USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Creole families of New Orleans > Part 21
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After his death, his widow wrote to her niece, the Señora Dona Clementina de Bouligny y Pizarro (daughter of Juan Bouligny, the Ambassador), ask- ing to be facilitated in her desire to remove to Havana, "believing that the province would form a component part of the Spanish Domain we have clung to this time, in this fond hope." This shows the persistent opinion maintained by the Spanish officials that Louisiana would never be alienated from Spain.
Francisco left four children: one daughter, Marie Louise Josephine, who married the Chevalier de la Roche, an officer in the militia; and three sons, Dominique Charles, François Ursin, and Louis. Louis married Isabelle Virginie d'Hauterive, of the old and distinguished Louisiana family of that name. Dominique served in his father's regiment and with it passed over to France and later to the government
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of the United States. He married Anne Le Blanc. He was one of the prominent Creoles selected to serve in the Legislative Council of the Territory by the House of Representatives on Governor Claiborne's recommendation that he was a "young man of sense and supports a good character." It is always mentioned of him, and it was a distinction at the time, that he was educated in the public schools of the city.
Dominique served on the Committee for Public Defense during the British invasion of 1812. He served also as the United States Senator for Louisiana from 1824 to 1829. He died in 1833. Six sons and six daughters survived him to follow out, as he had done, the admonition that Don Francisco's father wrote to him from Spain: after describing the escutcheon of the family, he says, "the principle nobility is to be 'hombre de bien,' of deeds without reproach, to live in the fear of God, obeying His commands."
The sons of Dominique were Ursin, Gustave, Edouard, Henri, Alfred, Dominique. Both sons and daughters married as beseemed their high family and social station, founding families that have spread like a fruitful vine over the society of New Orleans, enriching it and garlanding it with beauty. To unwind the thread of their marriages is to untwist the tendrils of the vine; all branches ascend to or descend from the great patriarch Dominique, the son of Don Francisco and Louise d'Auberville.
The men seek not brilliant positions or political distinctions, but though always found in the line of public duty, live and thrive each one in his own home spot, in quiet solitude. Nevertheless, two or
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three names have burst the narrow confines of home. Among them is that of John Edouard Bouligny, born in New Orleans in 1824, a nephew of Dominique, and like him a lawyer and educated in the public school; was elected to the thirty-sixth Congress from Louisiana, serving in 1861. He was the only representative from the seceding States who, at that time, did not leave his seat. He died in Washington in 1864.
Ever to be remembered with gratitude by Louis- iana historical students is the name of Arthemise Bouligny, the daughter of Gustave and Octavie Fortier (daughter of Edmond Fortier and grand- daughter of Colonel Michel Fortier, who was an officer in the regiment of Don Francisco). She married one of the great American financiers and merchants of New Orleans, Albert Baldwin, and for years reigned as a leader in the social world by virtue of her great beauty and vivacious mind. She it was who collected from the many treasuries of her large and scattered family the numerous docu- ments and letters that form the imposing genea- logical record of her family. She had them tran- scribed and opened them to the Louisiana Historical Society, of which her cousin, Alcée Fortier, was President. The collection descended by inheritance at her death to her son, Henry F. Baldwin, and are now in the possession of his widow (born a Vainin) .*
* By a curious historical coincidence, the Vairin family trace their ancestral line back to the same Claude de Coulange, Seigneur de Bustance, who married into the family of the great Chancellor d' Aguesseau, and was therefore a connection of Madame de Sévigné. The history of this interesting (Vairin) family, although not relating to Louisiana, is omitted here with sincere regret and only for the reason that the prescribed limitsof the book do not permit its insertion.
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Two other names are inscribed in memory to the credit of the family-not in its historical annals but soaring above in the blue sky of art: Corinne, the exquisite Spanish brunette, perfect in witchery and grace, who conferred upon the city the joy of a voice that it might well glory in and that it did glory in. Such was its transcendant beauty and gift of exhilaration that, in her day, it was said as a truth and so believed, that those who heard her forgot life itself. Before her notes, sorrow took flight and mourning dropped its black. She was the daughter of Alfred who, it may be recalled, was mortally injured in the tragic accident that befell the old Orleans Opera House, when on a gala night the crowded balcony fell, crushing all who were seated beneath. Her mother was a Pitot; she had, therefore, the best parentage for talent and beauty the city afforded. She married, in the height of her youth and fame, James Nott, who died before either had faded. She has moved from her native city to live with her son in the State of Georgia.
