Very young, very beautiful, and very determined, Virginie gave birth to three children in the first four years of her marriage: a son, Marius Claude Vincent; a daughter, Marie Virginie (who rarely used her first name); and another daughter, the lovely but troubled Julie Euriphile. While she loved False River, Virginie was too socially ambitious to confine the growing family to country living. The plantation was well over a hundred miles from the city, yet Virginie and Vincent remained connected to Creole high society by way of the Mississippi riverboats that passed their front lawn. New Orleans offered access to Paris, and the Ternants maintained an apartment there. They often set up housekeeping for years at a time, enjoying the luxurious expatriate life to the fullest. As with all established Creole families, French was the Ternants’ first language, and they spoke it even when they were in Louisiana. When in Paris, they lived as Parisians, playing host to the French elite and emulating the fancy manners of Napoleon III’s lavish court. Virginie and Vincent announced their comings and goings with calling cards and entertained extravagantly; they studied the Almanach de Gotha, the Who’s Who of the European aristocracy, so they would know who should sit next to whom at their dinner table.
Vincent Ternant died in 1842, leaving the plantation to Virginie, still in her twenties. Two years later, she married a French naval officer, Charles Parlange. He also resided in both Paris and New Orleans, and he had the distinction of possessing an extensive library at a time when literacy levels in the American South were extremely low and books were in small demand as well as supply.
Virginie renamed the Ternant plantation Parlange. In 1851 she bore another son, whom she diplomatically named Charles Vincent, in homage to both husbands. Family records are vague, but they suggest that Virginie and Charles may have had another son before Charles Vincent, one who did not survive childhood.
The Paris residence of the newly combined Ternant-Parlange family was at 45 Rue Luxembourg, near the church of the Madeleine, in one of the wealthier and more desirable neighborhoods in the city. Each member of the family was painted by Claude-Marie Dubufe, famed court artist to Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie; welcoming the opportunity to make herself look imperial, Virginie commissioned a portrait of herself measuring a grand eighty-six by sixty-one inches. The painting emphasized her delicate features and graceful form; her pale face was framed by dark ringlets, and her good figure offset by a stylish black gown. The image radiated personality, strength, and a flirtatious arrogance.
Dubufe’s paintings dominated the second-floor parlor at Parlange, where Virginie tried to re-create the oval shape of fashionable Parisian salons by hanging her children’s portraits in such a way that they obscured the corners of the room. The Parlanges believed in displaying their wealth; indeed, they covered almost every surface with their possessions.
Parlange plantation as it looks today, classic example of an antebellum home. The Creole traditions practiced by young Amélie Avegno’s mother and grandmother in their Louisiana residence prepared her for life in Paris. (Drawing by Glenn C. Morgan)
Virginie had high ambitions for all her children, at the least expecting them to marry well. Marius as a teenager was already a quintessential rake, who drank, gambled, and womanized enough to be known as “le grand m’sieu,” the big shot, on the river. Parents would warn their daughters to stay away from him, though as the southern chronicler Harnet Kane noted, “the girls of False River—and of other parts of Louisiana and of Paris, for that matter—liked Marius too well for their own good or his.” Marius was a confirmed bachelor who had no interest in working, on the plantation or anywhere else. Spoiled and profligate, he squandered his money and repeatedly broke his mother’s heart with public displays of bad behavior. Neighbors were scandalized by the sight of him playing cards in his coach in broad daylight.
Julie, Virginie’s younger daughter, was another source of pain and disappointment to her mother. From Virginie’s family she had inherited the unfortunate legacy of madness. Her Acadian grandfather, Joseph Leufroy Trahan, was declared insane during the early years of his marriage, and Julie, along with other Trahan cousins, shared his illness. They all showed signs of melancholia that became more acute and disabling as they grew older. Their families kept these episodes as quiet as possible, fabricating—or at least not denying—tales that conveniently obscured the truth. One typically southern gothic story that circulated about Julie was that, on her wedding day, having been forced to abandon the man she loved to marry an older French aristocrat, she committed suicide by hurling herself against a giant oak tree on the plantation. The legend further claimed that Julie’s wedding-gowned ghost haunted the property, mourning her lost love. With stories like this, Julie remained in the shadows of her family for so many years that most people believed she was dead.
