Strange True Stories of Louisiana

by George Washington Cable

  III.

  A TERRIBLE REVELATION.

  The house that joined Madame Lalaurie's premises on the eastern side had astaircase window that looked down into her little courtyard. One day allby chance the lady of that adjoining house was going up those stairs justwhen the keen scream of a terrified child resounded from the next yard.She sprung to the window, and, looking down, saw a little negro girl abouteight years old run wildly across the yard and into the house, with MadameLalaurie, a cow-hide whip in her hand, following swiftly and close uponher.

  They disappeared; but by glimpses through the dark lattices and by thesound of the tumult, the lady knew that the child was flying up stairwayafter stairway, from gallery to gallery, hard pressed by her furiousmistress. Soon she heard them rise into the belvedere and the next instantthey darted out upon the roof. Down into its valleys and up over itsridges the little fugitive slid and scrambled. She reached the sheer edge,the lady at the window hid her face in her hands, there came a dull,jarring thud in the paved court beneath, and the lady, looking down, sawthe child lifted from the ground and borne out of sight, limp, silent,dead.

  She kept her place at the window. Hours passed, the day waned, darknesssettled down. Then she saw a torch brought, a shallow hole was dug,--as itseemed to her; but in fact a condemned well of slight depth, a mere pit,was uncovered,--and the little broken form was buried. She informed theofficers of justice. From what came to light at a later season, it is hardto think that in this earlier case the investigation was more thansuperficial. Yet an investigation was made, and some legal action wastaken against Madame Lalaurie for cruelty to her slaves. They were takenfrom her and--liberated? Ah! no. They were sold by the sheriff, bid in byher relatives, and by them sold back to her. Let us believe that this iswhat occurred, or at least was shammed; for unless we do we must acceptthe implication of a newspaper statement of two or three yearsafterwards, and the confident impression of an aged Creole gentleman andnotary still living who was an eye-witness to much of this story, that allMadame Lalaurie ever suffered for this part of her hideous misdeeds was afine. Lawyers will doubtless remind us that Madame Lalaurie was notlegally chargeable with the child's death. The lady at the window was notthe only witness who might have been brought. A woman still living, whoafter the civil war was for years a domestic in this "haunted house," saysher husband, now long dead, then a lad, was passing the place when thechild ran out on the roof, and he saw her scrambling about on it seekingto escape. But he did not see the catastrophe that followed. No one sawmore than what the law knows as assault; and the child was a slave.

  Miss Martineau, in her short account of the matter, which she heard in NewOrleans and from eye-witnesses only a few years after it had occurred,conjectures that Madame Lalaurie's object in buying back these slaves wassimply to renew her cruelties upon them. But a much easier, and evenkinder, guess would be that they knew things about her that had not beenand must not be told, if she could possibly prevent it. A high temper, letus say, had led her into a slough of misdoing to a depth beyond all herexpectation, and the only way out was on the farther side.

  Yet bring to bear all the generous conjecture one can, and still the factstands that she did starve, whip, and otherwise torture these poorvictims. She even mistreated her daughters for conveying to them foodwhich she had withheld. Was she not insane? One would hope so; but wecannot hurry to believe just what is most comfortable or kindest. Thatwould be itself a kind of "emotional insanity." If she was insane, howabout her husband? For Miss Martineau, who was told that he was no partyto her crimes, was misinformed; he was as deep in the same mire as passivecomplicity could carry him. If she was insane her insanity stoppedabruptly at her plump, well-fed coachman. He was her spy against allothers. And if she was insane, then why did not her frequent guests attable suspect it?

  All that society knew was that she had carried her domestic discipline toexcess, had paid dearly for it, and no doubt was desisting and wouldhenceforth desist from that kind of thing. Enough allowance can hardly bemade in our day for the delicacy society felt about prying into one of itsown gentleman or lady member's treatment of his or her own servants. Whowas going to begin such an inquiry--John Fitz Miller?

  And so time passed, and the beautiful and ever sweet and charming MadameLalaurie--whether sane or insane we leave to the doctors, except Dr.Lalaurie--continued to drive daily, yearly, on the gay Bayou Road, tomanage her business affairs, and to gather bright groups around hertempting board, without their suspicion that she kept her cook in thekitchen by means of a twenty-four-foot chain fastened to her person and tothe wall or floor.