As if to prove the richness of the vintage of the good family vine, there soared almost simultaneously in the blue above another songster, another Bouligny-"Lucie." She was grave, fair and blonde, ethereal, with a smile of angelic sweetness, like de Musset's "Lucie" (to those who knew their de Musset) :
". . Elle etait pale et blonde
Jamais deux yeux plus doux n'ont du ciel le plus pur Sondé la profondeur et reflechi l'azur."
She had a voice, in truth, such as the poet called for, "that sounded like enchanted wine loosening
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her notes in a silver shower," a voice that came not down to earth or mortality but lifted the hearer above to heaven and immortality. Her art came from Italy who received it, as we know, from heaven. It was given her by the matchless artist who in the last century was sent to the music-loving city by a music-loving providence. Calvé, she was called in her youth, when she was the pupil and friend of Rossini and the "first prize" of the Paris Conservatoire. For a lifetime, to the verge of her old age, she was loved, honored and almost worshipped in New Orleans as a very goddess of lyric music. To Lucie, one of her favorite pupils, she gave of what she had received in good measure, pressed down and running over, and the good scholar has passed on the good measure of art to her own pupils, maintaining the standard of perfect singing among the Creoles with the same devotion that the standard of old customs and manners is maintained.
Lucie was the daughter of Dominique and of his wife, Celestine Conway. There were seven daughters, all beautiful and talented: Lucie, Anna, Lizette, Jeanne, Léa, Angèle, Marie, all educated with finished care and moving with dignity through the life before them-a life from which their father had departed, shorn of the fortune which had been his of right and which should have been his daughters. Jeanne married Oscar Crosby-recently a member of the diplomatic family of President Wilson. His beautiful daughter is now the wife of Count Caracciolo. Lucie married Louis Arnauld, a young lawyer of prominence, who could have boasted, but never did, of his descent
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from the great Arnauld of France. He died in the full career of his professional and domestic happiness, leaving his young children to the care of his wife.
Madame Arnauld's beautiful voice faded and passed away, but the artist remained and the woman and the mother ; a sample through the fading, wearing years of the fadeless brocade of which old court dresses and Creole families were made. In her little home that, despite its American neighborhood and American building, recalls vaguely the little homes that were first built in the city, where the front door opens without ceremony into the little garden and that into the street; where the front room is the salon-such a salon as Don Francisco must have glanced into as he hurried through the streets of New Orleans for the first time, bearing despatches to Aubry from O'Reilly; when his glowing eyes sought through the open windows a sight of the lovely Creole faces awaiting with anxiety the news that he was bringing. The sight of just the same lovely faces would be granted him now through the open window of his great-great-granddaughter. There was no music in the houses then, but now he could have heard voices and music of the kind that vibrates in the heart and memory ever afterwards. No soft-footed black slaves bear around silver salvers of refreshing drinks; but the traditional anisette is passed, nevertheless, in their minute glasses, in the true old Creole fashion.
And could Don Francisco but have peeped in one December night of the year 1918! Could Louise d'Auberville but have looked with him on the little salon, when the gay French conversation suddenly stopped, and the singing, while through the door
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from the street entered a young soldier in uniform, wearing the "fourragére," handsome of face, perfect of figure, his breast covered with decorations, blush- ing, and childishly shy of meeting strangers after four years of war- Edgar! Edgar Bouligny! Ah, he had made his city and his people proud! The first American to enlist in the Foreign Legion, the hero of its heroes, his picture and his record in all newspapers! Covered with wounds as with decora- tions, and not yet twenty-three! It was a moment of triumph for the Bouligny family. The banners of France and America waved then in all hearts in that little salon, and down the generations leading back to Spain, Spanish banners must have been waving, too, in salute to Edgar Bouligny.