But Virginie’s other daughter did not disappoint her family in any way. In fact, when Marie Virginie Ternant married Anatole Avegno, she fulfilled all their expectations. The young couple took up housekeeping in the flourishing French Quarter, surrounded by Anatole’s brothers and sisters and their families.
New Orleans was enjoying a period of prosperity and tranquility in these middle years of the nineteenth century. The city had never been more colorful and exotic. The acclaimed actor Edwin Booth performed onstage as Richelieu. The Spalding & Rogers Circus was in town, advertising a “living skeleton violinist” among its featured acts. The fact that camels were promoted as the latest thing in farm animals testifies to the influence of far-off places.
On January 29, 1859, Marie Virginie and Anatole had their first child, Virginie Amélie. The baby had several names, as was the French custom, but she was called Amélie—a fashionable name then in New Orleans—probably to distinguish her from her mother and grandmother, other Virginies. There were various Amélies who might have inspired her name. Anatole’s brother Jean-Bernard had a sister-in-law named Amélie Durel, and a statue of the Virgin Mary commemorating Marie-Amélie, the last queen of France, was on display in a New Orleans church.
Amélie inherited the graceful Ternant form visible in family portraits, but her face was pure Avegno. She was her father’s daughter, with her copper-red hair, pale, creamy skin, and distinctive, compelling, Roman-coin nose.
In the summer of 1859, Marie Virginie and six-month-old Amélie—fondly called “Mimi” or “Mélie”—vacationed at Parlange, even with the enormous Avegno garden at their disposal in New Orleans. Marie Virginie wanted to escape the unbearable heat of the city and the health threats there. The only thing that improved during a New Orleans summer was the crime rate: it was simply too hot to break the law. Parlange may have been subject to extreme heat and mosquitoes, but the scenic False River fronting the plantation made the air fresh and consistently inviting.
In 1860, at forty-two, Virginie Parlange was worth $300,000 in land and $50,000 in personal property—in today’s money, a fortune of tens of millions of dollars. No other Pointe Coupee Parish family came close to equaling the Parlange wealth; Virginie was the richest and most powerful landowner in the area. She worked hard for every dollar, though. The plantation was a demanding business, whether it was producing cotton, indigo, or sugar cane, crops that changed over time to meet the shifting demands of the market. Most of the responsibility fell to Virginie, as Charles traveled frequently to New Orleans.
While Virginie ruled her property with an iron glove, she could not control her wild and irresponsible firstborn. Marius Claude Vincent Ternant died on January 14, 1861, only twenty-four years old. No cause of death was recorded, but it is likely that he died recklessly, in a duel or an accident. His half brother Charles Vincent Parlange kept to a more promising path. Charles demonstrated a passion for the plantation and paid close attention to its workings in preparation for one day assuming control.
In 1861, Marie Virginie and Anatole Avegno celebrated the birth of a second daughter, Valentine Marie. They appeared the perfect family, attractive, privileged, sheltered, and secure. Though it mai
ntained its usual festive atmosphere, however, their community was being shaken by talk of war. When the southern states finally chose to fight to protect their slaveholding rights, New Orleans sent its newly enlisted soldiers off to battle with marching bands, parades, and sweethearts blowing kisses. “Dixie,” written in the North in 1859, became the South’s unofficial anthem when it was performed as a rousing finale to a performance at the Varieties theater in New Orleans in 1861. The audience went wild when local soldiers, Creoles dressed in colorful Zouave uniforms, marched onstage, keeping time to the music.
On May 26 of that year, the atmosphere in the city darkened. President Lincoln had sent the Union warship Brooklyn to blockade the port, and now New Orleans was effectively cut off from the rest of the world. Ships could neither enter nor leave, and the port, once busy with boats, sailors, passengers, and cargo, was silent. Trade was the lifeblood of New Orleans, and without it, the city came to a halt.
