 | VIII. The South-west |  |
8. VIII.
Bachelor's comforts—A valuable valet—Disembarked at the Levée—A
fair Castilian—Canaille—The Crescent city—Reminiscence
of school days—French cabarets—Cathedral—Exchange—
Cornhill—A chain of light—A fracas—Gens d'Armes—An affair
of honour—Arrive at our hotel.
How delightfully comfortable one feels, and how
luxuriantly disposed to quiet,—after having been
tossed, and bruised, and tumbled about, suns ceremonie,
like a bale of goods, or a printer's devil, for
many long weary days and nights upon the slumberless
sea—to be once more cosily established in
a smiling, elegant little parlour, carpeted, curtained,
and furnished with every tasteful convenience that
a comfort loving, home-made bachelor could covet.
In such a pleasant sitting-room am I now most enviably
domesticated, and every thing around me contributes
to the happiness of my situation. A cheerful
coal-fire burns in the grate—(for the day is cloudy,
misty, drizzly, foggy, and chilly, which is the
best definition I can give you, as yet, of a wet December's
day in New-Orleans,)—diffusing an agreeable
temperature throughout the room, and adding,
by contrast with the dark gloomy streets, seen indistinctly
through the moist glass, to the enjoyment
of my comforts. I am now seated by my writing-desk
at a table, drawn at an agreeable distance from
feels so comfortably, as when ensconced in a snug
parlour on a rainy day.
A statue of dazzling ebony, by name Antoine, to
which the slightest look or word will give instant
animation, stands in the centre of the room, contrasting
beautifully in colour with the buff paper-hangings
and crimson curtains. He is a slave—about
seventeen years of age, and a bright, intelligent, active
boy, nevertheless—placed at my disposal as
valet while I remain here, by the kind attention of
my obliging hostess, Madame H—. He serves
me in a thousand capacities, as post-boy, cicerone,
&c. and is on the whole, an extremely useful and
efficient attaché.
Our party having safely landed on the Levée,
nearly opposite Rue Marigny, we commenced our
long, yet in anticipation, delightful walk to our hotel.
We had disembarked about a quarter of a league
below the cathedral, from the front of which, just
after we landed, the loud report of the evening gun
broke over the city, rattling and reverberating through
the long massively built streets, like the echoing of
distant thunder along mountain ravines. On a firm,
smooth, gravelled walk elevated about four feet, by
a gradual ascent from the street—one side open to
the river, and the other lined with the “Pride of
China,” or India tree, we pursued our way to Chartres-street,
the “Broadway” of New-Orleans. The
moon shone with uncommon brilliancy, and thousands,
even in this lower faubourg, were abroad, enjoying
the beauty and richness of the scene. Now,
laughing and conversing gayly upon some merry
subject, followed by a slow moving and stately
figure, whose haughty tread, and dark roquelaure
gathered with classic elegance around his form in
graceful folds, yet so arranged as to conceal every
feature beneath his slouched sombrero, except a
burning, black, penetrating eye,—denoted the exiled
Spaniard.
We passed on—and soon the lively sounds of
the French language, uttered by soft voices, were
heard nearer and nearer, and the next moment, two
or three duenna-like old ladies, remarkable for
their “embonpoint” dimensions, preceded a bevy
of fair girls, without that most hideous of all excrescences,
with which women see fit to disfigure their
heads, denominated a “bonnet”—their brown, raven
or auburn hair floating in ringlets behind them.
There was one—a dark-locked girl—a superb
creature, over whose head and shoulders, secured
above her forehead by a brilliant which in the clear
moon burned like a star, waved the folds of a snow-white
veil in the gentle breeze, created by her motion
as she glided gracefully along. She was a
Castilian; and the mellow tones of her native land
gave richness to the light elegance of the French,
as she breathed it like music from her lips.
As we passed on, the number of promenaders increased,
but scarcely a lady was now to be seen.
Every other gentleman we met was enveloped in a
cloud, not of bacchanalian, but tobacconalian incense,
which gave a peculiar atmosphere to the Levée.
