University of Virginia Library

THE
QUADROON OF ORLEANS.
A TALE.

1. I.

The last solemn peal of the organ ceased; the worshippers
rose from the pavement; the priest descended
from the altar; the candles were extinguished, and the
mass for that day was over. Slowly the dense cloud
passed out, and silence and solitude took the place of
the murmur of the late worshipping assembly.

Two persons yet remained. One of these, a female,
was prostrate before an image of the virgin, her forehead
laid against the marble floor. She was in deep
black, and a rich veil fell in thick folds and hid her
face, which, if in harmony with the exquisite symmetry
of her figure, could not be less than beautiful. A
lovely woman kneeling in prayer, is, at all times, an
interesting sight; but when she is clothed in mourning,
(which gives to women that kind of effect, which
in a temple is produced by “dim, religious light,”)
the sight is peculiarly touching, and not unfrequently
is vested with the power to awaken the finest emotions
of our hearts, and make even the sceptic ask of
himself, if a religion, that numbers among its votaries
such grace and beauty, may not have its foundation
in truth?

Such at least were the thoughts passing through the
mind of a handsome young man who leaned against
a pillar not far off, with his eyes fixed on the kneeling
devotee. His head was uncovered, leaving free
masses of rich brown hair, that fell to his shoulders. A
slight mustache curved above his well-shaped mouth.
His figure was tall; his brow fair and open; his dress
in the latest foreign fashion; and an air of high breeding,
combined with a certain haughtiness of carriage,
and his foreign appearance, marked him as one of the
French nobles who had fled from their country to
escape the guillotine, which was daily drunk with the
best blood of France.

2. II.

Our story is laid in New Orleans at the close of the
year 1793. The city, during the ascendancy of Robespierre,
became the refuge of many of the oldest
families of the ancien régime. The young Baron
Championet left Paris in disguise, just five minutes
before the myrmidons of Robespierre entered his
hotel. The ship in which he took passage at Havre,
arrived at the levee in New Orleans as the bell was
ringing for mass. Stepping on shore, he fell gradually
into the moving current of people, and was borne towards
the Cathedral. He entered it with the rest—for
he bethought him, as its venerable towers met his
eye, that he would return thanks for his safe passage.
Eugenie Championet was a Roman Catholic; and like
all of his sect, he never neglected the outward signs of his
faith, whether his heart was religiously disposed or not.

In company with half a dozen others of every hue
and degree, the young baron dipped the tip of his
fingers in the marble vase of holy water by the staircase;
reverently made the sign of the cross on his forehead
and breast; and kneeling among slaves and artisans,
maidens and matrons, he bowed to the earth as

the Host was elevated, and mingling his own with
thousand tongues, worshipped this visible presence of
the Redeemer. Having disburthened his heart of its
weight of gratitude, he rose to his feet and gazed
about him. Presently an object nearer the altar arrested
and fixed his eye. With his chapeau bras beneath
his arm, and pressing his sword close to his side
to avoid entangling it among the throng of scarfs,
veils, and roquelaures, he slowly edged his way to the
upper extremity of the cathedral, and stopped with
his eyes resting on the most faultless female figure he
thought he had ever beheld. His practised glance had
singled her out from her station near the door, and
although he passed a score of houris, that opened their
large black eyes, and were ready to fall in love with
him, he took not his eyes from her he sought till he
came where she stood. Her face was turned from
him, and her fingers clasped a prayer book on which
she seemed too intent to look up. She stood so close
to the altar, that, without subjecting his movements
to particular observation, if not remark, he was unable
to get a sight of her features. That she must be
very lovely, the faultless proportions of her truly
feminine figure gave him no room to doubt.

3. III.

The services closed and the congregation departed.
The lady lingered to pray. Doubtless she felt more
than usually penitent that morning. As the echo of the
last footstep died away, apparently unconscious of observation,
she closed her missal, and crossing to the
shrine of Madonna, fell upon her knees before it. The
young foreigner softly approached, and leaning against
a pillar within a few feet of her, with his soul in his
eyes, and his eyes full of devotion, continued to gaze
upon her. Impatient at length to obtain a glimpse of
her face, he noiselessly approached the shrine and lingered

over a crypt, under a pretence of deciphering
the letters cut into the marble slab laid over it. The
echo of his step, light as it was, reverberated through
the vaulted pile, and caught her ear. She lifted her
head from the stone floor, the veil fell back from her
face, and the eyes of the two met. She rose in confused
surprise. The young man uttered an exclamation
of admiration at her strange and extraordinary
beauty.

