Mad Madame LaLaurie

by Victoria Cosner Love

  Pustanio went on to say that he found the portrait a new home and that the new owners will not discuss the portrait. When Pustanio was asked why his portraits of Madame depict her in the wrong period costume, he replied that this detail was requested by the patrons. No one wanted her in the lovely French Empire–style dress that she would have worn to grace the salons of Creole New Orleans. They wanted Victoriana, perhaps because the high collars and dark ruffles are seen as more gothic. He also noted that people always describe Madame Lalaurie to him as a tall woman, and he envisioned her as smaller with dark hair and eyes. Perhaps that was true, or maybe she retained the Irish fairness of her father’s side of the family. Pustanio is the only one, besides the Musée Conti Historical Wax Museum, that has so far put a face to this legend.

  An interesting aside: during the interview, Pustanio revealed that his interest in the Lalaurie family stems from a personal connection to the story. His family historically owned land around St. John’s Bayou, where Delphine was said to have escaped the screaming mob.

  Pustanio’s family ran a fish business that focused on the Creole elite. Pustanio still graces the Mardi Gras parades with his imaginative floats, winning awards almost every year. He is also available to paint by commission if you want your own portrait of the mad Madame Lalaurie or of her Devil Baby of Bourbon Street.

  MUSÉE CONTI HISTORICAL WAX MUSEUM

  The Musée Conti Historical Wax Museum, located at 917 Rue Conti in the Vieux Carré, displays a wax rendition of Madame Lalaurie. When the authors asked around the shops and bars of the French Quarter, people often called the likeness of Madame Lalaurie “obscene.” Most people on the street believe that the wax image shows Madame whipping the slave child before the child fell from the roof of the mansion.

  In fact, the museum has Madame dressed in a pink and white dress from the 1830s, holding a candle up while her slave, Bastien (we assume), is shown whipping two slaves who are obviously starved and chained in the attic. It has not been changed since the museum opened in the 1970s.

  Not a wholesome image, but it is certainly a different tableau than the one at least a dozen people described to the authors. It’s fascinating that such tales are being passed around and embellished regarding an in-town display that can be viewed at any time. Perhaps the average citizens of New Orleans have no taste for tourist destinations like the wax museum. Or maybe they’re just too tired of the hideous story to want to see it played out in realistic wax figures.

  One of the few attempts to put a face to Madame Lalaurie, the Musée Conti Historical Wax Museum in New Orleans shows Madame and her faithful servant beating starved slaves. Photo by Victoria Cosner Love.

  IN THE MODERN PRESS

  In 1934, the Times-Picayune published an article on the 100th anniversary of the Lalaurie fire, featuring a portrait of a lovely woman. The articles reported that the woman in the portrait is Delphine Lalaurie. The face looks hauntingly similar to Pustanio’s images.

  WEBSITES

  Dozens of websites are dedicated to Madame Lalaurie. According to the many pages of the World Wide Web, Madame Lalaurie is guilty of serial killings, sending voodoo curses, raising a Devil Baby, turning her slaves into zombies and plenty of other horrid but rather ridiculous and unbelievable crimes. Most websites quote one another or the same Bee articles sourced above, over and over. Many websites relate one variation or another of the core story, with some embellishment and artistic license. Some seem to espouse ideas pulled from the webmaster’s own head, not based in fact, rumor or even logic.

  A Madame Lalaurie portrait as shown in a 1934 newspaper article. Could it be?

  You’ll find a list at the end of this book of lore-related Lalaurie sites. Don’t visit them for solid information, but definitely visit them. You’ll find some outrageously entertaining material. These sites are a must-see for enthusiasts of the Lalaurie legend.

  BARBARA HAMBLY

  In Fever Season, a novel of historical fiction, author Barbara Hambly enmeshes her hero, a free man of color named Ben January, in the Lalaurie story. Her research into the subject was meticulous. Her portrait of New Orleans in 1834 is amazingly realistic and utterly engrossing.