Every, or nearly every gentleman carried a sword
cane, apparently, and occasionally the bright hilt of
a Spanish knife, or dirk, would gleam for an instant
in the moon-beams from the open bosom of its possessor,
as, with the lowering brow, and active tread
of wary suspicion, he moved rapidly by us, his
roundabout thrown over the left shoulder and secured
by the sleeves in a knot under the arm, which
was thrust into his breast, while the other arm was
at liberty to attend to his segar, or engage in any
mischief to which its owner might be inclined. This
class of men are very numerous here. They are
easily distinguished by their shabby appearance,
language, and foreign way of wearing their apparel.
In groups—promenading, lounging, and sleeping
upon the seats along the Levée—we passed several
hundred of this canaille of Orleans, before we arrived
at the “Parade,” the public square in front of the
cathedral. They are mostly Spaniards and Portuguese,
though there are among them representatives
from all the unlucky families which, at the building
of Babel, were dispersed over the earth. As to their
mode and means of existence, I have not as yet informed
myself; but I venture to presume that they
resort to no means beneath the dignity of “caballeros!”
After passing the market on our right, a massive
colonnade, about two hundred and fifty feet in
length, we left the Levée, and its endless tier of
shipping which had bordered one side of our walk
all the way, and passing under the China-trees, that
still preserved their unbroken line along the river,
running along the front of the main body or
block of the city, separating it from the Levée, and
forming a magnificent thoroughfare along the whole
extensive river-line. From this highway streets
shoot off at right angles, till they terminate in the
swamp somewhat less than a league back from the
river. I have termed New-Orleans the crescent
city in one of my letters, from its being built around
the segment of a circle formed by a graceful curve
of the river at this place. Though the water, or
shore-line, is very nearly semi-circular, the Levée-street,
above mentioned, does not closely follow the
shore, but is broken into two angles, from which
the streets diverge as before mentioned. These
streets are again intersected by others running parallel
with the Levée-street, dividing the city into
squares, except where the perpendicular streets meet
the angles, where necessarily the “squares” are lessened
in breadth at the extremity nearest the river,
and occasionally form pentagons and parallelograms,
with oblique sides, if I may so express it.
After crossing Levée-street, we entered Rue St.
Pierre, which issues from it south of the grand
square. This square is an open green, surrounded
by a lofty iron railing, within which troops of boys,
whose sports carried my thoughts away to “home,
sweet home,” were playing, shouting and merry
making, precisely as we used to do in days long
past, when the harvest-moon would invite us from
our dwellings to the village green, where many and
many a joyful night we have played till the magic
from the door of his little cottage under the elms,
“Laads, laads, it's unco time ye were in bed,
laads,” warning us to our sleepy pillows. The
front of this extensive square was open to the river,
bordered with its dark line of ships; on each side
were blocks of rusty looking brick buildings of
Spanish and French construction, with projecting
balconies, heavy cornices, and lofty jalousies or
barricaded windows. The lower stories of these
buildings were occupied by retailers of fancy wares,
vintners, segar manufacturers, dried fruit sellers,
and all the other members of the innumerable occupations,
to which the volatile, ever ready Frenchman
can always turn himself and a sous into the
bargain. As we passed along, these shops were all
lighted up, and the happy faces, merry songs, and
gay dances therein, occasionally contrasted with
the shrill tone of feminine anger in a foreign tongue,
and the loud, fierce, rapid voices of men mingling
in dispute, added to the novelty and amusement of
our walk. I enumerated ten, out of seventeen successive
shops or cabarets, upon the shelves of
which I could discover nothing but myriads of claret
and Madeira bottles, tier upon tier to the ceiling;
and from this fact I came to the conclusion, that
some of the worthy citizens of New-Orleans must
be most unconscionable “wine-bibbers,” if not
“publicans and sinners,” as subsequent observation
has led me to surmise.
On the remaining side of this square stood the
cathedral, its dark moorish-looking towers flinging
front of the large edifice was thrown into deep
shade, so that when we approached, it presented
one black mingled mass, frowning in stern and
majestic silence upon the surrounding scene.
