported by brick pillars. It was remarkable chiefly for its size, which was that of two ordinary large mansions joined together. An avenue of trees led from the levee to the front portal. In this primitive sort of palace, he had the honor of receiving and entertaining, in 1798, the Royal Princes of France, the Duc d'Orléans (later King Louis Philippe) and his brothers, the Duc de Montpensier and the Comte de Beaujolais, the sons of Philippe Egalité.
The lavish luxury displayed during this entertain- ment of Royalty, the splendid banquets and balls to which all the aristocracy of New Orleans was invited, the utter disregard of money expenditure (as it has come down to us in family stories) must have astonished the young Princes, so short of money themselves, even more than it did the simple- minded citizens of that time.
The banquets offered by the Spanish Governor are never mentioned in comparison with those of the splendid Philippe de Marigny-not only in New Orleans, but in Fontainebleau, where he also enter- tained his guests. The golden memory of them is still preserved piously in the little town of Mande-
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ville, which naïvely claims for Fontainebleau the original honor of the fabulous (it is hoped) story that at a banquet given to the Princes, the cigar lighters passed around after dessert were hundred dollar bills! But the same incident, it must be confessed, is still claimed by New Orleans, where it is recalled with a vividness that has not been suffered to become dull during the two centuries of brilliant functions that no doubt succeeded it .*
The dainty Sèvres sugar bowl, that was passed with the black coffee on this or a similar occasion, is still preserved and shown by one of the most charming descendants of the Marigny family. She ' remembers, as if she had seen them herself and not through the eyes of a grandmother, the captivating manners of the young Princes during their three months' visit to the city and their pleasant socia- bility with the ladies of Society, whom they visited ! in the great lumbering Marigny carriage of the time, with the nimble black footmen jumping down !! to unfold and fold up the hanging steps when they" august young men descended and ascended.
But in all that is related about this glorious society event of the past, and of the charming Princes andi beautiful Creole ladies, there is, strange to say, no) hint or suspicion of a romantic episode. For once: poetry and romance abstained from intermeddling in the affairs of youth, and Cupid stayed his hand! which is, let us acknowledge with all sincerity, to]
* Bernard was once asked about the truth of a similar story. It ! was said that a lady, having dropped a coin on the floor at a cardi party, he had lighted a five-dollar bill as a taper in looking for it ... He replied: "I know I have been a fool about money; but I was? never fool enough to burn it."
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the honor of Madame de Genlis and her system of education.
When the Princes took their leave, they were escorted to the Balize by numerous friends and by their host, who added to his other royal generosities the loan of a royal sum of money (to which, it is said, Enoult de Livaudais, his son-in-law, as gener- ously and imprudently contributed).
Pierre Philippe de Marigny, the magnificent and courtly citizen, died in 1800, two years later, at Fon- tainebleau. His body was transferred in state to the home of his kinswoman, Madame Don Andres Almonaster, whence it was interred in the Cathedral, according to his funeral notices, tacked, as was the custom, on the door of the Cathedral or the corners of the streets. One of them has been preserved.
"Messieurs et Dames:
"Vous êtes priés d'assiter au convoi et à l'enterrement de feu M. Dn. Pedro de Marigny, Colonel de milice, décédé' cet après midi, à une heure, dans sa maison.
"L'enterrement se fera demain à 7 heures du matin. Son corps sera exposé chez Madame Dn. Andres Almonaster.
"Nouvelle Orleans, ce 14 Mai 1800.
"Un de Profundis S. V. P."
His name is the last one recorded on the family tombstone in the Cathedral.
He left five children:
(1) Antoine, born in 1773.
(2) Jean, born in 1781, died without issue.
(3) Bernard, born 1785; his godparents were the high and mighty personages, Xavier Delfau de Pontalba, and Félicité, Comtesse de Galvez.
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(4) Marie Céleste, baptized February 2, 1786; her godparents were Etienne de Boré and Céleste Macarty, wife of Governor Miro. She married Jacques Enoult de Livaudais ..
(5) Antoine, born in 1787; no issue.
