Louisiana History Collection - Part 1 (119 page)
“I assure you it is, among other things.”
The words were nearly lost in the beginning strains of yet another pavane. Glancing at the musicians, Félicité said in clear tones, “If I must dance with you, colonel, would it be too much to ask that the music be something more spritely, perhaps a French contredanse?”
Her voice was more carrying than she realized, for on either side of her the suggestion was taken up. “But yes, mais oui! A contredanse! French music! French!”
Whether out of loyalty or obstinacy, or simply because the officers were unfamiliar with the steps of the French dance suggested, the men in red set up a shout of “Pavane! Pavane! Spanish! Spanish!”
The voices rose to a babble. An irate Frenchman pushed a Spaniard. The Spaniard pushed him back. A woman screamed. There were shouts, and blows, and the sound of silver maces thumping on the floor for order. The crowd surged first one way, then another, swept by a sense of impending panic. Félicité was shoved aside by a portly man in wine satin with perspiration oozing from under his periwig. The next moment she was sheltered in the iron curve of Colonel McCormack’s arm. He stared down at her, a hard glitter of accusation in his emerald eyes. Suddenly the thunderous crash of muskets going off in the enclosed room reverberated against the walls. Splinters flew from the ceiling, and the chandeliers swung crazily with a tinkling of crystal lusters that was loud in the abrupt silence.
The crowd turned toward the canopied chair where O’Reilly had been sitting. Wreathed in the blue-gray smoke of discharged gunpowder, he stood facing them, flanked on either side by soldiers holding muskets that still smoked.
“The evening,” the new governor-general of Louisiana said deliberately, “is over. I bid you all goodnight.”
3THE MARKET WAS A hive of activity. As far as the eye could see, people were strung out on the ground in front of the earthen levee. Men and women were talking, gesticulating, shouting, and singing their wares that were displayed in carts, barrows, woven baskets, crates, and barrels, or strung up on poles. Germans from up the coast hawked fresh milk, butter, and cheese, as well as live poultry, root vegetables, and pickled cabbage. Indian squaws in beaded leather sold fresh-dressed venison, squirrel, and rabbit, as well as woven baskets of cane or split ash, and the powdered root of the sassafras used to thicken ragout and bouillabaisse. Acadians, newly arrived refugees expelled by the British from Nova Scotia, sold dainty embroidery, items of carved wood from spoons to carefully crafted cradles, also fresh-dressed frog legs, young pigeon squabs, the meaty tails of alligators, and fresh greens, scallions, and mushrooms gathered in the wild meadowlands, anything that might be had with few resources other than the use of their hands. From in and around the city there were figs, pears, and pomegranates as well as pineapples and bananas from the ships just in from Havana. Usually there were ample supplies of oranges and lemons, but the hard freeze two winters before had killed the trees to the ground and they had not yet recovered.
Félicité was interested in none of these things, nor in the hogsheads of molasses, the snail-shaped jars of olive oil, or the admittedly appetizing confections made with the native pecans by the free women of color. Her goal was the fresh seafood, and with Ashanti close behind her carrying a shopping basket, she threaded her way through the strolling shoppers toward the area where the fishermen always displayed their catch.
At one point she paused to inspect a shipment of laces, ribbons, and bolts of cloth boldly laid out by a British seaman. The merchandise was contraband, and subject to confiscation, since official Spanish policy dictated that the colony could trade only with vessels of Spain. Much the same policy had been in effect during the French regime also, but the arrangement had never been workable. It was impossible for the French or Spanish governments, so far away, to supply all their needs at prices they could afford. Trading with the British merchant vessels, as they sailed up the river to supply the English post at Natchez, had become a practice so much winked at that the ships had begun to tie up regularly for business at a certain spot near the city. Since the British territory actually began at Bayou Manchac above New Orleans, going to trade for the contraband was called “going to Little Manchac.” The conditions had also encouraged the operations of pirates in the gulf. These men who preyed on the shipping of other nations could always find a market for their stolen goods in New Orleans, where the need for everything was so great. Merchants did not scruple to take anything they could get, and without asking embarrassing questions. As a result, scarcely a month passed without some new atrocity committed by the pirates coming to light — women and children being set adrift in skiffs without food or water; young girls and nuns raped and carried off to the pirates’ island strongholds; boys horribly molested; men passengers keelhauled, tied to ropes and dragged again and again under the ship, or else tied to the anchor chains and left there while the great hook was cast overboard. It did not do to dwell on such things, however. It was a cruel world. People must eat and clothe themselves.
The heat of the day was growing as the sun advanced overhead. It brought forth ripe odors from kegs of rum and butts of wine, from half-eaten fruits and vegetable refuse that lay around the stalls, and also from the green animal skins that were tied in bundles or hung on willow stretchers. A small boy with mud between his bare toes and his shirt hanging out played with a crayfish, leading it on a string. A quadroon, dressed in blue lutestring and protecting her complexion with an enormous fan painted with gaming symbols, tripped by on the arm of a Spanish soldier wearing a quilted leather jerkin and a wide-brimmed hat of black beaver banded in red.
Ashanti touched Félicité’s arm. “If we are going to have the maître’s noon meal ready by the time he and M’sieu Valcour return from the house of the governor, we had best hurry.”
Félicité took the reminder in good part, giving an absent nod. Ashanti was right, though it had been difficult to tell, from the way the invitation that had come this morning was worded, whether the men would be invited to dine. It had been decided between Ashanti and herself to make a bouillabaisse. If the men returned to eat, fine; if not, it would not spoil and they could have it for their dinner.