  And yet let this be said to the people's credit, that public suspicionand indignation steadily grew. But they were still only growing when oneday, the both of April, 1834, the aged cook,--she was seventy,--chained asshe was, purposely set the house on fire. It is only tradition that,having in a dream the night before seen the drawing-room window curtainson fire, she seized the happy thought and made the dream a reality. But itis in the printed record of the day that she confessed the deed to themayor of the city.

  The desperate stratagem succeeds. The alarm of fire spreads to the streetand a hundred men rush, in, while a crowd throngs the streets. Some areneighbors, some friends, some strangers. One is M. Montreuil, thegentleman who has so long been watching his chance to bring the law uponthe house and its mistress. Young D----, a notary's clerk, is another. Andanother is Judge Cononge--Aha! And there are others of good and well-knownname!

  The fire has got a good start; the kitchen is in flames; the upper storiesare filling with smoke. Strangers run to the place whence it all comes andfall to fighting the fire. Friends rally to the aid of Monsieur and MadameLalaurie. The pretty lady has not lost one wit--is at her very best. Herhusband is as passive as ever.

  "This way," she cries; "this way! Take this--go, now, and hurry back, ifyou please. This way!" And in a moment they are busy carrying out, and toplaces of safety, plate, jewels, robes, and the lighter and costlierpieces of furniture. "This way, please, gentlemen; that is only theservants' quarters."

  The servants' quarters--but where are the servants?

  Madame's answers are witty but evasive. "Never mind them now--save thevaluables!"

  Somebody touches Judge Canonge--"Those servants are chained and locked upand liable to perish."

  "Where?"

  "In the garret rooms."

  He hurries towards them, but fails to reach them, and returns, driven backand nearly suffocated by the smoke. He looks around him--this is no sketchof the fancy; we have his deposition sworn before a magistrate nextday--and sees some friends of the family. He speaks to them:

  "I am told"--so and so--"can it be? Will you speak to Monsieur or toMadame?" But the friends repulse him coldly.

  He turns and makes fresh inquiries of others. He notices two gentlemennear him whom he knows. One is Montreuil. "Here, Montreuil, and you,Fernandez, will you go to the garret and search? I am blind and halfsmothered." Another--he thinks it was Felix Lefebre--goes in anotherdirection, most likely towards the double door between the attics of thehouse and wing. Montreuil and Fernandez come back saying they havesearched thoroughly and found nothing. Madame Lalaurie begs them, with allher sweetness, to come other ways and consider other things. But here isLefebre. He cries, "I have found some of them! I have broken some bars,but the doors are locked!"

  Judge Canonge hastens through the smoke. They reach the spot.

  "Break the doors down!" Down come the doors. The room they push into is a"den." They bring out two negresses. One has a large heavy iron collar atthe neck and heavy irons on her feet. The fire is subdued now, they say,but the search goes on. Here is M. Guillotte; he has found another victimin another room. They push aside a mosquito-net and see a negro woman,aged, helpless, and with a deep wound in the head.

  Some of the young men lift her and carry her out.

  Judge Canonge confronts Doctor Lalaurie again:

  "Are there slaves still in your g
arret, Monsieur?" And the doctor "replieswith insulting tone that 'There are persons who would do much better byremaining at home than visiting others to dictate to them laws in thequality of officious friends.'"

  The search went on. The victims were led or carried out. The sight thatmet the public eye made the crowd literally groan with horror and shoutwith indignation. "We saw," wrote the editor of the "Advertiser" next day,"one of these miserable beings. The sight was so horrible that we couldscarce look upon it. The most savage heart could not have witnessed thespectacle unmoved. He had a large hole in his head; his body from head tofoot was covered with scars and filled with worms! The sight inspired uswith so much horror that even at the moment of writing this article weshudder from its effects. Those who have seen the others represent them tobe in a similar condition." One after another, seven dark human forms werebrought forth, gaunt and wild-eyed with famine and loaded with irons,having been found chained and tied in attitudes in which they had beenkept so long that they were crippled for life.

