Strange True Stories of Louisiana
Page 18
XIV.
"POOR LITTLE ALIX!"
Hardly had we made a few steps into the room when a young girl rose andadvanced, supported on the arm of a young man slightly overdressed. Hisclub and pigeon-wings were fastened with three or four pins of gold, andhis white-powdered queue was wrapped with a black velvet ribbon shot withsilver. The heat was so great that he had substituted silk for velvet, andhis dress-coat, breeches, and long vest were of pearl-gray silk, changingto silver, with large silver buttons. On the lace frill of his embroideredshirt shone three large diamonds, on his cravat was another, and hisfingers were covered with rings.[20] The young girl embraced us withceremony, while her companion bowed profoundly. She could hardly havebeen over sixteen or seventeen. One could easily guess by her dress thatthe pretty creature was the slave of fashion.
"Madame du Rocher," said Charles du Clozel, throwing a wicked glance uponher.
"Madame!" I stammered.
"Impossible!" cried Suzanne.
"Don't listen to him!" interrupted the young lady, striking Charles'sfingers with her fan. "He is a wretched falsifier. I am called Tonton deBlanc."
"The widow du Rocher!" cried Olivier, from the other side.
"Ah, this is too much!" she exclaimed. "If you don't stop these ridiculousjokes at once I'll make Neville call you out upon the field of battle." ...But a little while afterward Celeste whispered in my ear that herbrothers had said truly. At thirteen years Tonton, eldest daughter ofCommandant Louis de Blanc and sister of Chevalier de Blanc, had beenespoused to Dr. du Rocher, at least forty years older than she. He wasrich, and two years later he died, leaving all his fortune to hiswidow.... One after another Madame de la Houssaye introduced to us atleast twenty persons, the most of whose names, unfortunately, I haveforgotten. I kept notes, but have mislaid them....
A few moments before dinner the countess re-appeared among us, followed bytwo servants in livery bearing salvers of fruit; and while we ate sheseated herself at the harpsichord and played.
"Do you sing?" she asked me.
"A little, madame."
[The two sisters sang a song together.]
"Children," she cried, "tell me, I pray you, who taught you that duet?"
"A young French lady, one of our friends," replied Suzanne.
"But her name! What is her name?"
"Madame Carpentier."
The name meant nothing to her. She sighed, and asked us to sing on.... Atdinner we met again my father and the count. After dinner the countesssent for me to come to her chamber while she was nursing her babe. After afew unimportant words she said:
"You have had your lessons from a good musician."
"Yes, madame, our friend plays beautifully on the harp."
"On the harp! And you say her name is--"
"Madame Joseph Carpentier."
"It is strange," said Madame de la Houssaye. "The words of your duet areby me, and the music by my friend the Viscomptesse Alix de Morainville.All manner of things have happened in this terrible Revolution; I had fora moment the hope that she had found chance to emigrate and that you hadmet her. Do you know M. Carpentier?"
"Yes, madame; he was with her. He is--in fact--a laboring gardener."
"Oh! then there is no hope. I had the thought of a second marriage, butAlix de Morainville could never stoop so low. Poor, dear, innocent littleAlix! She must be dead--at the hand of butchers, as her father and herhusband are."
When we returned to the joyous company in the garden all wanted to speakat once. The countess imposed silence, and then Tonton informed us that agrand ball was proposed in our honor, to be given in the large dining-roomof Mr. Morphy's tavern, under the direction of Neville Declouet, thefollowing Monday--that is, in four days.
Oh, that ball! I lay my pen on the table and my head in my hands and seethe bright, pretty faces of young girls and richly clad cavaliers, andhear the echoes of that music so different from what we have to-day. Alas!the larger part of that company are sleeping now in the cemetery of St.Martinville.
Wherever you went, whoever you met, the ball was the subject of allconversation. All the costumes, masculine and feminine, were prepared inprofound secrecy. Each one vowed to astonish, dazzle, surpass hisneighbor. My father, forgetting the presents from Alix, gave us ever somuch money and begged Madame du Clozel to oversee our toilets; but whatwas the astonishment of the dear baroness to see us buy only some vials ofperfumery and two papers of pins. We paid ten dollars for each vial andfifteen for the pins!
Celeste invited us to see her costume the moment it reached her. Itcertainly did great honor to the dressmaker of St. Martinville. The dresswas simply made, of very fine white muslin caught up _en paniers_ on askirt of blue satin. Her beautiful black hair was to be fastened with apearl comb, and to go between its riquettes she showed us two bunches offorget-me-nots as blue as her eyes. The extremely long-pointed waist ofher dress was of the same color as the petticoat, was decollete, and onthe front had a drapery of white muslin held in place by a bunch offorget-me-nots falling to the end of the point. In the whole village shecould get no white gloves. She would have to let that pass and show herround white arms clasped with two large bracelets of pearls. She showedalso a necklace and earrings of pearls.
Madame du Clozel, slave to the severe etiquette of that day, did notquestion us, but did go so far as to say in our presence that camayeu wasnever worn at night.
"We know that, madame," replied my sister, slightly hurt. We decided toshow our dresses to our hostess. We arranged them on the bed. When thebaroness and her daughter entered our chamber they stood stupefied. Thebaroness spoke first.
"Oh, the villains! How they have fooled us! These things are worthy of aqueen. They are court costumes."
I said to myself, "Poor, dear little Alix!"
FOOTNOTES:[17] Ancestor of the late Judge Alcibiade de Blanc of St. Martinville,noted in Reconstruction days.--TRANSLATOR.[18] By avoiding the Spanish custom-house.--TRANSLATOR.[19] This seems to be simply a girl's thoughtless guess. She reports Alixas saying that Madelaine and she "were married nearly at the same time."But this tiny, frail, spiritual Alix, who between twenty-two andtwenty-three looked scant sixteen, could hardly, even in those times, havebeen married under the age of fifteen, that is not before 1787-8; whereasif Madelaine had been married thirteen years she would have been marriedwhen Alix was but ten years old.
This bit of careless guessing helps to indicate the genuineness of Alix'shistory. For when, by the light of Francoise's own statements, we correctthis error--totally uncorrected by any earlier hand--the correction agreesentirely with the story of Alix as told in the separate manuscript. ThereAlix is married in March, 1789, and Madelaine about a year before. Inmidsummer, 1795, Madelaine had been married between seven and eight yearsand her infant was, likely enough, her fourth child.--TRANSLATOR.
[20] The memoirist omits to say that this person was NevilleDeclouet.--TRANSLATOR.