They bought fresh oysters, a few crabs, a handful of shrimp, and two nice pompano. With these nestled in wet leaves, they turned homeward. Félicité had paused to smooth the silken yellow feathers of a parrot at the bird stall when a commotion arose at the far end of the market. People were gathering around a man who had come from the direction of the center of town. A few cried out as he spoke. Others looked stunned or turned to their neighbors with grim faces.
Apprehension touched Félicité. She glanced at Ashanti and saw her own fears mirrored in the dark eyes of the maid. Without speaking, they picked up their skirts and moved swiftly toward the growing mass of people.
“What is it? What has occurred?” Félicité asked a woman on me edge of the gathering.
“It is said by Reynard the tailor that all those men who went today to the house of the governor have been arrested, that they were lured there for that purpose. They say Spanish soldiers marched these men through the streets at the point of bayonets. He saw this with his own eyes, and followed to see what was to be done with them.”
The blood drained from Félicité’s face, but she had no time for weakness. As the old woman paused she said, “Yes, yes, go on.”
“You are the daughter of the merchant Lafargue, are you not? My heart overflows with pity for you, my dear. These men, the finest flower of the colony, the crème de la crème, were taken to the old barracks near the convent of the Ursulines. What happened to them then, no one knows.”
“Dear God,” Félicité breathed. Her father and Valcour, arrested. “I — we must go home. There may be a message.”
They hurried through streets that had abruptly emptied of people, echoing only with the sound of slamming doors, banging shutters, and the worried hushing of children. The half-timbered house with its jutting balcony was silent, however. There was no activity, no messenger, no missive delivered, though Félicité questioned the young upstairs maid until she was in tears. Of Dom, Valcour’s manservant, there was no sign. He had been sent on an errand by his master and had not returned.
The hours crept past. The items bought in the market were delivered to the cook in the kitchen in the rear courtyard. Soon the savory aroma of seafood soup wafted through the house, along with the smell of the long crusty loaves of bread that would be served with it. Noontime came and went and still there was no word. After a while, Félicité tried to eat, but it was impossible. Pushing her plate away, she sat staring at a fly that buzzed around it, seeing nothing.
Toward the middle of the afternoon, Félicité could bear it no longer. She sent Ashanti to the barracks to discover what information she might as to what was happening with the imprisoned men. The maid was not gone long. The barracks were heavily guarded. No one was allowed inside for any reason. Messages, for the time being, could be neither sent nor delivered. None could be certain exactly how many men had been taken by the soldiers at the governor’s house, but a number of others had been arrested in their homes, among them Braud, the printer, and Attorney General Lafrénière. Since facilities for prisoners were limited at the barracks, already overstrained with the influx of Spanish soldiers, several of the prisoners had been rowed out to the Spanish frigate, the vessel on which O’Reilly had arrived, now anchored in the river before the town.
Darkness settled over the streets. The green myrtle-wax candles burned late. Now and then a neighbor would come with a whispered rumor. Villeré, a planter from one of the outlying plantations, had been lured into town by a letter from Director-General Aubry and put into chains as he passed through the gate in the palisade. His wife, hearing of the arrest, had hastened to town. Learning he was aboard the frigate, she had herself rowed out to the ship, where she had pleaded to be allowed to see her husband. Villeré, hearing his wife’s voice, had tried to go to her, fearing she would be offered insult by the rough seamen. Struggling with his guards, he had been pierced by their bayonets. His bloodied shirt had then been thrown down into the skiff to Madame Villeré with the derisive comment that she was now a widow. Other, no less disturbing, tales had the prisoners undergoing torture during their interrogation, being stretched upon the rack or delivered to the thumbscrews.
It was impossible to sleep. Félicité and Ashanti bolted the doors and shutters and extinguished all candies save one in Félicité’s bedchamber. Félicité readied herself for bed; removing her clothing, bathing, donning a nightrail and dressing saque before she permitted Ashanti to brush out the long, shimmering strands of her hair. She could not bring herself to climb up on the feather mattress, however. This was the first time in her memory that she had been without male protection in the house when night deepened. Sometimes Valcour and her father were both out until quite late, but her father, at least, had always returned before she retired for the night.
Mending, setting fine, tiny stitches into the ruffles of one of her father’s shirts, or in a three-cornered tear in a tablecloth, occupied a length of time. The art of stitchery was something she had been taught by the sisters at the convent, something that required only a small part of her attention after so many hours spent perfecting the technique. Ashanti also plied her needle on the other side of the candle, though they did not exchange more than a half-dozen words.
The maid was of an age with Félicité; they had, in fact, been born in the same month. Ashanti’s mother had been Félicité’s mother’s own personal maid, brought with her as a part of her dowry on her marriage. The two children had grown up together; playing, learning, eating together, even sleeping in the same room until Félicité had gone to the convent. Closer than sisters in some ways, Félicité worried at times that the other girl had no real life aside from her duties. Ashanti did not seem to mind. She had been taught a number of things by her mother that the older woman had not seen fit to impart to Félicité, things of nature and the earth handed down from her African ancestors, or learned during her mother’s journey to the New World by way of the tropical island of Santo Domingo. She was content.
The death of Ashanti’s mother when the two girls were in their teens had caused a change in their relationship, since it was then that Félicité had assumed her role as housekeeper. The necessity of giving orders and seeing that they were carried out had solidified their positions as mistress and servant. Still, Félicité depended greatly on Ashanti. Without her quiet good sense and strength of will, the house would not have run with anything near its accustomed smoothness.