She was very little above the middle height, with a
strikingly elegant figure, a lofty carriage, a superb
neck and bust, and surpassing symmetry of arm and
foot. Her age could not have been more than eighteen.
The soft olive of her complexion was just tinged with
the rich blood beneath. Her profile was accurately
Grecian, her lips a little too full, perhaps, but her finely
shaped mouth lost nothing of its beauty by their richness.
They were just parted in her surprise, and displayed
small white teeth; not that glaring ivory white,
which is so much admired by those who have not seen
such as here described, but of the liquid lustre of pearls.
Her silken eye-brows were penciled in perfect arches
over large-orbed, jet-black eyes, that seemed to float
in lakes of liquid languor. They were exceedingly
fine. Human eyes could not be finer. But there was
an expression in them, strange and indefinable; beautiful
yet unpleasing, as if a serpent had been looking
through the eye of a gazelle. Dark fires burned deeply
within, and the intensest passion there slumbered.
The singular expression of her eyes did not weaken
their effect on the susceptible temperament of the
young man, although he gazed into them with sensations
such as woman's eye had never before created
in his bosom. Her raven hair was gathered behind,
and fell in rich tresses about her finely shaped head.
She wore no bonnet, but instead, a black veil, that fell
from a gold comb set with precious stones, down to

her feet, which were remarkable for their small size,
high instep, and symmetrical shape.

As she encountered the ardent gaze of the young
man, the rich brown hue of her cheek, became richer
with the mounting blood. Hastily wrapping her veil
about her head, she passed him with a stately, undulating
motion, and by a side door, hitherto concealed
by a curtain, left the Cathedral, though not without
glancing over her shoulder ere she disappeared. The
baron did not hesitate to follow her. With a peculiar
ease of motion, in which grace and dignity were femininely
blended, she slowly moved along the thronged
trottoir of Chartres street. The style of her face; the
perfection of her person; the harmonious concord of
every movement; the queenly carriage; the uncovered
head; the basilisk fascination of her eyes, were all
unlike any thing he had ever seen, and altogether allured,
bewildered, and captivated him. His own elegant
person attracted the eyes of many a lovely woman
as he passed along, but he had no eye or thought for
any one but the devotee of the Cathedral. He lost
not sight of her, until he saw her enter, in one of the
most aristocratic districts of the city, a cottage-like residence,
like the most of those in New Orleans at that
time, adorned with verandahs, half buried in orange
and lemon trees, with glass doors and windows to the
ground; the whole thrown open, displaying within
apartments furnished with oriental magnificence. The
lady glanced one of her fine eyes towards him from
behind her fan, as she stepped up the verandah; he
laid his hand, between gallantry and sincerity, upon
his heart, in acknowledgment, impressed the dwelling
on his memory, and with a sigh turned away to seek
a hotel and deliver his letters.

4. IV.

An old French exile, M. Beranger, to whom one of
his letters was addressed, could not call on the Baron
Championet, but sent his son, a gay young Creole, to
welcome him to New Orleans. They dined together,
were soon fast friends. Over their wine, they began
to converse, as young men will do, of beautiful women.
The baron related his inkling of adventure in the Cathedral,
and ended with declaring himself irrevocably
in love, and hinted at matrimony.

His friend heard him through with composure, and
when he had ended, gave way to uncontrollable laughter.
The baron looked both surprised and offended,
when young Beranger, composing his features, said:

“Dark eyes, arched brows like satin, olive complexion,
slightly tainted with the rose, and a veil
thrown over her head.”

“You repeat my words, monsieur,” said the baron,
coldly.

“A veil only you are sure?”

“A black lace veil, that dropped to her feet. A becoming
mode, and one I wish to see take the place of
the unsightly bonnet with which the European women
choose to disfigure their heads.”

“You have fallen in love with a quadroon, Championet.”

“If `quadroon' be American for angel, by the mass!
you say truly!”

“Ha, ha, ha! Pardon me, my dear baron! I see I
must initiate you, or you will be getting into more of
these Cathedral adventures with dark-eyed devotees
veiled to the feet. First let us fill a bumper to your
olive-browned divinity.”

The toast was drunk with mock sentiment by the
one, and with genuine gallantry by the other.

“Now, my dear baron,” began the gay Creole,[1]
“you must know that there is among us a class of
citizens called quadroons. They are one-fourth part
African blood.”

