USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Creole families of New Orleans > Part 27
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educated for the church. At the time of the Revolu- tion he was at the head of a Sulpician school at Issy, near Paris. He escaped from it, in disguise, to Paris, going to the superior branch of the school, rue Cassette, where it is still recalled that his disguise caused great amusement. The day of his arrival there, the revolutionists invaded the community on the rue Cassette and, seizing the head of it, flung him into prison and executed him shortly after. Dubourg was in hiding at a friend's when the dread- ful massacres took place. Again fleeing in disguise, he made his way out of Paris and proceeded to Bordeaux, where he found his family; but being doubly odious in the eyes of the revolutionists as a cleric and as an aristocrat he fled again, this time to Spain. He sailed to America and landed in Balti- more in 1794, about the time when the negro revolt in St. Domingo was driving his family to America and destroying their fortune. Two years after his arrival in Baltimore, he became President of the Georgetown College. He gained for it a brilliant reputation among the universities of the United States. George Washington honored it during Dubourg's term with a formal visit.
The abbé founded St. Mary's College and had it raised by the Legislature of Maryland to the grade of university. As spiritual director of the famous Mrs. Seton, he assisted her in the founding of the Order of Sisters of St. Joseph (popularly known as the Sisters of Charity). He entered the ecclesiastical history of Louisiana in 1803, when the colony was separated from the spiritual jurisdiction of Havana and placed under that of the diocese of Maryland, then under Archbishop Carroll, who finally, after
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several years of troublous, unsuccessful efforts, selected the brilliant, energetic Abbé Dubourg as the Administrator Apostolic of the so-called (in ecclesi- astical histories) "unhappy diocese" of Louisiana.
This opens the chapter famous in Louisiana his- tory of the controversy between the administrator apostolic, the duly appointed ecclesiastical spiritual authority over the St. Louis Cathedral, and Père Antoine de Sedilla, the beloved and revered author- ity de facto over the hearts of the congregation. The episode is one of the most interesting in the history of Louisiana and has been made the subject of special study by a number of brilliant writers. Suffice it to say that as time passes and the brilliant students pass with it, Archbishop Dubourg emerges from the vexatious conflict with his indomitable antagonist, preserving his dignity and the undimin- ished respect of his flock, although Père Antoine still, in history, reigns supreme over their hearts.
Dubourg became the spiritual guide of the Ursu- line Nuns while in New Orleans and, as he had assisted Mrs. Seton in her work in Baltimore, he helped them to establish their convent below the city.
At the time of the British invasion in 1812, he rendered such services to the people as to win their admiration and gratitude, despite even the antagonis- tic influence of Père Antoine de Sedilla.
On the day of the battle, in the chapel of the Ursulines before a congregation of frightened nuns and civilians, he celebrated a solemn mass, of supplication for the Almighty's protection and aid, the statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor being displayed on the altar. The guns of Chalmette could be heard above the chanting of the holy office.
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At the moment of the elevation of the Host, when all hearts and eyes were bowed in devotion, a courier from the battlefield, rushing into the church, pro- claimed in a loud voice "that the Americans were victorious."
In commemoration of this, by privilege granted by Pope Pius IX, an annual mass of thanksgiving is celebrated at the Ursuline Chapel. The Superior of the Convent of the Ursulines at the time of the Battle of New Orleans was, in the world, Victoire Olivier de Vezin, a direct descendant of the union of the Du- vergé and Olivier families, among the very oldest in Louisiana.
The Mother Superior not only made a solemn vow to commemorate within the convent walls the God-given victory, but with her own hands minis- tered to the wounded on both sides. She turned the convent into a hospital, and with the other sisters tore up the convent linen for bandages for the wounded Kentuckians. The Kentuckians, as a token of their gratitude to her for the succor their wounded had received, were wont for many years afterward to send baskets of fruit to the convent on the anniversary of the battle.
When, a week later, the city held its official cere- mony of celebration for the victory, Bishop Dubourg -robed in his vestments and followed by the priests and altar boys of the Cathedral-appeared at the great portal while from the choir inside resounded a great hymn of praise, and presented General Jackson with a laurel wreath, pronouncing an address that was then and is still considered a classic of history. In response, General Jackson, for all that he was a plain Methodist, made, in words that are also considered
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classical in their chaste eloquence, a pious return of the compliment, waiving reverentially all claim to the victory, ascribing it to divine Providence.
