USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Creole families of New Orleans > Part 28
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already served with distinction in Virginia. His campaign in Upper Louisiana and on Red River was one of the brilliant military episodes of the Confederate War. After the close of the war he returned to New Orleans and lived with his family in the old Melpomene Street house. He had three daughters; one of them, Bettie, married Walter R. Stauffer; her sister, Myrthé, Isaac H. Stauffer-sons of the prominent and wealthy merchant and philanthropist, Isaac Stauffer, of New Orleans. The children of both sisters still proudly maintain the prestige of their blood and name in New Orleans. Louisette, the eldest daughter, died unmarried.
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we are told, the rest of his life cultivating the Muses. On moonlight nights he would betake himself to his boat or ornamental barge, ordering his men to row him up and down the Mississippi and, reclining on cushions beneath a fringed canopy, would pick his guitar and sing serenades to the moon. His wife, on the contrary, with the Bringier talent for busi- ness, mounting her horse at daylight, would ride over the plantation directing the work of the slaves. But husband and wife got on together famously, says the story-he wooing the Muses, she managing Bocage.
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CHAPTER XXXIII
TUREAUD
T THE Tureaud family were originally Huguenots, but they became Catholics before emigrating from France. The first Tureaud known in Louisiana was Augustin Dominique, born in St. Sauveur Parish, la Rochelle, in 1764, the son of Jacques Tureaud, "courtier," and of Françoise Guillon. He received a collegiate education, was dashing in conduct, talented and good looking, and, consequently, as we might say, became involved in a love scrape which brought about his being sent by his father to St. Domingo to take charge of a plantation he owned there.
In the revolt of the negroes and the bloody mas- sacre of the whites, Tureaud was saved by the ingratiating qualities that distinguished him through life. His housekeeper, a mulatress, the wife of one of the ringleaders of the revolt, who knew therefore in advance what was impending, led him to the shore, where she had secreted a boat, and embarked in it with him and her two children. The cold was intense, the boat was an open one and all were thinly clad. They suffered cruelly. One of the children died on the second day out. The mother threw it overboard, and the little skiff drifted about at sea until it was picked up by a vessel bound for Balti- more. Tureaud by this time was lying unconscious in the boat. He always said that he had no idea
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what could have influenced the mulatress to save his life except an act of unconscious politeness on his part. When he came from France, ignorant of the customs of Martinique, he addressed the house- keeper as "madame," and although he does not say so, he most likely treated her with the consideration due a "madame."
A commission house in Baltimore received the refugee and communicated the fact to Tureaud's father in France, who remitted funds for his son's expenses, asking the firm to keep him in America. The surviving child of the ringleader and mulatress, although free, served in the Tureaud family, and his children were given European educations and subse- quently returned to New Orleans, where they held good business positions.
Tureaud, after settling in Baltimore, made a number of voyages. In his diary he tells of being shipwrecked in the Pacific and residing with the Baron de Cambefort at the Mole of St. Nicholas, but unfortunately only one section of his diary has been preserved, that relating to 1801 and 1802. This is full of the exciting adventures, love affairs, etc., that be- fell amateur knight-errants on the Gulf of Mexico at that time. Once he was captured with his vessel by the English, once drifting about with a crew help- less from yellow fever, he put in to Vera Cruz for relief and, being refused by the authorities there, he sailed for New Orleans where his greatest adven- ture yet awaited him, for he met Marius Pons Bringier, who invited him to his plantation, White Hall, taking him up to it in his cabriolet. There his visit having terminated, he was about to leave when a heavy rain fell flooding the roads and de-
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taining him a few days longer. His host, more and more pleased with his agreeable guest and more and more reluctant to part with him, yielded at last to temptation and one day à propos of nothing offered him the hand of his daughter Fanny. Natur- ally, according to French customs, there were pre- liminary conditions connected with business to be arranged, but they were settled in a satisfactory way and the young man, duly accepting and accepted, was, as he wrote in his diary, raised to the seventh heaven of bliss over his good fortune. Fanny was only thirteen and, he confesses, not beautiful, but she was the daughter of the owner of magnificent White Hall! Tureaud returned to New Orleans where, he writes, congratulations were showered upon him. He went back to Baltimore and a year later presented himself to claim his bride.