  Hambly takes a definite opinion on Madame Lalaurie, describing her as a sexual sadist almost solely responsible for the atrocities against the slaves. Whether or not that was the case, she portrays Delphine beautifully as a coldhearted, controlling sociopath, which could well have been the truth.

  Hambly even notes that Dr. Lalaurie was working on medicine to help correct malformations, as we noted in the fourth chapter. This is a little-known historic tidbit and illustrates the incredible level of research that went into her book. This novel is by far one of the best and most entertaining fictional accounts of the Lalaurie story.

  MOVIES

  One would think that Hollywood would find the Madame Lalaurie story irresistible. However, we have not been able to find a single historical drama about the incident.

  We did find a low-budget horror movie set in contemporary times but based (loosely) around the Lalaurie legend: The St. Francisville Experiment, from Trimark Pictures, 2000. The film features four young ghost hunters entering a “haunted house” in St. Francisville, Louisiana, where Madame Lalaurie was said (according to the movie) to have continued her atrocities after fleeing New Orleans in 1834. The film was shot at the lovely Ellerslie Plantation, which is actually located outside of St. Francisville. This film is a Blair Witch Project–style faux documentary, shot with handheld video cameras. Although the town of St. Francisville does have a number of ghost stories connected with it, including the famously “haunted” Myrtles plantation house, there are no actual stories connecting it to Madame Lalaurie.

  TELEVISION

  The Lalaurie house and its supposed hauntings have been mentioned on a number of documentary and reality TV programs. The legend was showcased on the History Channel’s Haunted History series, and the Lalaurie story comes up often in “Ghost Hunter” and “Most Haunted” TV shows. Watch your TV listings, particularly around Halloween, and you’ll most likely find something about the Lalauries.

  Chapter 8

  What If It’s All True?

  The slaves were the property of the demon in the shape of a woman whom we mentioned in the beginning of this article. They had been confined by her for several months in the situation from which they had thus been rescued and had merely been kept in existence to prolong their sufferings and to make them taste all that the most refined cruelty could inflict.

  –New Orleans Bee, April 1834

  There is nothing funny about what happened to the unfortunate souls trapped in the garret of the Lalaurie house in 1834. That was a tragic and horrible event. But if one were to look at every aspect of the legend, including the more outlandish parts, it starts to get just a bit ridiculous.

  To play devil’s advocate, your authors would like to present a worst-case scenario: what if it’s all true? Every rumor, every tale and every gory detail? Let’s take a look.

  In our worst-case alternate reality, Delphine has been wicked since birth. She slyly managed to kill both of her previous husbands in order to inherit their money. She found a soul mate in Louis Lalaurie—they both have a taste for blood.

  Delphine and Louis Lalaurie are serial killers. They have been killing slaves for years, from the time they moved into the house on Royal Street. Their reasons for killing are different, but they are equally deadly. When a slave perishes at their hands, he is buried beneath the floorboards of the house or perhaps taken out to the swamp in the dead of night and dumped as food for the alligators. They also keep a number of slaves chained in the attic at all times so they are available if either Lalaurie suddenly has the impulse to kill or torture.

  “We only permit masters, when they shall think that the case requires it, to put their slaves in irons, and to have them whipped with rods or ropes.” From the Louisiana Code Noir, 1724.

  Madame kills and maims slaves because s
he is naturally cruel and because she was driven insane by the murder of her parents, who died in a slave uprising. She is now completely mad and a sadist—perhaps even a sexual sadist. She takes perverse pleasure in starving her slaves and watching them waste away before her eyes. She glories in the fact that their lives are entirely in her hands.

  She flogs her slaves mercilessly for the slightest mistake. She pours salt water into their wounds, binds their mouths shut and coats them with honey so that ants will devour them. Anything that pops into the fetid jungle that is her mind she is likely to perpetrate on her poor, hapless bondsmen.

  Madame puts forth an image of tranquility and social grace. She is beautiful and charming, and her parties are legendary. All of Creole society loves and envies her. Delphine and Louis live in their stylish Creole mansion with two of Delphine’s adult daughters from her marriage to the handsome pirate, Jean Blanque, and with her young son with Louis Lalaurie. She takes a perverse pleasure in maintaining a perfect façade, while her private life is a twisted hell of sickness and brutality.