Leaving this venerable building at the right, we
turned into Chartres-street, the second parallel with
the Levée, and the most fashionable, as well as
greatest business street in the city. As we proceeded,
cafés, confectioners, fancy stores, millineries,
parfumeurs, &c. &c., were passed in rapid
succession; each one of them presenting something
new, and always something to strike the attention
of strangers, like ourselves, for the first time in the
only “foreign” city in the United States.
At the corner of one of the streets intersecting
Chartres-street—Rue St. Louis I believe—we passed
a large building, the lofty basement story of
which was lighted with a glare brighter than that
of noon. In the back ground, over the heads of
two or three hundred loud-talking, noisy gentlemen,
who were promenading and vehemently gesticulating,
in all directions, through the spacious room
—I discovered a bar, with its peculiar dazzling array
of glasses and decanters containing “spirits”—
not of “the vasty deep” certainly, but of whose
potent spells many were apparently trying the
power, by frequent libations. This building—of
which and its uses more anon—I was informed,
was the “French” or “New Exchange.” After
passing Rue Toulouse, the streets began to assume
a new character; the buildings were loftier and
names, and the characteristic arrangements of
a northern dry goods store were perceived, as we
peered in at the now closing doors of many stores
by which we passed. We had now attained the
upper part of Chartres-street, which is occupied almost
exclusively by retail and wholesale dry goods
dealers, jewellers, booksellers, &c., from the northern
states, and I could almost realize that I was
taking an evening promenade in Cornbill, so great
was the resemblance.
As we successively crossed Rues Conti, Bienville
and Douane, and looked down these long straight
avenues, the endless row of lamps, suspended in
the middle of these streets, as well as in all others
in New-Orleans, by chains or ropes, extended from
house to house across, had a fine and brilliant effect,
which we delayed for a moment on the flag-stone
to admire, endeavouring to reach with our eyes the
almost invisible extremity of this line of flame.
Just before we reached the head of Chartres-street,
near Bienville, in the immediate vicinity of which is
the boarding house of Madame H —, where we
intended to take rooms, our way was impeded by a
party of gentlemen in violent altercation in English
and French, who completely blocked up the “trottoir.”
“Sir,” said one of the party—a handsome,
resolute-looking young man—in a calm deliberate
voice, which was heard above every other, and listened
to as well—“Sir, you have grossly insulted me,
and I shall expect from you, immediately—before
we separate—an acknowledgment, adequate to the
whom he had addressed, in French, “Monsieur, I
never did insult you—a gentleman never insults!
you have misunderstood me, and refuse to listen to
a candid explanation.” “The explanation you have
given sir,” reiterated the first speaker, “is not sufficient—it
is a subterfuge;” here many voices mingled
in loud confusion, and a renewed and more
violent altercation ensued which prevented our
hearing distinctly; and as we had already crossed
to the opposite side of the street, having ladies under
escort, we rapidly passed on our way, but had
not gained half a square before the clamour increased
to an uproar—steel struck steel—one, then another
pistol was discharged in rapid succession—
“guards,” “gens d'armes, gens d'armes,” “guards!
guards!” resounded along the streets, and we arrived
at our hotel, just in time to escape being run
down, or run through at their option probably, by
half a dozen gens d'armes in plain blue uniforms,
who were rushing with drawn swords in their
hands to the scene of contest, perfectly well assured
in our own minds, that we had most certainly arrived
at New-Orleans!
Though affairs of the kind just described are no
uncommon thing here, and are seldom noticed in
the papers of the day—yet the following allusion
to the event of last evening may not be uninteresting
to you, and I will therefore copy it, and terminate
my letter with the extract.
“An affray occurred last night in the vicinity of
Bienville-street, in which one young gentleman was
another slightly injured by a dirk. An “affaire
d'honneur” originated from this, and the parties met
this morning. Dr. — of New-York, one of the
principals, was mortally wounded by his antagonist
M. Le — of this city.”
| VIII. The South-west | |