Strange True Stories of Louisiana
Page 6
II.
MAKING UP THE EXPEDITION.
In 1795 New Orleans was nothing but a mere market town. The cathedral, theconvent of the Ursulines, five or six cafes, and about a hundred houseswere all of it.[6] Can you believe, there were but two dry-goods stores!And what fabulous prices we had to pay! Pins twenty dollars a paper. Poorpeople and children had to make shift with thorns of orange and_amourette_ [honey locust?]. A needle cost fifty cents, very indifferentstockings five dollars a pair, and other things accordingly.
On the levee was a little pothouse of the lowest sort; yet from thatunclean and smoky hole was destined to come one of the finest fortunes inLouisiana. They called the proprietor "Pere la Chaise."[7] He was a littleold marten-faced man, always busy and smiling, who every year laid asideimmense profits. Along the crazy walls extended a few rough shelvescovered with bottles and decanters. Three planks placed on boards formedthe counter, with Pere la Chaise always behind it. There were two or threesmall tables, as many chairs, and one big wooden bench. Here gathered thecity's working-class, and often among them one might find a goodly numberof the city's elite; for the wine and the beer of the old _cabaretier_were famous, and one could be sure in entering there to hear all the newstold and discussed.
By day the place was quiet, but with evening it became tumultuous. Pere laChaise, happily, did not lose his head; he found means to satisfy all, tosmooth down quarrels without calling in the police, to get rid ofdrunkards, and to make delinquents pay up.
My father knew the place, and never failed to pay it a visit when he wentto New Orleans. Poor, dear father! he loved to talk as much as to travel.Pere la Chaise was acquainted with him. One evening papa entered, sat downat one of the little tables, and bade Pere la Chaise bring a bottle of hisbest wine. The place was already full of people, drinking, talking, andsinging. A young man of twenty-six or twenty-seven entered almost timidlyand sat down at the table where my father was--for he saw that all theother places were occupied--and ordered a half-bottle of cider. He was aNorman gardener. My father knew him by sight; he had met him here severaltimes without speaking to him. You recognized the peasant at once; and yethis exquisite neatness, the gentleness of his face, distinguished him fromhis kind. Joseph Carpentier was dressed[8] in a very ordinary gray woolencoat; but his coarse shirt was very white, and his hair, when he took offhis broad-brimmed hat, was well combed and glossy.
As Carpentier was opening his bottle a second frequenter entered the_cabaret_. This was a man of thirty or thirty-five, with strong featuresand the frame of a Hercules. An expression of frankness and gayetyoverspread his sunburnt face. Cottonade pantaloons, stuffed into a pair ofdirty boots, and a _vareuse_ of the same stuff made up his dress. Hisvareuse, unbuttoned, showed his breast, brown and hairy; and a horrid capwith long hair covered, without concealing, a mass of red locks that acomb had never gone through. A long whip, the stock of which he held inhis hand, was coiled about his left arm. He advanced to the counter andasked for a glass of brandy. He was a drayman named John Gordon--anIrishman.
But, strange, John Gordon, glass in hand, did not drink; Carpentier, withhis fingers round the neck of the bottle, failed to pour his cider; and myfather himself, his eyes attracted to another part of the room, forgot hiswine. Every one was looking at an individual gesticulating and haranguingin the middle of the place, to the great amusement of all. My fatherrecognized him at first sight. He was an Italian about the age of Gordon;short, thick-set, powerful, swarthy, with the neck of a bull and hair asblack as ebony. He was telling rapidly, with strong gestures, in an almostincomprehensible mixture of Spanish, English, French, and Italian, thestory of a hunting party that he had made up five years before. This wasMario Carlo. A Neapolitan by birth, he had for several years worked as ablacksmith on the plantation of one of our neighbors, M. Alphonse Perret.Often papa had heard him tell of this hunt, for nothing could be moreamusing than to listen to Carlo. Six young men, with Carlo as sailor andcook, had gone on a two-months' expedition into the country of theAttakapas.
"Yes," said the Italian, in conclusion, "game never failed us; deer,turkeys, ducks, snipe, two or three bears a week. But the sublimest thingwas the rich land. Ah! one must see it to believe it. Plains and forestsfull of animals, lakes and bayous full of fish. Ah! fortune is there. Forfive years I have dreamed, I have worked, with but one object in view; andtoday the end is reached. I am ready to go. I want only two companions toaid me in the long journey, and those I have come to look for here."