“Saint Marie! You do not mean to say that—”

“Peace, my dear Championet. I will explain this
thing, so that you will thank me for the Mahomedan
paradise my words shall unfold to you. The descent
and blood of a quadroon is as follows: The offspring
of a white man and a pure negress, is what we call a
mulatto, or mulatress, according to the sex. The offspring
of the mulatto and pure white is a mustizoe,
pronounced mustife, and in this class I have seen blue
eyes and light hair, albeit the complexion might have
been somewhat objectionable. The offspring of the
mestizoe and a pure white, is termed a quadroon, or
quatreune, being four parts white, with one part (the
blood of the original African progenitor) black. By
these four removes the African blood has become
nearly extinct, and the quadroon shares the characteristic
traits common to the European race. The fifth
and sixth removes are also called quadroons; indeed
the term is applied so long as there remains the least
trace of the slavish blood. By the sixth generation,
however, it entirely disappears. I know some beautiful
quadroons in the fifth descent, who, save a certain
indescribable expression in the centre of the pupils of
their fine eyes, have the appearance of lovely Italian
women.”

“This singular expression,” interrupted the baron,
“struck me in the eyes of this superb creature.—What
it was I could not tell, but it had a strange effect upon
me.”

“It is the mark of the quadroon even to the sixth

generation, when all other signs of her African descent
are lost. I have tried to analyze it, but like the
peculiar and undefinable expression that stamps the
Jewish physiognomy, it defies all explanation or analysis.
We often speak of the fine eye of a spirited
woman, as having a little devil in it. In the eye of
the quadroon there lurks the devil, but it is a wicked
one. I do not mean in the playful sense of the term,
but in its worst. Yet they show none of it in their dispositions.
They are warm hearted and full of passion,
and fire, but it is difficult to rouse them to anger. They
are, on the contrary, universally affectionate, good-natured,
and remarkable for a child-like simplicity of
manners, in which much of their fascination lies.
These quadroons of both sexes present, perhaps, the
finest specimens of the human race. The young men
are perfect Apollos. The females—but you have seen
one of them, and can judge for yourself. Notwithstanding
all this, such is the prejudice where Africans
are held as slaves, against admitting any of the blood
of this degraded race to an equality with ourselves,
that, however accomplished they may be, they are not
only interdicted from society, but the law against the
intermarriages of the white with the blacks, extends
equally to these. Many of them are the daughters
of gentleman of fortune, who lavish money on them,
rear them in the lap of luxury, and sometimes send
them to Paris to be educated. Abroad, some of them
have married rank and wealth. Last summer I met,
driving on the Prater of Vienna, the Countess—,
whom I knew as a quadroon in this city, till her thirteenth
year, when her father sent her to Paris, where
she completed her education, and as his legitimate
daughter married the Count—present husband.
She is called the most handsome woman in Austria.

“Prohibited from society here, and debarred marriage,
(for reared and educated as they are, of course
they will not marry the young quadroons, who are

lower in the social circles than even themselves, whose
own equivocal elevation is owing to causes easily to be
divined,) their maternal education consists in adorning
their persons; and, by their still lovely mothers they
are taught to regard beauty of person and the arts of
blandishment, as the highest qualifications of their
sex, and to look forward to the station of a mistress
with the same hopes, fears and sensations that a virtuously
educated maiden contemplates that of wife.
In fact, to their perverted minds, illicit love is divested
of guilt, and is connected neither with shame nor
moral degradation.”

“But the fathers? Have they no voice in this matter?”

“In this climate sixteen or seventeen years, when
their daughters are in market, (I speak plainly,) make
great changes in regard to most of these.—Death,
travel, or matrimony, gives the quadroon mother,
while yet young, to choose another protector and educate
her daughter as she pleases. When at the age I
have mentioned, the mother, who has kept her till
now in great seclusion, begins to cast about for a protector
for her. She allows her with this object in view,
to attend balls and masquerades, frequent public
walks, and go to mass, but always attended by a confidential
slave, or herself in person; while her eye is
ever watchful, and the reins of maternal vigilance are
drawn with careful hand, lest the daughter, from feeling,
should form an unprofitable liaison. It will
not be long before she attracts several admirers, and
proposals are made in due form to the quadroon mother—for
the system, as you will discover, is as regularly
organised and understood here, as that for the
buying and selling Circassian girls. In the choice of
suitors, three things are especially considered, viz: the
wealth, the respectability of the individual, and the
inclinations of the daughter. If there are possessions
on her side, that are not incompatible with the other