While in Rome in 1815 Dubourg was consecrated Bishop of New Orleans, the first Bishop of American New Orleans, and in France he established the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Louis XVIII placing a vessel at his disposal, he returned to America, and proceeded to St. Louis, where he founded a college and ecclesiastical seminary at the Barrens on the Missouri. In 1818 he began the erection of the Cathedral of St. Louis and opened the St. Louis College in 1819. He also founded the St. Louis Latin Academy.
In St. Louis he spent much of his time in the sparsely inhabited frontiers and in the wilds of the Indian settlements. It was said of him that he was as much at home with the Indians in their forest life as he was in the archepiscopal palaces of Europe.
Visiting Washington thereafter, he prevailed on the government to co-operate financially with him in ameliorating the condition of the Indians in his diocese.
On his return to New Orleans about 1823, the Ursulines gave him their convent for his official residence, and he remained with them until he went to France in 1826, where he was successively made Bishop of Montauban and Archbishop of Besançon. He died in France.
According to his directions his heart was sent to the Ursuline Sisters of New Orleans. It is still piously preserved in its receptacle in a niche in their chapel.
A third son of François Pierre Dubourg and
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Marguerite Vogluzan, Joseph, known as "le beau Dubourg," came to America and visited New Orleans, but did not remain there. The fourth and last son, Thomas Patrice Dubourg, had two daugh- ters, who were married in Jamaica, and one son, Arnould Dubourg, who, after being educated by his uncle in Baltimore, came to New Orleans to live. He studied law and was appointed judge in Plaque- mines Parish in 1815. Later, he held one of the judgeships of the city. The only souvenir of him is a stray number of an old paper dated May 6th, 1820, preserved as a curiosity in the Museum of the Cabildo, "l'Ami des Louis, the Friend of the Law- printed in English and French, according to the ascription, by A. Dubourg and Louis Cherbonnier." The first number of the paper must have dated back to 1809, as the copy in the Museum is number 2514, Vol. XI. How long Arnould Dubourg was joint proprietor of the paper is not known. He died unmarried in New Orleans in 1829.
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAREST DE LAUZON
F RANÇOIS CHAREST DE LAUZON, of New Orleans, was the son of the last Seigneur de Lauzon. His father was the proprietor of the great Seigneurie de Lauzon in Canada, which embraced a lordly territory on the St. Lawrence River opposite Quebec. He was a young man at the time of the English-French War in America, and his home at Point Levis was a storm center during the fierce struggle.
The British occupied the Seigneurie and erected batteries at various points to bombard Quebec. Those who were living there at the time witnessed across the river the battle waged in the vast amphi- theatre of the Plains of Abraham, where Wolfe's army achieved the victory that gave Quebec to the English. According to the tradition of the family, Wolfe's body, after the fight, was brought across the St. Lawrence and laid in the home of the Charests to await its shipment to England for final burial.
The Seigneur de Lauzon who, with others of his family, had borne an honorable part in the struggle, determined not to live under British rule. He sold the Seigneurie to the new British Governor of Que- bec, James Murray, in 1765, and with his family proceeded to France, where he received high honors from the King in recognition of his services. He established a new home at Loches in Touraine. Three of his sons, Etienne, François and Philippe,
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went to St. Domingo and bought estates there. The estate of Etienne was called Charest; that of François, Lauzon; hence one brother was known as Charest de Charest, the other as Charest de Lauzon. Philippe was called Charest de Levis.
In Louisiana the family of Françios was known exclusively as de Lauzon, but this was considered merely as "a nom de terre," apparently, for the epitaph of his wife, in the old St. Louis Cemetery, bears only the family name as follows: "Ci-Git Elizabeth du Buisson, veuve de Charest, Née au Cap François (Isle de St. Domingo) le 30 Aout, 1730. Decedée le 13 Novembre, 1816."
Charest, the eldest brother, was slain in the mas- sacre of the whites by the negroes during the revolt at St. Domingo. François Charest de Lauzon and his family escaped to Jamaica, his youngest child, Marie Antoinette, usually called Adèle, being smug- gled out of the house in a hogshead.