Anatole was eager to join in the fight to protect southern values, and on September 13 he left his law firm to enlist in the Thirteenth Louisiana Infantry. He and his brother Jean-Bernard were so enthusiastic about the Confederate army that they recruited an entire battalion, which was dubbed the “Avegno Zouaves.” Nervous southerners tried to convince themselves that the war would end soon and their men return unharmed; they held regular parades and celebrations to bolster their spirits. Marie Virginie, too, believed that her capable, commanding husband would come back to her. She moved her two daughters back and forth between her home in the Vieux Carré and Parlange, where it was rumored that Amélie’s still-beautiful grandmother Virginie could protect her precious home from destruction with an irresistible combination of fine food and superior conversation that would charm generals from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. Virginie was also said to have hidden the family silver in deep transom casements above the doors and windows of the house. She buried money in the yard, only to forget later exactly where.
Some seven months after Anatole optimistically assumed command of Louisiana’s Thirteenth Infantry, the course of his life, and that of his family, was tragically altered. The Battle of Shiloh, now a famous moment in history, but then just another skirmish for the weary soldiers headed into it, commenced early on the morning of April 6, 1862. In his dispatches, Confederate captain E. M. Dubroca, an eyewitness, described heavy losses for Major Avegno’s “gallant little band” as they charged the enemy. Like so many on both the Confederate and the Union sides, these men were not trained soldiers. They were gentlemen, dedicated but ill-equipped for the hardships and deprivations of war. Anatole had developed acute laryngitis, and because he could not call out orders he transferred his command to another officer.
When he resumed control of his men on April 7, Anatole was wounded in the leg after a last charge on the enemy. Infection set in and his leg had to be amputated. Eleven days later, he was on his way home to recuperate. On the military train he lost consciousness: a journalist reported that he “rallied for a moment, smiled and dropped to sleep as gentle as a child.” In New Orleans, Marie Virginie waited for news. She knew that her husband had been wounded, but held out hope that he was recovering and returning to her. The train that arrived in New Orleans brought her Anatole’s corpse, not the strong, confident soldier she had said good-bye to months earlier. In an emotional obituary, the Daily Delta observed that Anatole had fallen “where the brave love to die, at his post of duty.”
Anatole’s death abruptly transformed Marie Virginie from young wife to young widow. In this she was not unusual. New Orleans counted a number of women whose married lives ended abruptly. Now alone responsible for her two daughters, Marie Virginie had to make important decisions about the future. Fortunately, there was money. Anatole had inherited considerable property from his father’s estate and had left it to his daughters, appointing their mother and a former law partner, George Binder, as their guardians.
Marie Virginie Ternant Avegno at twenty-five, after she had lost her husband. She was a strong mother for her daughters Amélie and Valentine. (Eshleman Collection, 2001-52-L, The Mettha Westfeldt Eshleman Bequest, The Williams Research Center of the Historic New Orleans Collection)
Anatole’s death was not the only tragedy to befall Marie Virginie. Children in New Orleans were particularly fragile, subject to the diseases that devastated the city every few years. After the defeat of the Confederacy, they were even more vulnerable because medical supplies were limited. On March 11, 1866, five-year-old Valentine died suddenly, of a congestive fever. She was buried alongside her father in the family plot at Saint Louis Cemetery, blocks from the French Quarter homes she had shared with her mother in her short life, and from her grandparents’ Toulouse Street garden, where she had played with her sister.
Marie Virginie was ready for a change of scene, a new start. She chose to return to Paris, which would be fresh and at the same time familiar. Postwar Louisiana offered nothing but depression and instability compared with the city that had been Marie Virginie’s second home when she was growing up. Families whose fortunes were built on land values were now poor, the land worthless. The Parlanges, without the money they had enjoyed before the war, were forced to take out multiple loans to keep their plantation running. Marie Virginie must have felt that there was no future in New Orleans, only the sad and unbearable past.