two considerations, her wishes decide the choice; for
it is the managing mother's desire, not only to get her
daughter well established, but established happily also.
When the suitor is fixed upon, the others are notified
that Mademoiselle is not at liberty to form engagements.
Then come the preliminary settlements, previously
agreed upon, between buyer and seller. Some
of these scenes, were it not for the moral degradation
with which they are associated, I doubt not, would be
extremely amusing. The two are closeted together
with pen, ink and paper. The mother, who has the
conditions drawn upon a piece of paper she holds in
her hand, insists on a house containing a certain number
of rooms, richly furnished, particularises each article
of their furniture, demands a certain number of
servants; bargains for a specific sum to be paid quarterly
to her daughter for pin-money, and insists that
she shall be indulged in all the expensive luxuries of
her class; many other things besides are agreed upon,
depending mostly on the taste, ambition and high
notions of the quadroon mother. In her care for
her daughter, she does not neglect her own interests,
but bargains for a present in hand for her own part,
such as an expensive shawl, a costly veil, a set of
jewels, or something of that sort. The suitor agreeing
to all this, pays a certain sum down, often so high as
two thousand dollars, and seldom less than one thousand,
and receives his unmarried but virgin bride.
From that time he openly lives with her, if unmarried,
save dining at the hotels.—If he is a married man, he
is more cautious. The quadroon mothers usually prefer
the latter class, as promising, their daughters a more
stable and permanent life, than it would be likely to
be, dependent on the roving caprice of a young bachelor.
Hundreds of young gentlemen, and I know not
how many with hymenial ties, live in this way in this
city.”

“A singular state of society.”

“Yes; and this facility of things is why we are such
a community of bachelors.”

“Are these quadroons faithful?”

“There has never been known among them a single
instance to the contrary. Indeed, their attachment in
these cases is proverbial.”

The young man balanced his wine glass on his forefinger,
and mused awhile; then abruptly speaking he
said.”

“Do you think the lovely creature I saw this morning
is one of this class?”

His countenance was so expressive of mingled doubt
and hope as he waited for a reply, that the lively creole
smiled as he answered.

“Yes. Her veil marks her, if nothing more.—Quadroons
alone wear veils. Why, I know not, unless bonnets
are prohibited to this class as well as to the slaves,
which I believe is the case, but whether by the municipal
law, or the stronger one of public opinion,
I am not prepared to say. The extraordinary beauty
of many of these women has been noised abroad, and
if common fame speaks the truth, has been the subject
of convivial conversation even with one or two
of the princes of the royal family who have been
here. Apropos, I could tell a tale here if I would.
But another time.”

“It is strange,” said the baron, thoughtfully, “that
a trait scarcely discernible, except to the initiated,
should shut them out of society.”

“The cause, if we look closely into the subject, does
not lie so much in the drop of African blood in their
veins, as the fact that they are descended, at least on
one side, from slaves. Indeed, many quadroons are
really slaves, whose maternal ancestors have been for
generations in the same family. If the mother be a
slave, say our laws, so is the offspring, no matter what
its hue may be. A prejudice so deeply founded as
that against slavish blood, will forever resist reason.

It is true the quadroons are its victims. Its tendency,
doubtless, is to preserve the purity of society, but I do
not know if its effects are not more than balanced by
the laxity of morals it originates and fosters. But a
truce to this prosing. It is now near sunset, and the
population is all out of doors to enjoy the cool of the
evening. If we walk in the direction of the dwelling
of your inamorata, we shall find her no doubt in the
verandah. I think, from your glowing description of
her, I can divine who she is. If it is Emilie, as I believe,
she is a prize worth winning and wearing.”

5. V.

The young gentlemen sallied forth together, and arm
in arm lounged carelessly along the street towards the
abode of the devotee. It was near sunset, and the
doors, balconies and verandahs of that gay city were
animated with cheerful people, and brilliant with
beauty. Families were gathered in their own doors
or about a neighbor's, standing or sitting in groups
gossiping and taking the air. Young, bonnetless girls
laughed and talked with one another across the street,
or smiled at passing beaux. Children every where
played up and down the side walks; the artisan, his
apron thrown aside, sat in his open shop window and
smoked his cigar, or chatted with a neighbor: all was
cheerfulness, hilarity and content. One would have
thought there was not in the whole town a sad heart.

Beranger bowed to nearly every other pretty woman
he saw in the overhanging balconies, while his elegant
companion drew after him many a dark eye, and
caused many an inquiry to be passed along the galaxy
of beauty, of who might be the handsome cavalier.

They arrived at Rue de —, and Championet
pointed to the residence of the devotee.