François Charest de Lauzon married Perrine de Gournay, the eldest daughter of Chevalier Michel Isaac de Gournay who, according to his burial certificate, was born in Brittany in 1728, and was descended from the ancient baronial house of de Gournay of Normandy (a branch of which was estab- lished in England in the time of William the Con- queror). Although he lost a part of his fortune in the insurrection, he yet preserved abundant means to take with him to Jamaica. His youngest daughter, Pauline, married "le Comte Roland Onfroy de Verres." The marriage contract, preserved in the archives of Jamaica, contains a page of titles and nobility ascriptions on both sides. Many of de Gournay's slaves followed him to Jamaica. He died
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there in 1813, and was buried in Holy Trinity Cathe- dral, Kingston, Jamaica.
François de Gournay, the son of Isaac, came to New Orleans and settled there. He married and had a large family, and his blood is represented in many branches in New Orleans. His granddaughter, the daughter of Charest de Lauzon, married Michel Dubourg de Ste. Colombe in Jamaica, who came also to New Orleans and lived with his father-in-law in the house on Dumaine Street.
The house is still standing, but it is indistinguish- able from the others erected about the same time. Dumaine Street at that time was the aristocratic center of life in the city, as Orleans Street became ! later. Of all the streets of the "Vieu Carré," Dumaine has best preserved its original appearance. A stroll along its "banquettes" from Royal to Dau- phine Street is like reading a page from an original manuscript written during the last days of the Spanish Domination and the first days of the American. If ghosts ever haunted the old dwellings of a city, they would hover around Dumaine Street, but straining eyes discover naught but the reality of to-day-the tenements and shops of Italians and Spaniards, who are camping, as it were, amid the tombs of an ancient cemetery.
François de Charest de Lauzon lived until 1819 and was buried in the old St. Louis Cemetery: "Ci-git François de Charest de Lauzon née à Québec au Canada le 12 décembre, 1744; decedé le Ier. février, 1819."
His death, as related in the family, was a pathetic one. Of his three children who had accompanied him to Louisiana not one was with him. His eldest
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daughter, Etiennette, who had married du Bourg, had died in 1811; his only son, Bien Aimé, had been killed in a duel; and now his youngest daughter, Marie Antoinette, or "Adèle," had gone to join her husband, Jean Baptiste Thibaut, in Cuba.
The ship on which Madame Thibaut and her chil- dren had sailed was detained at the mouth of the river by unfavorable winds for so long a time that the journey was at last abandoned and it returned to the city. There were no conveniences, then, of telephone or telegraph, and Adèle had no thought but to reach home and her father as quickly as possible. He was seated in his armchair in the courtyard of his home in Dumaine Street, when she suddenly appeared before him. He struggled to his feet to embrace her-his face, his whole demeanor, expressed overwhelming joy, and then he fell back in his chair-dead. Adèle set out for Cuba again and reached her plantation near Santiago just in time to see her husband expire. After residing there a short while, she returned to New Orleans, leaving her plantation under the management of her uncle, François de Gournay.
Bien Aimé de Lauzon was born in St. Domingo and was brought by his parents to New Orleans and lived with them in Dumaine Street. He has unfor- tunately left but one record of himself in history- the duel in which he lost his life. He had taken his sister to a ball at the old Salle d'Orléans, where the brilliant society balls of a century ago took place, The room was crowded, and to procure a chair for his sister (the ladies after each dance returned to their places in a row of chairs extending round three sides of the room), Bien Amié seized one a few paces
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away, and passed it over the head of a young lady sitting there. She, starting up, affected great nerv- ousness and alarm (the ladies of Bien Aimé's family insist upon the affectation, for there was no occasion for nervousness or alarm), and the gentleman who had escorted her to her place felt called upon to interfere. His remarks about the trifling incident were such that Bien Aimé at once invited him to the balcony in front of the ballroom, where words ensued that were followed by the gentleman brushing Bien Aimé across the face with his glove. A duel after this was inevitable-in fact imperative. It was arranged for the next day. The ladies of the family had, naturally, been kept in ignorance of it. On the next afternoon, Madame de Lauzon, the mother of Bien Aimé, and others of the family were seated on chairs placed before the house on the "banquette," as was the Latin custom of the day, in order to enjoy the fresh air. From passers-by in the street, Madame de Lauzon heard these words:
"That is sad about Bien Aimé de Lauzon."
"What's the matter?"