John Gordon stepped forward, laid a hand upon the speaker's shoulder, andsaid:
"My friend, I am your man."
Mario Carlo seized the hand and shook it with all his force.
"You will not repent the step. But"--turning again to the crowd--"we wantone more."
Joseph Carpentier rose slowly and advanced to the two men. "Comrades, Iwill be your companion if you will accept me."
Before separating, the three drank together and appointed to meet the nextday at the house of Gordon, the Irishman.
When my father saw Gordon and Carpentier leave the place, he placed hishand on Mario's shoulder and said in Italian, "My boy, I want to talk withyou."
At that time, as now, parents were very scrupulous as to the society intowhich they introduced their children, especially their daughters; and papaknew of a certain circumstance in Carlo's life to which my mother mightgreatly object. But he knew the man had an honest and noble heart. Hepassed his arm into the Italian's and drew him to the inn where my fatherwas stopping, and to his room. Here he learned from Mario that he hadbought one of those great barges that bring down provisions from the West,and which, when unloaded, the owners count themselves lucky to sell at anyreasonable price. When my father proposed to Mario to be taken as apassenger the poor devil's joy knew no bounds; but it disappeared whenpapa added that he should take his two daughters with him.
The trouble was this: Mario was taking with him in his flatboat his wifeand his four children; his wife and four children were simply--mulattoes.However, then as now, we hardly noticed those things, and the idea neverentered our minds to inquire into the conduct of our slaves. Suzanne and Ihad known Celeste, Mario's wife, very well before her husband bought her.She had been the maid of Marianne Perret, and on great occasions Mariannehad sent her to us to dress our hair and to prepare our toilets. We weretherefore enchanted to learn that she would be with us on board theflatboat, and that papa had engaged her services in place of theattendants we had to leave behind.
It was agreed that for one hundred dollars Mario Carlo would receive allthree of us as passengers, that he would furnish a room simply butcomfortably, that papa would share this room with us, that Mario wouldsupply our table, and that his wife would serve as maid and laundress. Itremained to be seen now whether our other fellow-travelers were married,and, if so, what sort of creatures their wives were.
[The next day the four intended travelers met at Gordon's house. Gordonhad a wife, Maggie, and a son, Patrick, aged twelve, as unlovely inoutward aspect as were his parents. Carpentier, who showed himself evenmore plainly than on the previous night a man of native refinement,confessed to a young wife without offspring. Mario told his story of loveand alliance with one as fair of face as he, and whom only cruel lawforbade him to call wife and compelled him to buy his children; and toldthe story so well that at its close the father of Francoise silentlygrasped the narrator's hand, and Carpentier, reaching across the tablewhere they sat, gave his, saying:
"You are an honest man, Monsieur Carlo."
"Will your wife think so?" asked the Italian.
"My wife comes from a country where there are no prejudices of race."
Francoise takes the pains to say of this part of the story that it was nottold her and Suzanne at this time, but years afterward, when they werethemselves wives and mothers. When, on the third day, her father sawCarpentier's wife at the Norman peasant's lodgings, he was greatlysurprised at her appearance and manner, and so captivated by them that hepropos
ed that their two parties should make one at table during theprojected voyage--a proposition gratefully accepted. Then he left NewOrleans for his plantation home, intending to return immediately, leavinghis daughters in St. James to prepare for the journey and await thearrival of the flatboat, which must pass their home on its way to thedistant wilds of Attakapas.]
FOOTNOTES:[6] An extreme underestimate, easy for a girl to make of a scattered townhidden among gardens and groves.--TRANSLATOR.[7] Without doubting the existence of the _cabaret_ and the nickname, theDe la Chaise estate, I think, came from a real De la Chaise, true nephewof Pere la Chaise, the famous confessor of Louis XIV. The nephew wasroyal commissary under Bienville, and one of the worthiest fathers of thecolony of Louisiana.--TRANSLATOR.[8] In all likelihood described here as seen by the writer herself later,on the journey.--TRANSLATOR.