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CHAPTER III BERNARD DE MARIGNY
TT was the third child of Philippe Bernard Xavier de Marigny de Mandeville, who represented the family during the last century; and who is the hero par excellence of New Orleans' social traditions; who, we may say, was to the Marigny family what the final bouquet is to a pyrotechnical display. He, more than any of his family or men of his time, is responsi- ble for what we call to-day the Creole type; originat- ing the standard of fine living and generous spending, of lordly pleasure and haughty indifference to the cost; the standard which he maintained so bril- liantly for a half century, until, even to-day, one receives, as an accepted fact, that not to be fond of good eating and drinking, of card playing and pretty ladies; not to be a fin gourmet, not to be sensitive about honor, and to possess courage beyond all need of proof is, in sober truth, if such a truth can be called sober-not to be a Creole.
It was a standard that required the greatest for- tune Louisiana could produce to maintain it. It ravaged the great wealth of Marigny himself, and ruined many and many of the old families who tried to follow in his aristocratic footprints and who arrived at poverty as Bernard did but without the prestige that distinguished him to the end. The handsome furniture, cut glass, porcelain, jewelry- the real lace, and delicate bric-a-brac of all kinds
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that have delighted the eye for decades past in the antique shops of New Orleans, are indubitably rem- nants of the wreckage of the fortunes that went to pieces in the wake of the Marigny standard of living. And as in the course of two centuries the Marigny family intermarried only with the best families in the place, and, as we shall see, all of the old families bear one or two of the Marigny names as the proudest fruit of their genealogical trees-the name has come to be in the city's estimation as sure a guarantee of social prestige as it is of artistic beauty and gen- uine value when attached to mere objects of domestic use.
Elegant of manners, polished of tongue, fearless of opinions, Bernard was the kind of man that shone in conversation, particularly at the banquet table, sowing repartees and witticisms that have sprouted ever since in the memory or imagination of his fellow citizens, until they have attained a growth and luxuriance of bloom out of all proportion to our powers of belief to-day. And it is always repeated with apparent conviction that the best and greatest number have been lost-as seems always to be the fate of good stories. Those who were born too late to know him have always regretted the lost oppor- tunity of meeting in person a hero who would have graced the Court of Louis XIV-or at least the pages of Alexandre Dumas.
Upon Pierre Philippe's death, his kinsman, de Lino de Chalmette, assumed the management of his vast estates and the guardianship of the fifteen-year- old Bernard. The latter charge proved not a light one for the staid and prudent godfather. The youth, indulged and spoiled, reared, according to
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local gossip, like some rich nobleman's son, had from childhood known no other authority but that of his own will and pleasure. Precociously wild and extravagant, with unlimited wealth now at his com- mand, more was feared than hoped from his future.
De Lino had recourse to the time-honored expe- dient, ever adopted by troubled guardians, of a change of environment. He sent his ward to Pensa- cola, and placed him there under the care of the great millionaire merchant, Panton, of the historical firm of Panton and Leslie, whose commercial trans- actions at the time amounted to a virtual monopoly of the Indian and European trade of the southern portions of America. The young Creole, however, was given such a handsome allowance of money and liberty by his tutor, and he made such good use of it for his own pleasure, that he soon scandalized the austere Scotchman and Protestant, Panton, who returned him after a short experience to New Orleans.
But Chalmette had still another resource whereby he hoped to make a staid business man of his charge. He sent him to England, and placed him under the care of Mr. Leslie, the resident partner of the firm in London. Two anxious letters* on the subject by Chalmette have survived in a mass of Panton family correspondence.
He writes frankly to Mr. Forbes, a member of the firm, who apparently had intervened in the affair:
"The friends who have informed you unfavorably about the young man, have not misled you. He has been guilty of irregu- larities of conduct, errors caused rather by his youth than by
* Obtained through the courtesy of Héloise Crozet, a descendant of Mr. Panton.
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corruption of heart. Besides, at the time he was under the guidance of a most respectable father, but one full of weak indulgence toward him which contributed not a little to his ill conduct. I have made him understand your fears about introducing him. He feels them sensibly. But his expressions and his increase in age, his promises to me, and his good conduct since the death of his father, are strong reasons for me to hope that he will become one day, an agreeable and intelligent member of society."