  It must have been in the first rush of the inside throng to follow thesesufferers into the open air and sunlight that the quick-witted MadameLalaurie clapped to the doors of her house with only herself and herdaughters--possibly the coachman also--inside, and nothing but locks andbars to defend her from the rage of the populace. The streets under herwindows--Royal street here, Hospital yonder--and the yard were thronged.Something by and by put some one in mind to look for buried bodies. Therehad been nine slaves besides the coachman; where were the other two? Alittle digging brought their skeletons to light--an adult's out of thesoil, and the little child's out of the "condemned well"; there they lay.But the living seven--the indiscreet crowd brought them food and drink infatal abundance, and before the day was done two more were dead. Theothers were tenderly carried--shall we say it?--to prison;--to thecalaboose. Thither "at least two thousand people" flocked that day to see,if they might, these wretched sufferers.

  A quiet fell upon the scene of the morning's fire. The household and itsnear friends busied themselves in getting back the jewelry, plate,furniture, and the like, the idle crowd looking on in apathy andtrusting, it may be, to see arrests made. But the restoration was finishedand the house remained close barred; no arrest was made. As for Dr.Lalaurie, he does not appear in this scene. Then the crowd, along in theafternoon, began to grow again; then to show anger and by and by to hootand groan, and cry for satisfaction.

  IV.

  The Lady's Flight.

  The old Bayou Road saw a strange sight that afternoon. Down at its fartherend lay a little settlement of fishermen and Spanish moss gatherers,pot-hunters, and shrimpers, around a custom-house station, a lighthouse,and a little fort. There the people who drove out in carriages were in thehabit of alighting and taking the cool air of the lake, and sippinglemonades, wines, and ices before they turned homeward again along thecrowded way that they had come. In after years the place fell into utterneglect. The customs station was removed, the fort was dismantled, the gaycarriage people drove on the "New Shell Road" and its tributaries,Bienville and Canal streets, Washington and Carrollton avenues, and sippedand smoked in the twilights and starlights of Carrollton Gardens and the"New Lake End." The older haunt, once so bright with fashionablepleasure-making, was left to the sole illumination of "St. John Light" andthe mongrel life of a bunch of cabins branded Crabtown, and became, inpopular superstition at least, the yearly rendezvous of the voodoos. Thenall at once in latter days it bloomed out in electrical, horticultural,festal, pyrotechnical splendor as "Spanish Fort," and the carriages allcame rolling back.

  So, whenever you and----visit Spanish Fort and stroll along the bayou'sedge on the fort side, and watch the broad schooners glide out through thebayou's mouth and into the open water, you may say: "Somewhere just alongthis bank, within the few paces between here and yonder, must be wherethat schooner lay, moored and ready to sail for Mandeville the afternoonthat Madame Lalaurie, fleeing from the mob," etc.

  For on that afternoon, when the people surrounded the house, crying forvengeance, she never lost, it seems, her cunning. She and her sleek blackcoachman took counsel together, and his plan of escape was adopted. Theearly afternoon dinner-hour of those times came and passed and the crowdstill filled the street, but as yet had done nothing. Presently, right inthe midst of the throng, her carriage came to the door according to itswell-known daily habit at that hour, and at the same moment the charmingMadame Lalaurie, in all her pretty manners and sweetness of mien, steppedquickly across the sidewalk and entered the vehicle.

  The crowd was taken all aback. When it gathered its wits the coach-doorhad shut and the horses were starting. Then her audacity was understood.

  "She is getting away!" was the cry, and the multitude rushed upon her."Seize the horses!" they shouted, and dashed at the bits and reins. Theblack driver gave the word to his beasts, and with his coach whip lashedthe faces of those who sprung forward. The horses reared and plunged, theharness held, and the equipage was off. The crowd went with it.

  "Turn the coach over!" they cry, and attempt it, but fail. "Drag her out!"

  They try to do it, again and again, but in vain; away it rattles! Away itflashes! down Hospital street, past Bourbon, Dauphine, Burgundy, and theRampart, with the crowd following, yelling, but fast growing thin andthinner.

  "Stop her! Stop her! Stop that carriage! Stop that _carriage_!"