He is the son of the Edgar who was the only brother of Lucie Arnauld who married Lucie Delery des Islets, of the great family of Chauvin who gave the hero, Nicholas de Lafrénière, to Louisiana. The heart wishes that he, too, could have stood with Don Francisco and Louise d'Auberville to see their descendant!
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CHAPTER XIX
ALMONASTER
D ON ANDRES ALMONASTER Y ROXAS was a native of Mayrena in Andalusia, Spain. His parents were Don Miguel Jose Almonaster and Donna Maria Joanna de Estrada y Roxas, both of noble birth and ancient lineage. He came to Louis- iana in the suite of O'Reilly and was made Colonel of the Provincial troops; and he was afterwards appointed King's Notary, or Notary Public.
In 1769, when the new Spanish Government was inaugurated by O'Reilly, he was given the office of Alferez Real or Royal Standard Bearer, a merely honorary office with no other function assigned to it but the bearing of the royal standard by the incumbent in great public ceremonies. He was afterwards invested with the royal and distinguished Order of Carlos III (as described in Pontalba's letter to his wife). A full-length portrait of him is shown to-day in the Cabildo at the head of the great stairway. A sturdy, strong personality it repre- sents: shrewd of face; standing erect as a royal standard bearer should, with his cocked hat under his arm and knightly sword in his hand; in court dress, with the Royal Order on his breast; a per- sonage to command respect; self-important and self- sufficient. He was, nevertheless, not more important to himself than he became to the city of his adoption. He was the princely benefactor of New Orleans
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during its colonial period and, in truth, has reaped a reward in the shape of immortality that other and even more princely benefactors of greater cities might envy.
The beginning of the making of his great fortune has never been made clear, although suspicion has not been idle in presenting many origins for it. What is really known is that O'Reilly granted to the city in the King's name the ground on both sides of the Place d'Armes, from the Levee to Chartres Street, having a frontage of three hundred and thirty-six feet on the Place and a depth of eighty- four feet, and that Almonaster erected upon this ground a row of brick buildings that he rented most profitably for stores with residences above. He became also the owner of a large brickyard which he worked with his own slaves, and he soon was known as possessing great wealth. When in 1779 a terrible hurricane swept away the humble hospital building, which the sailor, Jean Louis, had founded in 1737, Almonaster had another one erected with a chapel at the large cost (for that day) of one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars; and in 1787 he donated a chapel to the Ursuline Convent.
In 1788, when the greatest conflagration the city has ever suffered destroyed the parish church, built in 1724, Don Andres made an offer to the Cabildo to rebuild it on a grander scale at his own expense. Such an offer meets only one answer. The reconstruction was at once begun, and in two years the Cathedral was completed, such as it stands to-day, or would stand had not the rude hands of ignorant architects in 1850 sought to improve and embellish it. On Christmas of 1794, the new
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Cathedral was dedicated with great pomp, according to the description of the ceremonies left by Don Joaquin de Portillo, the rector of the parish, who records that it owes its existence to the zeal and piety of Don Andres Almonaster. "who is almost without an equal."
"At the opening of the ceremony," so proceeds our record, "our illustrious benefactor presented the keys of the church to the Governor (Carondelet) who then handed them over to me." The fame of Almonaster, says the latest historian of the Cathe- dral, Chambon, did not fail to give offense to some less fortunate or less generous than he, who misrepre- sented his intentions and suspected him of ambition. But former Governor Miro, his friend, then in Spain, referred the matter to the King, who speedily put an end to such talk and rewarded the generosity of Almonaster as became his merit. The King wrote, "He is authorized to occupy the most prominent seat in the church, second only to the royal 'vice patron,' and to receive the kiss of peace during the celebration of Mass . . he is to be given loyal support and aid in whatever he may undertake, is to be treated in future with deferential regard as one who has found grace near my royal person (grato a me real persona), by the achievement of great works, generously drawing upon his own resources for the construction of the parochial church, the Ursuline convent, the charity hospital and the government buildings of New Orleans;" signed: "El Rey."
The government buildings referred to by the King
NOTE .- "In and Around the Old St. Louis Cathedral," by the Rev. M. Chambon. New Orleans, 1908.