Fanny did not keep a diary, but her account of the affair has come down to us nevertheless. She was in her room dreaming, as girls do, of her ideal in love and indulging in the usual romantic visions of mar- riage, when her father summoned her to his presence, and informed her that her hand had been promised to Monsieur Tureaud. She went almost into a state of collapse, but managed to stammer out that she bowed to the will of her father. Then, hastening to her room, she gave herself up to the wildest grief and indignation that she was to be given away to an old, gray-haired man. Tureaud was then thirty-eight years old, but this was, of course, aged to the eyes of thirteen, and his hair had turned gray when he fled from St. Domingo.
The marriage was celebrated at White Hall in 1803. While preparations for the ceremony were
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being made, the rebellious little bride spent her time weeping in her room, but in spite of her fears the union turned out to be the ideal one she had dreamed of.
Her father gave her "Union" plantation (so named for the happy event) as a wedding gift. The life spent there for both was a very happy one. Tureaud became a judge in the parish of St. James and during the Civil War served as Captain of Cavalry. But the bold, high-spirited daredevil of the diary suffered miserably in his old age from the effect of a wound supposed to have been received in a duel. He died at "Union" plantation in 1826.
He had sent to France for his nephew, Jean Fran- çois Theodore Tureaud, to join him in Louisiana.
Theodore, born in Rochefort in 1791, had served in Napoleon's army, and was in the Treasury Depart- ment of the Marine in 1812. 'He arrived in Louisiana in 1814, and was followed, a year or two later, by his mother and two sisters. He became a Notary Public in New Orleans, and married Claire Conand, daughter of Dr. Joseph Conand of the same city. They founded a second line of Tureauds in Louisiana.
CHAPTER XXXIV
GARRIGUES DE FLAUGEAC-DE ROALDES
D E FLAUGEAC'S name has been written in the history of Louisiana by the hand of General Jackson himself. In an order of the day after Chalmette, Jackson cited him particularly "for dis- daining the exemption afforded by his seat in the Senate, and offering himself for the service of his country. He continued in this subordinate but honorable station, and by his example as well as exertions has rendered essential service to the country."
As Gayarré describes it:
"A little before daybreak, on the eighth of January, as soon as there was sufficient light for observation . a congreve rocket . went up. It was the signal for attack. The British, giving three cheers, formed into close column of about sixty men in front and advanced in splendid order, chiefly upon the battery commanded by Garrigues de Flaugeac, which consisted of a brass twelve- pounder, supported on its left by an insignificant battery with a small brass coronade; on the right was the artillery commanded by United States officers. An oblique movement was made to avoid the terrible fire of the Flaugeac battery, from which every discharge seemed to tear open the column, and sweep away whole files."
The gallant Frenchman, we are told, was a born fighter. Before coming to Louisiana he had drawn his sword under Republic, Consulate and Directory ; and had sheathed it and come to Louisiana only when
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there seemed no further prospect for its use in France. He settled in Opelousas, one of the most beautiful and fertile parishes in the State, married there and devoted himself to the development of a large plantation. This was during the halcyon days of Louisiana, before politics infested the ways of public life, and a man's worth to his State was not measured by party balances. Thus, such a man as de Flau- geac was elected to the Legislature as Senator.
The House was in session when the British effected their landing in Louisiana, and with their gunboats dominated the lake and commanded all approaches to the city. There was a moment of panic and demoralization in the city. The Governor sent a message to the Legislature suggesting the expediency of adjourning for a specified time. The House considered an adjournment inexpedient and highly dangerous. Jackson, suspicious at this time of the Creoles, was anxious not only for the adjournment but for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The House was firm in its belief that this would be unsafe, and Jackson issued a general order putting the city of New Orleans under martial law. It was in this moment of tension that de Flaugeac settled the question for himself by resigning his seat to volunteer on the field of battle; commending himself, as we have seen, in the best way to the good opinion of the general in command. After the battle he disappeared from the city and merged his life again in the interests of his plantation.
