University of Virginia Library

21. XXI.

“Do you attend the Theatre d'Orleans to night?”
inquired a young Bostonian, forgetful of his orthodox
habits—last Sabbath evening, twirling while he
spoke a ticket in his fingers—“you know the maxim—when
one is in Rome”—

“I have not been here quite long enough yet to
apply the rule,” said I; “is not the theatre open on
other evenings of the week?” “Very seldom,” he
replied, “unless in the gayest part of the season—
though I believe there is to be a performance some
night this week; I will ascertain when and accompany
you.”

You are aware that the rituals, or established
forms of the Roman church, do not prohibit amusements
on this sacred day. The Sabbath, consequently,
in a city, the majority of whose inhabitants
are Catholics, is not observed as in the estimation
of New-Englanders, or Protestants it should be.
The lively Orleanese defend the custom of crowding
their theatres, attending military parades, assembling

in ball-rooms, and mingling in the dangerous
masquerade on this day, by wielding the scriptural
weapon—“the Sabbath was made for man—not
man for the Sabbath;” and then making their own
inductions, they argue that the Sabbath is, literally,
as the term imports, a day of rest, and not a day of
religious labour. They farther argue, that religion
was bestowed upon man, not to lessen, but to augment
his happiness—and that it ought therefore to
infuse a spirit of cheerfulness and hilarity into the
mind—for cheerfulness is the twin-sister of religion.

Last evening, as I entered my room, after a visit
to two noble packet ships just arrived from New-York,
which as nearly resemble “floating palaces”
as any thing not described in the Arabian tales
well can—I discovered, lying upon my table, a
ticket for the American or Camp-street theatre,
folded in a narrow slip of a play-bill, which informed
me that the laughable entertainment of the “Three
Hunchbacks,” with the interesting play of “Cinderella,”
was to constitute the performance of the night:
Cinderella, that tale which, with Blue Beard, the
Forty Thieves, and some others, has such charms
for children, and which, represented on the stage,
has the power to lead stern man, with softened feelings,
back to infancy. In a few moments afterward
my Boston friend, who had left the ticket in
my room, came in with another for the French
theatre, giving me a choice between the two. I
decided upon attending both, dividing the evening
between them. After tea we sallied out, in company
with half of those who were at the supper-table,

on our way to the theatre. The street and adjacent
buildings shone brilliantly, with the glare of
many lamps suspended from the theatre and coffee
houses in the vicinity. A noisy crowd was gathered
around the ticket-office—the side-walks were
filled with boys and negroes—and the curb-stone
was lined with coloured females, each surrounded
by bonbons, fruit, nuts, cakes, pies, gingerbread,
and all the other et cetera of a “cake-woman's
commodity.” Entering the theatre, which is a plain
handsome edifice, with a stuccoed front, and ascending
a broad flight of steps, we passed across the
first lobby, down a narrow aisle, opened through
the centre of the boxes into the pit or parquette, as
it is here termed, which is considered the most eligible
and fashionable part of the house. This is
rather reversing the order of things as found with
us at the north. The pews, or slips—for the internal
arrangement, were precisely like those of a
church—were cushioned with crimson materials,
and filled with bonnetless ladies, with their heads
dressed à la Madonna. We seated ourselves near
the orchestra. The large green curtain still concealed
the mimic world behind it; and I embraced
the few moments of delay previous to its rising, to
gaze upon this Thespian temple of the south, and
a New Orleans audience.

The “parquette” was brilliant with bright eyes
and pretty faces; and upon the bending galaxy of
ladies which glittered in the front of the boxes
around it, I seemed to gaze through the medium of
a rainbow. There were, it must be confessed, some

plain enough faces among them; but, at the first
glance of the eye, one might verily have believed
himself encircled by a gallery of houris. The general
character of their faces was decidedly American;
exactly such as one gazes upon at the Tremont
or Park theatre; and I will henceforward
eschew physiognomy, if “I guess” would not have
dropped more naturally from the lips of one half
who were before me, while conversing, than “I
reckon.” There were but few French faces among
the females; but, with two or three exceptions,
these were extremely pretty. Most of the delicately-reared
Creoles, or Louisianian ladies, are
eminently beautiful. A Psyche-like fascination
slumbers in their dark, eloquent eyes, whose richly
fringed lids droop timidly over them—softening but
not diminishing their brilliance. Their style of
beauty is unique, and not easily classed. It is neither
French nor English, but a combination of both,
mellowed and enriched under a southern sky.—
They are just such creatures as Vesta and Venus
would have moulded, had they united to form a
faultless woman.