  Bastien, Madame Lalaurie’s driver, is a willing accomplice in her crimes. He has no compassion for his fellow slaves and will beat them just as readily as Madame will. He is utterly loyal to Delphine—the moment she tells him to do something, he does it. He works as a spy for Madame. If her waiflike daughters try to sneak food to any of the slaves, Bastien tells Madame, who beats the girls without mercy. He lords his power over the slaves as much as any overseer would.

  Why is he so loyal to his cruel mistress? Is it simply because she feeds him well, clothes him beautifully and treats him with kindness? Or is it something more? Perhaps he shares her taste for sadism. And perhaps he and Madame are lovers. Once again, Delphine defies society’s norms, twisting them to fit her self-centered and perverse inner world.

  Louis Lalaurie does not consider himself a sadist. He is a doctor, and he conducts experiments out of scientific curiosity. He started out with good intentions. He drafted the occasional unlucky slave to be a test subject for his work in curing skeletal deformities. But once he realized that he had utter power and control over these people, all self-control fled. He does anything to the bodies of his slaves that enters his imagination. And his imagination is very vivid.

  Can a person survive if you drill a hole into his head? What happens if you stir his brain with a stick? How much skin does a person need? How much can you peel away before she dies? Can the human body adapt if you break every large bone and reset them at bizarre angles? Will she still be able to move? If you cut the sexual organs from a person of one sex and sew them onto another, can you change the sex of the subject?

  The doctor’s experiments are extremely messy. Buckets of body parts litter the attic. He has asked Bastien to dispose of them, but the haughty servant answers only to Madame. No matter. Perhaps the doctor will think of some use for the severed limbs.

  In addition to his surgical experiments, Dr. Lalaurie has been experimenting with “zombie powder” in an attempt to create the perfect, utterly obedient slave. He is supplied with the highly toxic ingredients by Marie Laveau, New Orleans’ reigning voodoo queen. His subjects are Marie’s enemies, as well as his own slaves. Time and time again he has administered the powder to bound and helpless subjects. Unlike his predecessors in Haiti, he has not yet succeeded in creating a docile zombie.

  Most of his subjects simply die after suffering extreme pain and paralysis. Some go mad, ranting and raving at invisible tormentors. These subjects Dr. Lalaurie has to kill quickly to prevent them from raising too much ruckus. Some fall into a deep, staring unconsciousness and never awaken. These people are used in Dr. Lalaurie’s surgical experiments. Madame Lalaurie is not interested in them. She only likes victims who are able to scream.

  The Musée Conti Historical Wax Museum displays a wax presentation of Marie Laveau providing goods for a bride. Photo by Victoria Cosner Love, permission of Musée Conti Historical Wax Museum.

  In addition to the abattoir in their attic, the Lalauries have other secrets. One of them is the Devil Baby of Bourbon Street, who lives in a small, dark room at the back of the house. This monstrous, deformed child was given to Delphine by Marie Laveau. The voodoo queen claims that the child was cursed, born of a union between a fine Creole lady and a swamp devil. Judging by the unearthly howls and shrieks the little creature emits, the Lalauries suspect that she may be right.

  When the baby was baptized, Madame Lalaurie stood as his godmother. She and Marie Laveau each have their own motives for keeping the baby alive. Laveau wants the child for blackmail and to add to her own fearful reputation. Madame just finds him amusing.

  A “Devil Baby” skull sculpture. The “Devil Baby” of Bourbon Street has inspired generations of artists and ghost hunters. Authors’ collection.

  Delphine delights in the Devil Baby. She finds his screams and spasms endlessly amusing. She spends hours watching the child, petting him and feeding him bloody bits of raw meat. Louis, too, is fascinated with the baby. He would love to dissect it, but Delphine shoos him away.