De Roaldes was his nephew, the son of his brother- in-law, who had been persuaded by de Flaugeac's letters to leave France for Louisiana. De Flaugeac had married a de Roaldes. The wife of de Roaldes
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was Coralie Testas de Folmont, of the Château de Folmont, near Cahors, whose family had been known in France since the Crusades.
After a short trial of country life, de Roaldes left Opelousas and came to New Orleans, where he prac- tised medicine for thirty years. His eldest son, Arthur, he sent to France for his medical education. The young man was engaged in his studies when the Franco-Prussian War broke out, and volunteered in the Sixth International Ambulance Corps. He was in the service of the Red Cross, in a deserted mill used as a hospital, near the River Meuse, and in close proximity to a pontoon bridge over which Mac- Mahon's corps was retreating before the rapid advance of the Prussians, who were firing across the bridge regardless of the hospital work in the factory, filled with wounded and dying men. In his official report, the Surgeon-in-Chief gives the best account of what followed:
"Mons. de Roaldes charged himself with the perilous mission of planting our flag upon the roof of the house; a heroic action, which caused the enemy to stop firing against us, at the sight of the inter- national colors."
For his gallant conduct the French Government offered de Roaldes the Cross of the Legion of Honor, but at that time it was considered to be the duty of Americans to wear no foreign decorations and the young man declined it.
He returned to New Orleans, equipped for his profession with a brilliant record as a man of nerve and action. He devoted himself to the special study of the eye, ear, nose and throat, and soon made him- self known as a specialist of brilliant abilities in the medical world.
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De Roaldes lived in the part of the city inhabited principally by French, Spanish and Italian immi- grants, and he was brought face to face with their teeming families whose children and babies were in sore need of special treatment beyond the means and intelligence of their poor, ignorant par- ents, with no relief possible except that offered by the general treatment of the overcrowded Charity Hospital, with its care for all the sick and wounded of three neighboring States.
De Roaldes, by degrees, was turned more and more into the highways and byways of charity, opening his office, and giving his rare surgical skill and his great gift as a diagnostician to the helpless and miserable mothers who brought their children to him.
The numbers that came or were brought to him soon overspread the limit of one man's time and attention. He associated others with him-young students who were glad to assist him for the oppor- tunity of studying under him. With his hand to the plow, never looking back or releasing his hold, he traced the furrow that led to its predestined stopping place-the organizing of a scientific insti- tution for the treatment of diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat, where the poor, without pay, could seek and find the care and advice usually reserved to the rich.
The furrow was a long one and the years were heavy with work and fatigue before the end appeared; he was forced to appeal for money to accomplish properly what he had in mind. The money came, as he knew it would come, for the heart that con- ceives great designs is the heart that never despairs. At first, it came in scant driblets. The poor about
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him, knowing him, brought their mites. The coun- try parishes responded, for they had sent their ailing children to him in the past. The negroes gave too- and it was the first time in history that they recog- nized their responsibility toward maintaining civic institutions. By the time the rich felt the urge to give their large donations and legacies, the founda- tions were assured; that is, a building had been rented. A great and adequate building, with full surgical equipment, now stands in the heart of the city.
But the story ends in the saddest of all tragedies, as human eyes see it. The Healer himself went unhealed. He who had restored the eyesight to countless others suffered himself years of hopeless blindness. At first, with his clear knowledge and unerring skill, he was able, as he said, to see with his fingers; and he still remained at his post, directing consultations; going to the hospital, which in truth was called "his hospital" every day; working for it until paralysis fell upon him; and as he could no longer see, now he could no longer move.
To mention family distinction after such a record is paltry. But although good wine needs no bush, a bush that produces the best of wine merits acknowledgment.
The de Roaldes belong to one of the old families of France always known for loyalty to Church and King. The château at Cahors, the family home, is still the family home, but on account of its great historic and artistic value it has been classified by the government as an historic monument, and taken over by it for preservation.