The interior of the house was richly decorated;
and the panneling in the interior of the boxes was
composed of massive mirror-plates, multiplying the
audience with a fine effect. The stage was lofty,
extensive, and so constructed, either intentionally
or accidentally, as to reflect the voice with unusual
precision and distinctness. The scenery was in
general well executed: one of the forest scenes
struck me as remarkably true to nature, both in

colouring and design. While surveying the gaudy
interior, variegated with gilding, colouring, and mirrors,
the usual cry of “Down, down?—Hats off,”
warned us to be seated. The performance was
good for the pieces represented. The company,
with the indefatigable Caldwell at its head, is strong
and of a respectable character. When the second
act was concluded we left the house; and passing
through a parti-coloured mob, gathered around the
entrance, and elbowing a gens d'armes or two,
stationed in the lobby in terrorem to the turbulent—
we gained the street, amidst a shouting of “Your
check, sir! your check!—Give me your check—
Please give me your check!—check!—check!—
check!” from a host of boys, who knocked one another
about unmercifully in their exertions to secure
the prizes, which, to escape a mobbing, we threw
into the midst of them; and jumping into a carriage
in waiting, drove off to the French theatre, leaving
them embroiled in a pêle mêle, in which the sciences
of phlebotomy and phrenology were “being” tested
by very practical applications.

After a drive of half a league or more through
long and narrow streets, dimly lighted by swinging
lamps, we were set down at the door of the Theatre
d'Orleans, around which a crowd was assembled of
as different a character, from that we had just escaped,
as would have met our eyes had we been
deposited before the Theatre Royale in Paris. The
street was illuminated from the brilliantly lighted
cafés and cabarets, clustered around this “nucleus”
of gayety and amusement. As we crossed the

broad pavé into the vestibule of the theatre, the rapidly
enunciated, nasal sounds of the French language
assailed our ears from every side. Ascending
the stairs and entering the boxes, I was struck
with the liveliness and brilliancy of the scene,
which the interior exhibited to the eye. “Magnificent!”
was upon my lips—but a moment's observation
convinced me that its brilliancy was an
illusion, created by numerous lights, and an artful
arrangement and lavish display of gilding and colouring.
The whole of the interior, including the stage
decorations and scenic effect, was much inferior to
that of the house we had just quitted. The boxes—
if caverns resembling the interior of a ship's longboat,
with one end elevated three feet, and equally
convenient, can be so called—were cheerless and
uncomfortable. There were but few females in
the house, and none of these were in the pit, as at
the other theatre. Among them I saw but two or
three pretty faces; and evidently none were of the
first class of French society in this city. The
house was thinly attended, presenting, wherever I
turned my eyes, a “beggarly account of empty
boxes.” I found that I had chosen a night, of all
others, the least calculated to give me a good idea
of a French audience, in a cis-Atlantic French theatre.
After remaining half an hour, wearied with a
tiresome ritornello of a popular French air—listening
with the devotion of a “Polytechnique” to the
blood-stirring Marseilloise hymn—amused at the
closing scene of a laughable comédie, and edified
by the first of a pantomine, and observing, that with
but one lovely exception, the Mesdames du scêne
were very plain, and the Messieurs very handsome,
we left the theatre and returned to our hotel, whose
deserted bar-room, containing here and there a
straggler, presented a striking contrast to the noise
and bustle of the multitude by which it was thronged
at noonday. In general, strangers consider
the tout ensemble of this theatre on Sabbath evenings,
and on others when the élite of the New-Orleans
society is collected there, decidedly superior
to that of any other in the United States.