  Delphine’s sanity seems to be slipping further away. She starves even the slaves who serve her in the house. Visitors have begun to whisper about their gaunt, miserable appearance. When no one is visiting, she forces the slaves to go naked or shirtless, simply to humiliate them. Her daughters, always by her side, seem timid, pale and scared. Her temper is as volatile as an angry alligator’s. The slightest misstep sends her into a fury. She keeps a bullwhip in her boudoir, and she is an expert with it.

  One evening, Nina, a little slave child, accidentally pulls Madame’s hair while brushing it. Madame goes mad with fury, chasing the girl to the roof of the house and lashing her with the bullwhip. The terrified Nina, given the choice between the raving Madame and the cobblestoned courtyard below, chooses death. Her little body strikes the stones with a sickening crunch. Madame stares dispassionately down at her for a moment and then goes back inside the house. The servants wait until Madame is abed. Quietly, like shadows, they carry the child’s broken body to the kitchen. The women tenderly wash her while the men dig a shallow grave by the well in the courtyard.

  Nina’s is not the first corpse to be interred there. It is almost certainly not the last. But someone has had enough. Nina’s grandmother, Rachael, an old kitchen slave, seethes with fury. She vows revenge against her mistress.

  What Delphine does not know is that a horrified neighbor witnessed the chase and the whipping and hid her eyes as little Nina plummeted to her death. The authorities are called in. Delphine is called to court, where she perfectly balances her false grief for the “accidental” death of the child with her well-practiced charm. The judge, a relative of Delphine’s, wants to dismiss the case, but the city is simmering with rumors about the incident. He orders Delphine to pay a fine of $300, which she can well afford. He also orders her remaining slaves, with the exception of Bastien and Rachael, to be removed from her property and sold.

  Madame does not appreciate the negative press, but it takes much more than that to rattle her. She quickly and quietly arranges for another relative to buy the slaves back for her.

  She blames the slaves for her public embarrassment. Thick, heavy, spiked chains are attached to their necks, wrists and legs, and they are locked in the attic to await her “attention.” If her treatment of them was bad before, it now escalates to horrifying proportions.

  Delphine is particularly irritated with Rachael, the grandmother of the dead slave child Nina. Rachael has always been a magnificent cook, making Delphine’s friends jealous with the culinary treats that roll from her kitchen. But now Rachael grows defiant, refusing to cook. One minute Rachael can be found mourning pitiably for her lost grandchild and the next raging for vengeance. Madame, unconcerned as usual, chains her to the big kitchen stove and tells Rachael that she will stay there until she decides to resume her duties as cook.

  There Rachael remains, starved, the chains chafing her papery old skin. Each time the d
oor to the courtyard opens, she views her granddaughter’s grave and hears in her mind the sound of the child hitting the stones. Finally, she can stand it no longer. She stokes up the oven until it is a hellish inferno and sets fire to the house. Rachael means to make her mistress pay, even if it means her own agonizing death.

  Neighbors and friends spot the smoke and rush over to help. First they try to pull old Rachael from the kitchen, but it is too late. She screams out the back window for revenge, but the chains hold her fast, and she is consumed by the ravenous flames. She dies, cursing her mistress with her last breath.

  The rescuers rush into the main house, attempting to pull Madame and Dr. Lalaurie to safety. To their surprise, the couple will not leave. They begin coolly ordering their neighbors to save this treasure and that from their beautiful collection of art and furniture. The fire has consumed the dining room by now, directly above the kitchen chambers.

  A house this large does not run itself, and it is common knowledge that Madame bought back her slaves.

  “Where are they?” the crowd demands. “Where are the slaves?”

  Madame glibly rebuffs them, suggesting that they save a valuable painting instead. She seems as calm and good-natured as she was at her many glittering parties.

  Dr. Lalaurie, on the other hand, is flustered and irritable. He, too, refuses to tell the rescuers, including the venerable Judge Canongo, where the slaves are located. He orders his friends and neighbors to mind their own business.

  The judge is torn between the rumors he’s heard and the respect that the Lalauries’ place in society commands. He hesitates and then resumes helping to carry the valuables out of the house.