François de Roaldes was reputed the greatest
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scholar of his time (1519-1589). His cousin and pupil, François II de Roaldes, had so great a reputa- tion that colleges disputed for the honor of possessing him, Toulouse finally gaining the prize. In the "Memoires Historiques"* is preserved the following letter from Henry IV:
"Mons. de Roaldes, the name which you have won among men of letters, makes me desire to know you otherwise than by mere reputa- tion, and to testify to you how much pleasure it affords me to make known to you and all persons my good-will toward yourself. In the assurance of which I pray you to give faith to what the Sieur de Pira will say to you in my name.
"Adieu, Mons. de Roaldes. I pray you may continue in His holy keeping.
"From Pau, 20th, October, 1584.
"Your well assured friend, "HENRI."
The tablet of the handsome tomb in which Arthur de Roaldes' mortal remains were buried holds the list of the many decorations and medals awarded him by foreign governments for his good work among their subjects; but in truth he needs no such decora- tions or medals, or even the letter of the King of France. His monument and enduring record is his hospital and the memory of him that is preserved in New Orleans.
* Facsimile of Henry IV's letter is in the historical collection at the Cabildo.
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CHAPTER XXXV
PITOT
ACQUES PITOT DE BEAUJARDIERE and Joseph Roffignac, two young gentlemen of the nobility, fled from France during the Reign of Terror and came to Louisiana, settling in New Orleans where, strange to say, both in time filled the high and honorable office of Mayor. :
They related on their arrival in the city the story of their last experience in their own country. Passing through Paris, they heard in the streets a rumble as of a great crowd approaching, with all the out- cries and vociferations of a riotous mob. They stopped to see the cause of it. A surging, furious mass of people swept by them, filling the street, carrying on a tall pike the beautiful head of the Princesse de Lamballe, the hair dressed in court coiffure. Transfixed with horror, Pitot exclaimed aloud involuntarily and began to give expression to his outraged feelings, when he was touched on the elbow and a low voice whispered in his ear: "Mar- chez, marchez, monsieur; vous vous compromettez." And a plain laborer, "un homme en blouse," glided quickly from his side. This was more than enough; the two young men sped from the death behind them and disembarked from their native land the next day.
On arrival in the new world, they dropped their
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titles in order to conform to the republican spirit. Pitot was from Rouen and a thorough Norman in enterprise and energy. After witnessing the taking over of the colony by France from Spain and its hurried cession to the United States, he grasped the golden opportunities for business about him under the American régime, and was soon ranked with the prominent and wealthy merchants of the place. It is said that he established the first cotton press known in the city (on the corner of Toulouse and Burgundy Streets).
Etienne de Boré, as has been related, acceding to de Laussat's appeal to his patriotism, had filled the office of Mayor of New Orleans during the short episode of the second French Administration, but he refused to continue in office under the government of the United States, to which he was in principle opposed. The city with the territory was then under the rule of a Legislative Council appointed by the President. Laussat had abolished the Cabildo and established for the government of the city a Municipal Council, composed of a Mayor and twelve members. The council continued in office after the transfer of the colony to the United States, and it was re-established by Claiborne, who presided at its meetings, at which were present all of the original members with the exception of three who, with de Boré, for political reasons had resigned. Pitot was among the number chosen to replace these. On June 2nd, 1800, he was elected Mayor by the Council, with the approval of Claiborne, who afterwards was sworn into the office of Governor by Pitot.
New Orleans in her career has been honored or
Toulouse Street, Near "Old Levee" Street
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dishonored by many kinds of Mayors. But the example of Pitot could produce only the Mayor that honored the city. Claiborne in his voluminous correspondence never lets his pen run over his name without a commendation of him.