Beside the theatres there are other public buildings
in this city, deserving the attention of a stranger,
whose institution generally reflects the highest
eulogium upon individuals, and the public. The
effects of the benevolence of the generous M. Poydras,
will for ever remain monuments of his piety
and of the nobleness of his nature. Generation
after generation will rise up from the bosom of this
great city and “call him blessed.” The charitable
institutions of this city are lights which redeem the
darker shades of its moral picture. Regarded as
originators of benevolence, carried out into efficient
operation, the Orleanese possess a moral beauty in
their character as citizens and men, infinitely transcending
that of many other cities ostensibly living
under a higher code of morals. In the male and
female orphan asylums, which are distinct institutions,
endowed by the donations of M. Poydras—in
a library for the use of young men, and in her hospitals
and various charitable institutions, mostly sustained
by Roman Catholic influence and patronage,

whose doors are ever open to the stranger and the
moneyless—the poor and the lame—the halt and
the blind—and unceasingly send forth, during the
fearful scourges which lay waste this ill-fated city,
angels of mercy in human forms to heal the sick—
comfort the dying—bind up the broken-hearted—
feed the hungry, and clothe the naked—in these institutions—the
ever living monuments of her humanity—New-Orleans,
reviled as she has been
abroad, holds a high rank among the cities of Christendom.

An original and able writer, with one or two extracts
from whom I will conclude this letter, in allusion
to this city says—“the French here, as elsewhere,
display their characteristic urbanity and politeness,
and are the same gay, dancing, spectacle-loving
people, that they are found to be in every
other place. There is, no doubt, much gambling
and dissipation practised here, and different licensed
gambling houses pay a large tax for their licenses.
Much has been said abroad about the profligacy of
manners and morals here. Amidst such a multitude,
composed in a great measure of the low people
of all nations, there must of course be much
debauchery and low vice. But all the disgusting
forms of vice, debauchery and drunkenness, are assorted
together in their own place. Each man has
an elective attraction to men of his own standing
and order.

“This city necessarily exercises a very great influence
over all the western country. There is no
distinguished merchant, or planter, or farmer, in the

Mississippi valley, who has not made at least one
trip to this place. Here they see acting at the
French and American theatres. Here they go to
see at least, if not to take a part in, the pursuits of
the “roulette and temple of Fortune.” Here they
come from the remote and isolated points of the
west to behold the “city lions,” and learn the ways
of men in great towns; and they necessarily carry
back an impression, from what they have seen, and
heard. It is of inconceivable importance to the
western country, that New-Orleans should be enlightened,
moral, and religious. It has a numerous
and respectable corps of professional men, and
issues a considerable number of well edited papers.

“The police of the city is at once mild and energetic.
Notwithstanding the multifarious character
of the people, collected from every country and
every climate, notwithstanding the multitude of boatmen
and sailors, notwithstanding the mass of the
people that rushes along the streets is of the most
incongruous materials, there are fewer broils and
quarrels here than in almost any other city. The
municipal and the criminal courts are prompt in
administering justice, and larcenies and broils are
effectually punished without any just grounds of
complaint about the “law's delay.” On the whole
we conclude, that the morals of those people, who
profess to have any degree of self-respect, are not
behind those of the other cities of the Union.

“Much has been said abroad, in regard to the
unhealthiness of this city; and the danger of a residence
here for an unacclimated person has been exaggerated.

This circumstance, more than all others,
has retarded its increase. The chance of an unacclimated
young man from the north, for surviving
the first summer, is by some considered only as
one to two. Unhappily, when the dog-star is in
the sky, there is but too much probability that the
epidemic will sweep the place with the besom of
destruction. Hundreds of the unacclimated poor
from the north, and more than half from Ireland,
fall victims to it. But the city is now furnished
with noble water works; and is in this way supplied
with the healthy and excellent water of the river.
Very great improvements have been recently made
and are constantly making, in paving the city, in
removing the wooden sewers, and replacing them
by those of stone. The low places, where the waters
used to stagnate, are drained, or filled up.
Tracts of swamp about the town are also draining,
or filling up; and this work, constantly pursued,
will probably contribute more to the salubrity of
the city, than all the other efforts to this end united.”