LETTER XLIX.
New Orleans, La.
Dear Mr. —:
In this letter I will redeem my promise, to write a
description of the wedding at Chateau de Clery. We are
now—the whole wedding-party—in this city, waiting for
the Crescent City, in which we are to embark by way of
Havana for New York.
The hour for the nuptials was 4 o'clock on Thursday
last. At half past three, the cortége, in four open carriages,
started from the villa for the chapel, a mile down
the river-road. There were outriders, young gentlemen
of the vicinity, on prancing steeds, and at least two hundred
well-dressed slaves following on foot, and in the
greatest glee. The scene, the Levee-road exhibited, was
novel and interesting, with its varied population and gay
apparel,—for the negro women invariably wore scarlet,
or orange-colored, or sky-blue headkerchiefs, and the
men sported red or yellow waistcoats.
Isabel and her father, Isidore and myself, rode in the
first barouche. The bride looked charmingly, arrayed
in the richest white, embroidered crape, with a coronet
of pearls upon her brow, and bracelets, and necklace of
pearls. Over her head was thrown a veil of the purest
Mechlin lace, as superbly elegant as if woven of silver
gossamer and lilies interwined. She looked so happy, and
yet trembled so, that I thought one might compare marrying
to being drowned in Cologne-water, or hanged with
a perfumed cambric handkerchief! Isidore also looked
deadly pale, and then fearfully rubicund, and said, in that
short ride of a mile, more silly things than, I dare say,
he will say again, if he lives to be as old as Methusaleh.
Isabel kept silent, and feared to meet his eyes, which I
observed he never took off of her.
How simple going to be married makes a person look!
I am glad that I have yet escaped this nonsense, Mr.
—. By the way, the handsome young man whom I
saw in New Orleans on our former visit, intends taking
passage in the Crescent City to New York. He is certainly
a very modest and unassuming person, to be so
handsome and wealthy as he is;—and so intelligent and
highly educated. If I ever marry, Mr.—, (dear me!
what am I writing about? Oh! Isabel's wedding! People
can't always keep from having wandering thoughts,
though one prays never so hard against them).
As I was saying, Isabel looked very lovely and was
very silent. Old Bonus suddenly was heard howling
behind, trying, with all the other dogs of the family, to
keep up with the carriages. This doleful sound made
her look uneasy, and she glanced at me. At this moment,
the coachman, in giving his long, new whip a flourish
at some tame doves in the road, accidentally curled the
green silken lash about the neck of one of them, and,
with the backward movement of his hand, it came into
the carriage and directly into Isabel's lap! It was as
white as the driven snow, with a pink bill, and olive-brown
eyes. It was dreadfully frightened, but Isabel,
who looked upon it as a good omen against the howlings
of old Bonus, smiled, and drew it to her bosom soothingly,
stroking its cream-pure plumage with her white-gloved
hand. We all pronounced it a “good omen,” and Isidore
said, “he would have a cage of gold made for it,
put rings on its fingers and bells on its toes, and it should
have music wherever it goes.”
We all laughed at this absurd speech of Isidore, knowing
that he was too happy in his foolishness to know
what he said, and he had wits enough left to laugh, also
when he reflected a moment.
“Never mind,” said the colonel, “it is his wedding
day; and the most sensible men then sometimes play the
fool.”
Isidore smilingly bowed to the compliment, and we
drove up to the church, the dove being transferred to the
possession of the footman, who had instructions, both
from Isidore and Bel, to keep it with the tenderest
care, and take it to the chateau after the wedding was
over.
We found the front of the church thronged with the
guests, and in the background, the groups of curious and
happy servants, that mingle in all Southern scenes. But
how shall I describe to you the unlooked for reception
of the bride before the church!
The carriage stopped at the outer gate, fifty yards
from the entrance of the chapel. The gravel path was
lined with twenty-four young girls, dressed in pure white,
each having a wreath of white blossoms in her hair.
Each maiden carried a basket, filled with the leaves of
roses—heaped up. At the gate stood two tall, lovely
girls, holding aloft an arch wreathed with flowers in the
most magnificent manner.