"Haven't you heard? He has been killed in a duel, and they are bringing in his body."
The shock almost killed the mother. No one had the courage to tell Adèle. She was to attend a ball that evening, and was allowed to make her prepara- tions in ignorance of his fate. She actually went to the ball, no one daring to break the news to her.
The Salle d'Orléans is still standing on Orleans Street. It is now a convent for colored "Sisters." Little alteration has been made in the place. A balcony, as a century ago, runs across the front (the
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balcony to which Bien Aimé and his antagonist retired).
The act of burial of Bien Aimé is not recorded in the Cathedral. Its absence is explained by the fact that the last rites of the church were accorded only to those who had received the sacraments, and Bien Aimé fell dead at the first fire of his opponent. He was buried, however, in consecrated ground in the St. Louis Cemetery. Even the date of his death has not been preserved. But in the burial notice of his sister, Madame du Bourg de Saint Colombe, in 1811, it was stated that "ses cendres ont été exposées preiscelles de son frère."
In the old cemetery, the frequent inscription, "Mort sur le champ d'honneur" or "victime de l'honneur" show that the family of those killed in duels considered this mode of death an honorable one. All that was told by the witnesses of the affair was that Bien Aimé fell at the first fire, shot through the heart, and that he had fired wildly. The dueling pistols used still exist in the family. They are of the finest English make. They were lent, it is said, for three different duels, with the result of death in each duel. After Bien Aimé's death they were boxed and never used again. They are now the property of Charles Thibaut, Esq., Harvard University.
Madame Lauzon lived after her son's death to an advanced age, dying when about ninety. Like her husband, she died in her chair. At the time she was the guest of her grandson, Arthur Thibaut, hav- ing just arrived from her daughter's plantation, the Hermitage. An informal entertainment was being given and refreshments were served. The old lady
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partook of them and, laughingly remarking as she held up her hands that her fingers were sticky from eating bonbons, retired to her room to wash them. Her maid accompanied her and left her while she went downstairs for warm water. On her return she found Madame Lauzon in her chair, asleep, as she thought. In truth she was dead. Her tomb also is in the old St. Louis Cemetery.
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CHAPTER XXXII
BRINGIER
THE Bringier family, whose name runs like a
T golden tracery over the society of New Orleans during the nineteenth century, came into the colony during the very latest years of the Spanish Domina- tion.
Emmanuel Marius Pons Bringier,* of La Cadière, near Aubagne, was the first to settle here. From a letter written by the "Chanoine Jean Baptiste Hypolite Bringier," of the Marseilles Cathedral, to a Louisiana nephew, we learn that the Bringier family of Louisiana descends from Ignace Bringier, a Judge of Limagne (ancien pays d'Auvergne), who was the father of Jean Bringier. He married Marie Doura- don, daughter of Baron Douradon of Auvergne. They were the parents of Pierre Bringier, the father of Emmanuel Marius Pons. Pierre Bringier had an enormous family, which gave rise to the jeu d'esprit that he was the "father of nineteen sons and one canon." The canon of the Marseilles Cathedral was the younger brother of Emmanuel Marius Pons, and had been an émigré during the French Revolution.
Emmanuel Marius Pons left France in 1780, sailing in his own vessel with his young wife, Marie
* Taken chiefly from the manuscript notes of Trist Wood, Esq., a descendant of Marius Pons Bringier, who kindly loaned them to the author.
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Françoise Durand, to Martinique, where he and his brother Vincent became associated in business on a plantation. But not agreeing well as part- ners, they separated. Vincent lost his life in a shipwreck. Marius Pons, quitting Martinique, embarked again in his own vessel with his wife, slaves and household effects, and came to Louisiana. He acquired a plantation in the rich Tchoupitoulas district above New Orleans. Abandoning the place shortly afterwards, on account of the crevasses, Bringier moved to the Parish of St. James in 1785, where he bought, successively, five plantations and, throwing them into one, formed the famous Maison Blanche or White Hall plantation, which according to all accounts must be pronounced to be incontest- ably the greatest plantation Louisiana ever held.
What would be to-day a most valuable record of it, and a precious document in every way, has, to the enduring regret of local historians, been lost. This was the "Memoir" of Augustin, one of the old Bringier slaves, which he dictated to one of his mis- tresses, Madame Aurore Trudeau, who wrote it down in his patois, just as he spoke it. Only a vague reminiscence of it exists.