Some days later he writes:
"I am writing to Mr. Leslie acquainting him with the character of the young man. I am giving him full power to place him in the college or seminary he selects as the most proper. I also leave to his will all that pertains to his clothing and small expenses. In fact, I make over to him all the authority I have as his tutor, approving in advance whatever measures he may adopt in regard to him. I tell Mr. Leslie also, that if the 1200 gourdes (dollars) that I have settled as Bernard's pension for the first year, do not suffice, I pray him to supply the deficit, and so to advise me that I may return his advances."
He explains:
"According to what information I have been able to gather from different persons here as to the expenditures necessary to obtain a good education, lodging, food and small pleasures for a young man in Louisiana or London, I am assured that twelve hundred dollars will suffice to procure comfortable ease. He must keep within it the first year at least . . . Bernard knows all this and seems disposed to fulfil my desires.
"DE LINO, April 29th, 1808."
Later he thought of increasing the allowance to two thousand dollars, whenever Mr. Leslie assured him that the young man was making good use of the money, for it would be dangerous for him to pos- sess large means in a city which offered so much temptation as London.
Introduced into the best society by Mr. Leslie,
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who himself was connected with old and aristocratic families of Scotland and England, even with the Gordons then shining in the luster of their luminary, Lord Byron, Bernard de Marigny gained in London much in the way of the English polish of manners of the time. He gained also the fine fluent use of good English that distinguished him through life, although his accent remained amusingly bad. (In social life and with his family, he spoke only French.) Of business methods, however, he learned naught that was profitable. In short, he made so many visits to Paris, spent money so lavishly on his pleasures, and his pleasures increased so alarmingly in moral and financial cost, that his alarmed tutor recalled him in 1803 to the bosom of his family.
His portrait at this time represents him with the clean-shaven, handsome face of the full-blooded young Englishman of the day, dressed with the fop- pery of a dashing young fellow; his eyes, large and handsome, bespeaking intellect; his handsome mouth and full lips showing the devotion to the good things of life which he always professed, to which indeed he showed a lifelong fidelity. His figure was sym- metry itself; he was about five feet ten inches tall and admirably proportioned.
Gayarré, his cousin, gives this glimpse of him:
"One day as our family, seated on the front piazza, was enjoying the balmy atmosphere of a bright May morning, there came on a visit from New Orleans, M. de Boré's favorite nephew, whose name was Bernard de Marigny. He was one of the most brilliant and wealthiest young men of the epoch. He drove in a dashing way up to the house in an elegant equipage drawn by two fiery horses. Full of the buoyancy of youth, he jumped out of his carriage and ran up the broad steps of the brick perron that ascended to the
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piazza. As he reached the top of it, he said, with a sort of familiarity, "Bonjour, mon oncle, bonjour!"
Marigny was at this time eighteen, and master of himself and of his fortune. A most favorable occa- sion for the employment of both was at hand. Louisiana was to be transferred back to France. M. de Laussat was sent to New Orleans, with the title of Colonial Prefect, to represent France and receive the province from the Spanish Commis- sioners. He brought a letter of introduction to Bernard Marigny from Delfau de Pontalba, who suggested to his young kinsman to tender the use of his house to the French Commissioner. This advice was at once acted on; and de Laussat, his wife -"a woman of remarkable beauty and wit," as Marigny describes her, two young daughters, his staff of four officers and his secretary were all enter- tained in this great house on the levee, in which Philippe de Marigny had entertained the Royal Princes.
Bernard proved the equal of his father in bounte- ous hospitality, and surpassed him in the brilliancy of the fêtes given in honor of his guests. He him- self was tendered a seat at Laussat's table as well as entrée to his salon, and he became one of the intimates of the circle.
He participated in Laussat's anxiety over the delay of General Victor's arrival with the army to take military possession for France, and was a witness of his extreme disappointment when he received the order to cede the province with as brief delay as possible to the Commissioners of the United States. The courier who brought the dispatch was a dashing young French officer named Landais who, charged to avoid the usual route and conveyance from
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Washington, rode at full speed through the Indian territory to New Orleans.