Beneath this arch the bride and bridegroom passed,
and as they moved onward, the twenty-four maidens preceded
them and strewed the way with rose-leaves, so that
Isabel's foot touched not the earth, only flowers from the
gate to the chapel. Before the door stood two other
maidens, holding a chain of flowers, and, as the bride
and groom passed between them, they encircled them in
one flowery bond. Within the vestibule stood a beautiful
girl, who held two crowns in her hands, one of laurel-leaves,
the other of orange blossoms; and with them, she
preceded the bride and her twenty-four bridesmaids for
all these lovely girls were Isabel's voluntary bridesmaids.
Arrived at the chancel, they knelt before the altar, in
front of which stood the venerable Dr. —, in his surplice,
the prayer-book open at the place “Matrimony.”
The bridesmaids knelt, twelve on each side, in brilliant
crescents; and above their heads the two tall graceful
maidens held the arch of flowers.
The ceremony, that of the Episcopal Church, was
deeply impressive; and as the colonel, who was a Presbyterian,
said,
“It ties a couple together so fast and firm, that a
blacksmith's hammer and anvil couldn't unrivet them.”
After the ceremony, the venerable clergyman (and for
venerable, very old clergymen it is well enough perhaps)
kissed the bride; and, before Isidore could do so, I had
her sweet cheek; and then her father, and then the four-and-twenty
bridesmaids, “all in a row.” When Isidore
at length got his turn, I thought he would never have
taken away his naughty lips from her pretty, ripe mouth.
Dear me! what a difference just marrying makes!
I forgot to say that the maiden who held the wreath,
crowned the pair as they rose from their knees. The
“happy couple” had no sooner left the church, than the
maidens commenced a lively chaunt; the slaves crowded
round, and showered blessings on “handsome massa and
missis;” the birds in the old sycamores sang more
noisily and sweetly, and twenty times more lively than
ever before; the little dogs scampered and yelled with
joy, running under every lady's feet; old Bonus howled
most appallingly in his efforts to bark his compliments;
and the very horses of the carriage into which Isidore
and Isabel stepped, tossed their small heads more proudly,
pricked their delicate triangular ears with vanity, and
arched their necks with infinite pretension.
They were but a few minutes, the beautiful stag-hoofed
bays, in conveying us back to the chateau, at which the
whole wedding-party alighted, just as the sun went down
in a pearl-shell sky. A superb wedding-dinner, at 7
o'clock, came off, in a magnificently lighted hall, with
sixty guests, planters, their wives and daughters, from
the neighboring estates, two-thirds of whom were French,
which language was almost wholly spoken at the table.
In the evening there was a grand ball, in a true Creole
style, with a great deal of dancing and imbibing of
champagne. A fusilade of corks was kept up with great
spirit till midnight; arrows were shot from black eyes
into exposed hearts; and there was a great taking captive
of unsophisticated youth. Every orange-bower echoed
softly with the whispers of some stolen away pair; the
recesses of the piazza betrayed gentle forms half encircled
by a manly arm; and—but I won't tell tales, Mr.
—, for I should tell one on myself—for the elegant
young French gentleman, from New Orelans, was at the
wedding, and somehow or other I saw a good deal of
him in the course of the evening, and we had a charming
walk together on the banks of the dark, star-lit river!
Well, the third day after the wedding, we all started
for New Orleans, where we are now. We embark tomorrow
for New York in the Crescent City. After a
brief stay there, M. Isidore de Clery and his fair bride
proceed to Europe by the steamer. They have invited
me to accompany them, but my mission is done. Isabel
is no longer a pupil—at least not mine; how much soever
she may be her husband's—(for I believe all young wives
are, for the first two or three years, under tutelage, till
they learn and fall into their liege lord's “ways”)—I
shall not undertake to say.
After they leave for Europe, I shall return to my native
hills in New Hampshire, and settle down a village
old maid of twenty-two, and with the reputation, among
the simple folks, of being a great traveler.