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are the Presbytere on the left of the Cathedral, now used as a part of the State Museum, and on the right of the Cathedral the Town Hall and Jail, now given over to the use of the Louisiana Historical Society, whose monthly meetings are held in the great Sala Capitular of the old Spanish Cabildo, the venerable and venerated room in which the ceremony of both the transfers of the colony took place and its final cession by France to the United States. It has suffered less at the hands of restorers than has the Cabildo, and is a better example of the fine architectural taste and skill of its builder. Don Almonaster's own slaves constructed it under his supervision. They prepared the timber for it and forged the iron work used in it, but his was the plan and his the genius for its execution. All honor be to him!
At sixty, Don Andres was in station the highest individual in the city and, indeed, in the province, by virtue of his great wealth and wonderful fame as a benefactor. But he was not married. This he accomplished also, satisfying, as in his buildings, no mean ambition. He sought and obtained the hand of the beautiful sixteen-year-old Louise de la Ronde, the daughter of the Marquis de la Ronde, a spoiled and petted belle. Society smiled and even laughed and in fact never ceased to play with its wits upon the (to society) ill-assorted couple. But he laughs best who laughs last, and Louise de la Ronde, the richest woman in the city and the foremost by virtue of the official dignity and solid worth of her good husband, could smile and laugh long after it at the best of her critics.
De Pontalba sent to his wife in Spain many a
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sarcastic reference to her and to her entertainments; nevertheless he was pleased to marry his son to the daughter that blessed the Almonaster marriage, and though he squabbled with the old Spaniard over bargains about brick and building contracts, still he indulged in no feeling of estrangement from him. The benefactor of the city died three years after the completion of his Cathedral and its pompous conse- cration, in the seventy-third year of his age, while his adored daughter, Micaela, was still in infancy. The tragedy of his life was that he died so suddenly that it was impossible to administer to him the last sacraments of the church. His tomb had been pre- pared for him by his grateful beneficiaries at the foot of the altar of the Sacred Heart in the Cathedral, but, according to a tradition full of pathos, he left instructions to place his body in the cemetery outside, as he felt unworthy of the honor intended for him and felt that he deserved no more than the humblest Christian in the parish. It was done as he prayed, and only after a probationary period, as it were, outside, was he conveyed inside the Cathedral to the vault covered by the slab that to-day bears his coat of arms and the record of his life, titles and services. The carved letters, though almost effaced by the tread of many generations, are still visible. His epitaph is written in Spanish, which, translated, is as follows:
Here lie the remains of Don Andres Almonaster y Roxas A Native of Mayrena In the Kingdom of Andalusia He died in the City of New Orleans On the 26th day of April, 1798
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Being 73 years of age A Knight of the Royal and Distinguished Order of Charles III Colonel of the Militia of this department Alderman and Royal Lieutenant of this Corporation Founder and Donor of this Holy Cathedral Founder of the Royal Hospital of St. Charles and of its Church Founder of the Hospital for Lepers Founder of the Ursuline Convent Founder of the School for the Education of Girls Founder of the Court House All of which he had built at his own expense In this City Requiescat in Pace
His wife and daughter inherited his great fortune which measured above any fortune hitherto known in the city, but it brought them only the enjoyment of wealth, not happiness. Micaela, when seventeen, was married to the young Celestin de Pontalba, son of the distinguished and aristocratic Baron de Pontalba. The match was considered a perfect one at the time; and was called the most important marriage that ever took place in New Orleans. It turned out, however, calamitous for both parties to it.
Madame Almonaster, after her daughter's mar- riage, bestowed herself and her fortune upon the young French Consul stationed in the city, M. Castillon, a man much younger than she; for which infringement of good taste, as it was considered, she was made the victim of a charivari greater than ever known before in the city, and the like of which has never been attempted since. For three days the unfortunate couple were chased by the truly infernal racket of bells, horns, drums and every
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noise-producing instrument available. They tried every avenue of escape in vain. A stranger, arriving in the city at the time, describes the wild excitement that prevailed; the streets were blocked, all traffic was suspended and, in short, the life of the populace was given over to tormenting Madame Castillon until she capitulated and paid the ransom exacted for her marriage.
Even the sedate Governor Claiborne pauses in a letter to President Monroe, March, 1804, to mention it.