As traveling in the early days was done entirely upon the highroad running along the river bank, and no inns were in existence for the accommodation of wayfarers, the custom was for them to turn into any plantation they were passing and ask for hospi- tality for the night-hospitality that was never refused. Bringier, who could not but do things magnificently, improved upon this custom, as Augustin related it. He had outhouses built for the accommodation of passing strangers, with beds pre-
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pared and meals ready and slaves in attendance for them. Any stranger was made welcome. The rule at White Hall was not to ask his name or seek in any way to discover his identity, unless he chose to divulge them. He came and went as an unknown bird of passage might, but departed, rested and refreshed, his clothes cleaned and brushed, his linen washed. The enormous amount of provisions laid up in the plantation storehouses for this wholesale entertain- ment at Maison Blanche became a byword among the negroes, whose pride in it led them to exaggerate its quantity until, in truth, it became laughably absurd in its proportions.
The town house of the Bringiers, to which they came every winter, was on Canal Street; one of the three old houses, still remembered, built alike with massive Corinthian columns in front, called "the Three Sisters." One of these was subsequently converted into "The Grand Opera House." The Audubon Row occupies now the site of it.
"Melpomene" was their next place of residence in town. It had been owned previously by Seaman Field, the brother-in-law of Aglaé Dubourg Bringier. The name was always known as Melpoméne (pro- nounced in French), strangely enough before the street received its name in the due series of the Muses. Carondelet at that time was Apollo Street, a mere road through the bare country, with but one or two houses built on it. "Visiting the city" was the term used for going to Canal Street.
The eldest son, Michel Doradou Bringier, born on the plantation, was sent to Paris for his educa- tion. On his return to America he passed through Baltimore and was married to Aglaé Dubourg, who,
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as we have seen, had been placed in the convent there under Mrs. Seton for her education, and who was but fourteen years old. The marriage took place in Baltimore, where it created a great sensation on account of the remarkable beauty and the extreme youthfulness of the bride, but it was understood that it had been arranged by her uncle, the abbé, during a visit to New Orleans, with the full agreement of both families.
Doradou Bringier had never seen his bride before the ceremony except once, when, as a very small girl, she passed through New Orleans on her way to Baltimore. He declared then that she was the most beautiful child he had ever seen, and that he had fallen in love with her. Hermitage plantation was given the couple, and as a wedding present the bride received a beautiful doll. She remarked that she did not know whether it was meant for her or for her first baby.
The marriage turned out to be a very happy one. Aglaé lived to an extreme old age, preserving her charm and beauty to the last. She died in 1878 in her town house, "Melpomene," surrounded by her children and grandchildren.
The eldest daughter of Aglaé and Michel Doradou Bringier, Rosella, married Hone Browze Trist, the kinsman and ward of Thomas Jefferson; he became first American Collector of the Port of New Orleans; the youngest, Myrthé, married Richard Taylor, son of President Zachary Taylor, who became during the Civil War the dashing General Dick Taylor. *
* "Dick" Taylor, the son of Zachary Taylor, was born in Louisiana in 1826. After the Battle of Baton Rouge, in the Civil War, he was appointed to the command of the District of Louisiana, having
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Octavie married General Allen Thomas, at one time United States Minister to Venezuela. Louise mar- ried Martin Gordon, of New Orleans.
Nanine, the third daughter, married the Hon. Duncan F. Kenner who, looked back upon from the present times, looms up among the men of his day as a giant in intellect and force of character. He had a large family, but only two daughters and one son reached maturity. His eldest daughter, Rosella, married General Joseph Brent, of Baltimore. Their daughter, Nanine, is the wife of Thomas Sloo, Esq., of New Orleans.
One of the daughters of Marius Pons Bringier, Françoise, married "Christophe Colomb," who claimed descent from the great discoverer. Living in France, he had become involved in some plot during the French Revolution and had made his escape to St. Domingo disguised as a cook. But the insurrection and massacre there forced him again to fly. He came, as all the St. Domingo refugees did at that time, to New Orleans, and, as Trist Woods describes it, gravitated to St. James Parish and to White Hall plantation. He there married Françoise Bringier and became the proprietor of Bocage plan- tation, but instead of cultivating his fields, he spent,
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