Preparations were at once begun for the ceremony of the cession and the fêtes and entertainments to celebrate the event were renewed and prolonged. Salcedo, the Spanish Governor, who was old and infirm, wished to defer the ceremony until he had heard from his government, but Casacalvo, the Commissioner sent by Spain to assist him, "a man of no ability," says Marigny, was anxious to return to his family and interests in Cuba, and hastened the preparations.
At both ceremonies of cession, Marigny, at Laus- sat's request, acted as his aide-de-camp; but ar- dently American in sympathy, as soon as Louisiana was given over to Claiborne, he volunteered on the staff of General Wilkinson. He remained in active service until 1808 when, on account of the fatal ill- ness of his wife, he sent in his resignation. Her death, he says, "closing the political career that might have been his." Nevertheless, with confident intrepidity, he afterward entered into politics, embracing the principles of the Democratic Party, of which he remained a faithful partisan through life. At the time of his death, it was said that for fifty years no Democratic mass meeting was held to be complete that was not presided over by Bernard Marigny. In 1804 he married Mary Ann Jones, daughter of Evan Jones, a wealthy Pennsylvanian, for a time American Consul in New Orleans, and of Marie Verret, of a fine old Creole family.
Mary Ann Jones died in Philadelphia, June 4th, 1808; her body was transferred to New Orleans, August 4th, 1808. She was interred in a new sepulchre, built by her husband, in a corner of the
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garden on his plantation, the lot and tomb having been previously blessed by the reverend Father Antonio de Sedella.
By this union were born two children:
Gustave Adolphe, born in 1808, was killed in a duel and left no issue.
Prosper François de Marigny, who died in Natchez in 1836. He married his cousin, Marie Celeste d'Estrehan. (His widow re- married Mr. Alexander Grailhe, a barrister.) They left two children:
Gustave Philippe, who married Elmina Bienvenu; and Marie Odile, married Alphonse Miltenberger.
About 1809 or 1810, he remarried Anne Mathilde Morales, daughter of Don Ventura Morales, former Spanish Intendant and Royal Contador, unenviably known to history for his intrigues against the Ameri- can Domination, until Governor Claiborne forced his retirement from the city and States.
His courtship of Anna Mathilde Morales is thus related by one who heard the original account of it:
Arriving in Pensacola, Marigny went to a ball where his atten- tion was soon attracted to the most beautiful woman in it. He expressed his admiration and asked her name. His informant thought proper to warn him: "You will meet trouble." "That's what I like!" answered Marigny lightly, and at once engaged the young lady to dance, and made himself agreeable to her the rest of the evening, to the exclusion of her other admirers.
The next morning he received seven challenges. "I cannot fight all at once," he answered, "but I will meet one every morning before breakfast, until all are satisfied." His first opponent fell with a sword thrust through the body. The other six professed themselves satisfied and made their apologies: "We see that you are a man of courage and honor." Marigny obtained without further opposition the hand of the beautiful young lady.
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Morales was reputed to have hogsheads filled with gold in his house; the hogsheads, as described, were found in his house-but they were not filled with gold!
In 1810 Marigny was elected to the Legislature. In 1812 he was elected a member of the first Constitu- tional Convention of Louisiana and, although the youngest of its members, he took no small part in framing the Constitution that ruled Louisiana for thirty-three years. He always fought frankly and squarely on the side of the Louisianians and against the increasingly aggressive partisanship of the Americans.
In this first Convention took place the historic effort by the Americans to change the name of the State to Jefferson. It was a proposition warranted to inflame the Creoles to the point of frenzy, and it did so. Marigny relates that one of the members, Louis de Blanc de St. Denis, declared that "if such a proposition had any chance of success, he would arm himself with a barrel of powder and blow up the Convention!"
In 1811, at what is still considered the most important marriage ceremony that ever took place in the city, when the Baron de Pontalba (the son of Marigny's godfather) was married to Micaela Almonaster, daughter of the Spanish Alfarez Real, the historic benefactor of New Orleans, Marigny, act- ing as the representative of Marshal Ney, the disting- uished friend of the Pontalbas, gave the bride away.
A few years later de Pontalba proposed a more personal connection between his friend and the great Marshal. Among the papers found on Ney at the time of his arrest, was the following letter written by de Pontalba to Marigny:
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