In 1867 she and young Amélie sailed for France. They may have traveled with Jean-Bernard Avegno, Anatole’s older brother, and his family. Jean-Bernard had been an important figure in the Confederate government; he had signed Louisiana’s secession papers at the start of the war. Like other wealthy Creoles, he wanted to protect himself and what money he had left during the difficult period of reconstruction ahead. Paris was the perfect place to live while times were uncertain in New Orleans.
Marie Virginie had another family member as traveling companion, her sister Julie. Marius’s death had had a serious effect on Julie, who unsuccessfully sued her mother for control of his estate. Virginie, troubled by Julie’s unpredictable behavior and the rumors it inspired, found it easier to send her away than to live with her.
Marie Virginie’s move to Paris was more than just a change of setting. It was a brave first step toward a new life. The day she left New Orleans, she assumed a role that was unfamiliar and perhaps a little frightening: at age thirty, she became the matriarch of her own family. An ocean away from her domineering mother, she would be independent, free to make her own decisions and run her own household. It was time for Marie Virginie to concentrate on the future—and the future was Amélie.
City of Light
Amélie Avegno saw Paris for the first time when she was eight years old. The city had never looked more beautiful: unlike New Orleans, devastated by war, her new home had the unlike New Orleans, devastated by war, her new home had the bright and shiny veneer of a renovated metropolis.
Only a few decades previously, Paris had been a filthy eye-sore. There was no light in the “City of Light,” which was more medieval than modern. Ancient, dilapidated buildings toppled one onto another, blocking all hints of the sky. Thousands of people poured the contents of their chamber pots into the streets every day. Visitors from other cities were appalled by the stench and the filth that Parisians took for granted.
Emperor Napoleon III wanted a city that was cleaner, better organized, and more aesthetically pleasing. In 1853, he placed Baron Georges Haussmann in charge of one of the most elaborate urban renewal plans in history. Napoleon wisely identified Haussmann, a career bureaucrat from the suburbs with impeccable connections and tremendous ambition, as a man who had the ability to imagine a better Paris and the tenacity to get the job done.
Haussmann more than satisfied the emperor’s expectations. He and the men who worked in his department, the Prefecture of the Seine, carried out their herculean efforts with military precision, believing themselves “an army whose task was to go forth in the conquest of old Paris.”
During the twenty years Ha
ussmann was in office, he and his staff conquered the city. Haussmann razed 19,722 buildings, mostly slums, and erected 43,777 new ones. He revolutionized transportation by turning warrens of streets into a series of boulevards that made it possible to move fluidly from one location to another. He saw to it that each boulevard served a purpose, leading to an impressive monument or building, such as the newly constructed Opéra. Most amazing, Haussmann added 4,500 acres of parks to a city that before had offered scant light, air, or recreational space to its inhabitants.
To his credit, Haussmann was just as concerned about the Paris that was not visible. He built new sewers (tourist attractions today) and sophisticated water delivery systems, to substitute the decaying underground tunnels that had carried disease and vermin. Some citizens complained bitterly that Haussmann had carelessly destroyed the charming parts of old Paris along with the rotten ones, yet even they had to appreciate the changes that improved the quality of their lives.
Haussmann had a dynamic effect on the private sector, supervising contractors who, following his strict guidelines, built modern apartment houses with multiple floors, spacious rooms, and separate sleeping quarters for servants. With his encouragement, developers updated the city’s already famous commercial districts. Shopping had always been key to Paris’s economic well-being. In the eighteenth century, Philippe d’Orléans, a down-and-out member of the French royal family, became a retailing visionary when he saw that he could make more money from one piece of property by building multiple floors of shops on the same site. He erected the first grand passage, a covered shopping arcade. Centrally located near the Palais Royal, it opened in 1781 and was an immediate success. Shoppers were drawn to its novel layout and its air of a Turkish bazaar.
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