. The young and giddy were engaged in a charivari at the expense of an old widow" (she could not have passed her mid- forties) "who has lately married a young man . . . a Madame Don Andres Almonaster, whose annual income is about forty thousand dollars. The young men are determined to persecute the married pair until they agree to give a splendid fête to the genteel part of society and one thousand dollars to the poor of the city. It is expected that these terms will be agreed to."
A passing stranger describes what he witnessed:
". . . Charivaries are still practised. They consist in mob- bing the house of a widow when she marries, and they (the mob) demand a public donation as a gift. When Mme. Don André was married she had to compromise by giving three thousand dollars in solid coin. On such occasions the mob are ludicrously disguised. In her case there were effigies of her late and present husbands in the exhibition drawn in a cart the former husband in a coffin, the widow represented by a living person sits near it. The house . mobbed by the people of the town vocifera-
ting and shouting . . hundreds on horseback; many in disguises and masks, and all with some kind of discordant and loud music such as old kettles, shovels and tongs and clanging metals can strike out. Everybody looks waggish, merry and pleased. Very genteel men can be recognized in the melee; all civil authority and rule seems laid aside. . . . This affair, as an extreme case, lasted three days, and brought in crowds from the country. It was made
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extreme because the second husband was an unpopular man of humble name, and she was supposed to have done unworthily.
The whole sum was honorably given to the orphans of
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the place. .. . At a later period, the great lawyer Edward Livingstone (who married the beautiful Louise Moreau de Lassy née d'Avezac de Castera) received a charivari, but on this occa- sion the married pair came out promptly to the balcony and thanked the populace for their attention, and asked them to walk into the courtyard and partake of the good cheer provided. The compli- ment was received with acclamations and good wishes in return were made for many years of happiness to the married pair, and the throng dispersed in a good humor." Note-Diary of John F. Watkins, quoted in "History of Louisiana," by Alcée Fortier.
Madame Castillon, with her husband, shortly afterwards took her departure for France, where she joined her daughter. She died in France in 1827 and was buried there.
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CHAPTER XX
DE LA RONDE
P IERRE DENIS DE LA RONDE, the father of Madame Almonaster, was born and baptized in Quebec in 1726. He was the son of Louis Denis, Sieur de la Ronde, Captain of a company in the Marine, and Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis. His mother was Dame Louise Cartier de Lotbinière; his godfather was Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, who afterwards became Governor of Louisiana.
The line of the family descends from Simon Denis, Seigneur de la Trinité, grandson of Mathurin Denis, who was married twice, his first wife being Jeanne du Breuille, sister of the Procureur du Roi in Tours in 1661. From them descend the Louisiana branch of the family, headed by Pierre Denis de la Ronde.
By his second wife, Françoise du Tertre, he had twelve children, all living at his death. They, according to the family genealogy copied from cer- tified documents, filled important positions in Tours, where they married into the families of nobility. Their arms are still to be seen on a great house in old Tours facing the public square: they consist of a bunch of grapes on a field "gules" supported by two stags, and they are also carved in the nave of a little chapel near one of the gates of the city. Their tomb is near the altar of the Virgin; it is of stone with the arms of the family applied in brass. Their patent of nobility was accorded the family in Quebec, in 1691.
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When Pierre Denis de la Ronde came to Louisiana is not definitely known. The first mention of his name occurs among the officers under Bienville during the early days of the settlement of the colony. In 1769, the Chevalier de la Ronde, retired Lieutenant of Infantry, signed the petition addressed to the Superior Council asking the expulsion of the Spanish frigate that, since the retirement of Ulloa, had remained stationed in the river, "a constant menace and source of vexation to the inhabitants of the city."
He married Madeleine Broutin about 1727. She was the daughter of the royal engineer under Bien- ville who was connected by marriage with the great families of Marigny and de Pontalba. She was also the widow (the second wife) of de Lino de Chalmette. Their home, undoubtedly the most beautiful planta- tion home in Louisiana at that day, was called Versailles. It lay below the city at the distance of a pleasant drive. Its picturesque ruins can be seen to-day. They recall vividly what the place must have been in the past, and speak eloquently of the refinement and elegance of the family who built it and lived there.
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