The duties of the office of Mayor at that period were not light or easy. The citizens were in an ugly mood over the scamping, as they saw it, by the United States of the treaty with Napoleon, and they were in a state of constant ferment and indigna- tion against the injustice put upon them by Congress. Public meetings were held, with violent orators denouncing the United States and clamoring for the rights of Louisiana. Pitot himself presided at one of these meetings and was on the committee that drew up the protest that was presented by a delega- tion to Congress. He presented the paper himself to Claiborne. Claiborne, always timid before the irrepressible nature of the Creoles, seemed never quite sure that they did not meditate some such coup d'état as they engineered against Spain; but in a letter to the Secretary of State, Madison, he writes :*
"I place much confidence in the good intentions and prudent conduct of Mr. Pitot, the Mayor of the city, whose influence is considerable, and who assures me that the peace of the city shall not be disturbed."
He added:
"The Louisianians are a zealous people and their lively support of measures, nay, their enthusiasm, may be casily excited; but I find they readily listen to good advice and are generally pacific and well disposed again."
* "Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne." Vol. II, pp. 137-9.
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It was to the Mayor that the good Protestant Governor referred the complaint of the Lady Abbess of the Ursuline convent that a play was being pro- duced at the theatre that cast ridicule on her con- vent. The play was withdrawn.
It is significant of the esteem in which Pitot was held in that he was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Orleans, as the parent of the old Collège d'Orléans was grandiloquently called at its foundation-one of the first effects of the enlighten- ment of the American Domination.
Pitot resigned the office of Mayor in the summer of 1805 and was appointed by Claiborne Judge of the Probate Court of the Parish of Orleans, whose jurisdiction extended from the Balize to Baton Rouge.
Armand Pitot, his son, was a distinguished lawyer of the Louisiana Bar, and became clerk of the Supreme Court. He married a daughter of Monté- gut "fils," sister of the wife of Felix Grima. Mr. Gustave Pitot, the third generation of the name in New Orleans, was for many years a manager of the Citizens Bank, one of the oldest financial institutions in the city. The family group of the Montégut family, by Amans, in the Historical Society Museum, was an heirloom of the Pitot family. They have confided it to the keeping of the Louisiana Historical Society.
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CHAPTER XXXVI
ROFFIGNAC
C OUNT LOUIS PHILIPPE JOSEPH DE ROF- FIGNAC was a native of Perigord. He was of noble birth and had been a page to the Dowager Duchesse d'Orleans, the mother of Louis Philippe. At seventeen he received his commission from Louis XVI as a Lieutenant of Artillery, and served in Spain under his father who held an important command in the French Army. At twenty-four he was pro- moted on the field of action, for gallantry, to a captaincy in the Queen's Regiment of Dragoons.
He came to New Orleans, as has been related, with Jacques Pitot, having been compelled to fly from France to escape the guillotine. Availing himself of an article in the Treaty of Cession which allowed French subjects equal privileges, including naturali- zation, with those conferred upon actual residents of Louisiana, he became automatically upon his arrival in Louisiana an American citizen. His appreciation of this high honor, as he considered it, he proved during his long life.
He does not seem, like so many of the new citi- zens at that time, to have opened his eyes to the money-making opportunities spread before him, but he undertook at once the serious fulfillment of civic duties. He entered the Legislature and served as State Senator for twelve years. Gallantly
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responding to the call of patriotism when New Orleans was threatened by the British, he became a soldier again and he was made a Colonel in the Louisiana Legion.
Roffignac was elected a director in the State Bank of Louisiana when the choice signified acknowledg- ment of mental ability and moral qualities as well; and finally he was elected Mayor of the city and was maintained in the office eight years.
It was a proud day for the city when he assumed office. He was, par excellence, the Mayor for New Orleans: an aristocrat, a gentleman, a man of letters and a clear-headed executive of ability.
Roffignac restored the finances of the city, strictly enforced the cleaning and policing of the streets, improved the public squares, and encouraged the establishment of institutions of education and charity. It was during his administration that in the Place d'Armes, along Esplanade, Rampart and Canal Streets, the sycamores and elms were planted, which gave to the city its foreign aspect for so long a period. The dear old trees, so kindly in the sum- mer with their good shade, and so beautiful in the spring with their diaphanous white flowers, under which the old inhabitants used to promenade on Sunday afternoons, were destroyed eventually in one of the unsentimental and ignorant expressions of what was termed (as such attempts are always termed) civic progress and improvement.
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