“'Tis Emilie!” cried the other. “She is scarcely

seventeen, and though 'tis not two months since she
made her first appearance in public, she has already
had half New-Orleans at her feet. But her mother,
deviating from the usual mode, has left her to her own
choice, of course subject to her sanction. So the lovely
quadroon will not sell her person save to the bold
cavalier who shall first steal her heart. Courage, mon
ami! From what you have told me, you have already
made an impression. You are a stranger here, and
women, if you have noticed, always like strangers.”

The young gentlemen approached the elegant residence
of the fair quadroon, and in one month afterwards
the gay baron Championet boasted the finest
establishment and the lovliest mistress in New-Orleans.

6. VI.

The death of Robespierre, by the guillotine, July
28, 1794, was the signal for the return of the French
exiles. The Baron Championet, settling upon Emilie
a noble income, took passage for France, promising,
so soon as he should arrange his effects, to send for
her. Absence is like the waters of Lethe, to most
men. The stirring times he encountered on his return
to France, left him little time for love and dalliance.
He recovered his confiscated estates, entered the army,
rose rapidly to distinction, and in twelve months
Emilie was forgotten. He became suitor for the hand
of the only daughter of a neighboring noble, whose
broad lands seemed only wanting to make his own
patrimony a princely domain, and, as in New-Orleans
he had loved for love's sake, so in France he married
for mammon's sake. A son was the fruit of the politic
union. The baron, now General Championet, followed
Bonaparte in most of his wars, and his thoughts
never wandered to the lovely quadroon, save when

some dark eyed Italian in his southern campaigns,
forcibly recalled her to his mind.

7. VII.

A few months after the departure of the baron,
Emilie gave birth to a daughter. During the long
period of his intimacy with the beautiful quadroon,
he had taken pleasure in storing her mind with the
nobler branches of literature, and elevating the standard
of her intellect. He taught her to reason and to
reflect. After his departure, reason and reflection became
to her the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. For the first time she began to view in its true
light her moral and social degradation. She loathed
herself, and passed hours in unavailing tears. She
was proud, and her pride was humbled, her spirit
broken. One evening she veiled herself, and went to
the Cathedral. Kneeling on the spot where she had
first seen the young foreigner, she made a solemn vow
to the Virgin, “that her daughter should never know
her mother's degradation nor the race from which she
herself had sprung.” She rose and returned home
with a lighter heart and a firm purpose.

When the little Louisa was in her fifth year, she
left New Orleans, where the fulfilment of her vow
would have been impossible, and went to the Havanna;
from whence she took passage to Marseilles, and
then proceeded to Paris. Here as Madame D'Avigny,
and representing herself as the widow of a West
India planter, she took up her abode, and pursued the
education of her daughter. Her income was great,
and the style of her establishment had scarcely a rival
in Paris. She gave soirées, was courted, and when,
at the age of nineteen, Louise came out, a new star in
the constellation of fashion, the saloons of Madame
D'Avigny were among the most thronged and celebrated

in Paris. The beauty of Louise now became
the universal theme, and in all public places she was
the “cynosure of all eyes.”

8. VIII.

One morning shortly after the introduction of the
lovely quadroon into the fashionable world of Paris, a
noble looking and extremely handsome young man,
not more than twenty one years of age, was idly promenading
one of the less frequented streets of Paris,
when his attention was drawn to an elegant and well
appointed equipage that stopped just before him,
not far from the door of the cathedral.—Two ladies
descended from it and approached the church, to
which the obstruction of a line of carriages lining the
pavé prevented the coachman from coming closer.
One of them was an elegant shaped woman, who
moved with the slow and stately measure becoming
a queen. By her side moved a less stately figure, but
what was lost in dignity was made up in grace and
feminine delicacy. Her undulating movement, as she
gently stepped along, was the poetry of motion. Her
feet were the neatest, and prettiest, and smallest in
the world, and they left the pavement and lighted
upon it again with the lightness of a bird. The young
man quickened his pace and passed them. The face
that met his gaze, as he turned round at the door of
the church, was wonderfully fair. He thought he had
not seen its equal for that soft and dreamy loveliness
which is usually found in the climes of the south.
Her large black eyes, as she lifted them to the face of
the elegant young man, seemed to him like fountains
of love, with which her heart, like a deep well, was
full. The moulded bust, the rounded waist, the superbly
feminine figure, the shapely foot and hand, the
faultless neck and stag-like carriage of the fine head;

the indolent grace of every motion from the gliding
curve of each swimming step, to the fall of the fringed
lid, filled his soul with those delightful but indescribable
sensations which are the incipient workings of
youthful love. Aside from the charms of her person,
there was about her a something which strangely
drew his heart to hers. The emotion was mutual;
for, as she passed him to enter the cathedral, her eye
lingered on his face with singular interest.

The appearance of her companion was very little
less striking, though she must have been thirty-five
years of age. The full-blown rose was the emblem
of the one; the half-open bud of the other. From
their surprising resemblance to each other, they were
mother and daughter.

They advanced to a distant part of the cathedral,
and kneeled at different shrines. The young man,
who followed them into the church, approached the
shrine where the younger kneeled, and with a singular
union of boldness and timidity, and assuming a
look of playful submission that disarmed reproof ere
it rose to the lip, he knelt beside her. She started,
turned, and would have risen to move away from the
daring intruder, but the respectful yet tender expression
of his fine eyes, the elegance of his person, his
becoming humility, all pleaded in his favor. With his
hand laid on his heart, he awaited her decision. The
silent eloquence of his manner prevailed. She smiled,
dropped her eyes, and opened her missal. Her transparent
fingers trembled with agitation; the gilt leaves
fluttered, and the book fell from her hands. The
young stranger arrested it ere it reached the pavement;
and, opening it, returned it to her with his finger on
this passage:—

“Give ear unto me; my soul hangeth upon thee.
I will love thee all the days of my life. Incline thine
ear unto my calling.”

The maiden read it; raised her full dark eyes, and
smiled, while, with a mantling cheek, she placed a
finger carelessly on a passage. He caught it from her
hand, and read, with eyes that sparkled with delight,
the following verse:—

“I will dwell in thy tabernacle for ever; and my
trust shall be under the shadow of thy wings.”

He seized and pressed her hand to his heart, then to
his lips, and thus in one minute was consummated an
affection which contained all the elements of genuine
love; which some people think takes a year to grow,
when every body knows it is a plant that, like Jonah's
gourd, springs up in one night.

With the material before one, enough to fill two
volumes, it is difficult to write a mere sketch. We
must therefore, to keep within any bound, leave a
great deal of the filling up of our story to the imaginations
of our readers; to which, to begin with, we
shall leave the remainder of the scene in the Cathedral,
telling them, however, what doubtless they have
already guessed, that the elder lady was Emilie, the
quadroon, or as she was known in Paris, Madame
D'Avigny, and the younger daughter, the lovely and
widely famed Louise.

9. IX.

Two months had not passed after the love passage
in the Cathedral, when all Paris knew that the West
India beauty, Louise D'Avigny, was to be led to the
altar by a scion of one of the oldest houses in France,
the young Baron Caronde.

The day of the nuptials arrived, and before the altar
of the same Cathedral which had witnessed the first
meeting, the lovers stood surrounded by their friends,
prepared to enter into the marriage covenant.

The father of the bridegroom had been expected
from the army, where he was in command, to honor
the ceremony with his presence; but the rites could
not longer be delayed, and the priest opened his book,
and, after the imposing forms of the Romish church,
the marriage was solemnized.

Emilie embraced her daughter. Her vow had been
fulfilled. Her triumph was complete. At this moment
an officer of high rank entered the Cathedral,
and hastily approached the star. It was the Baron
Championet, now Marquis of Caronde. He embraced
his son, and was presented to the bride. He started
with an exclamation of surprise. But as he directly
recovered himself, and tenderly embraced her, his emotion
was supposed by the bystanders to have been
caused by her extreme beauty. His son next presented
Madame D'Avigny, or, as we better know her,
Emilie, who had been surveying his features between
doubt and eager curiosity. He advanced to take her
hand, when, fixing his eyes on her still beautiful face,
he recognized her.

“Emilie!”

“Championet!”

“Speak,” he cried, looking at Louise, “is she —”

“Your daughter. But, tell me! he! is he —”

“My son!”

A wild shriek filled the temple, and Emilie fell on
the marble floor, and the blood gushed from her temples
at the feet of the Baron Championet.

The surprise and horror of those around was raised
to a feverish degree of excitement and curiosity. But
Emilie never spoke again, and the baron kept the secret
locked up in his own breast.

Louise was removed to a convent, and in a few
months died of a broken heart. Her husband and
brother threw his life away shortly after in battle.

Such is the end of characters who really existed,

and the sad conclusion of a story founded on actual
occurrence. It has been written to illustrate, in some
degree, a state of society which once existed in New
Orleans, many of the most prominent features of
which are still retained.