  In vain! On it spins! Out upon the Bayou Road come the pattering hoofs andhumming wheels--not wildly driven, but just at their most tellingspeed--into the whole whirling retinue of fashionable New Orleans out forits afternoon airing. Past this equipage; past that one; past half adozen; a dozen; a score! Their inmates sit chatting in every sort of moodover the day's sensation, when--what is this? A rush from behind, a whirlof white dust, and--"As I live, there she goes now, on her regular drive!What scandalous speed! and--see here! they are after her!" Past fifty gigsand coaches; past a hundred; around this long bend in the road; aroundthat one. Good-bye, pursuers! Never a chance to cut her off, the swampforever on the right, the bayou on the left; she is getting away, gettingaway! the crowd is miles behind!

  The lake is reached. The road ends. What next? The coach dashes up to thebayou's edge and stops. Why just here? Ah! because just here so near thebayou's mouth a schooner lies against the bank. Is Dr. Lalaurie's hand inthis? The coachman parleys a moment with the schooner-master and hands himdown a purse of gold. The coach-door is opened, the lady alights, and ispresently on the vessel's deck. The lines are cast off, the great sails goup, the few lookers-on are there without reference to her and offer nointerruption; a little pushing with poles lets the wind fill the canvas,and first slowly and silently, and then swiftly and with a gratefulcreaking of cordage and spars, the vessel glides out past the lighthouse,through the narrow opening, and stands away towards the northern horizon,below which, some thirty miles away, lies the little watering-place ofMandeville with roads leading as far away northward as one may choose tofly. Madame Lalaurie is gone!

  The brave coachman--one cannot help admiring the villain'sintrepidity--turned and drove back towards the city. What his plan was isnot further known. No wonder if he thought he could lash and dash throughthe same mob again. But he mistook. He had not reached town again when thecrowd met him. This time they were more successful. They stopped thehorses--killed them. What they did with the driver is not told; but onecan guess. They broke the carriage into bits. Then they returned to thehouse.

  They reached it about 8 o'clock in the evening. The two daughters hadjust escaped by a window. The whole house was locked and barred;"hermetically sealed," says "L'Abeille" of the next morning. The humantempest fell upon it, and "in a few minutes," says "The Courier," "thedoors and windows were broken open, the crowd rushed in, and the work ofdestruction began." "Those who rush in are of all classes and colors"continues "The Courier" of next day; but "No, no!" says a survivor ofto-day who was there and took part; "we wouldn't have allowed that!" In asingle hour everything
movable disappeared or perished. The place wasrifled of jewelry and plate; china was smashed; the very stair-balusterswere pulled piece from piece; hangings, bedding and table linen weretossed into the streets; and the elegant furniture, bedsteads, wardrobes,buffets, tables, chairs, pictures, "pianos," says the newspaper, weretaken with pains to the third-story windows, hurled out andbroken--"smashed into a thousand pieces"--upon the ground below. The verybasements were emptied, and the floors, wainscots, and iron balconiesdamaged as far as at the moment they could be. The sudden southernnightfall descended, and torches danced in the streets and through theruined house. The debris was gathered into hot bonfires, feather-beds werecut open, and the pavements covered with a thick snow of feathers. Thenight wore on, but the mob persisted. They mounted and battered the roof;they defaced the inner walls. Morning found them still at their senselessmischief, and they were "in the act of pulling down the walls when thesheriff and several citizens interfered and put an end to their work."

  It was proposed to go at once to the houses of others long suspected oflike cruelties to their slaves. But against this the highest gentility ofthe city alertly and diligently opposed themselves. Not at all because ofsympathy with such cruelties. The single reason has its parallel in ourown day. It was the fear that the negroes would be thereby encouraged toseek by violence those rights which their masters thought it not expedientto give them. The movement was suppressed, and the odious parties weremerely warned that they were watched.

  Madame Lalaurie, we know by notarial records, was in Mandeville ten daysafter, when she executed a power of attorney in favor of her New Orleansbusiness agent, in which act she was "authorized and assisted by herhusband, Louis Lalaurie." So he disappears.

  His wife made her way to Mobile--some say to the North--and thence toParis. Being recognized and confronted there, she again fled. The rest ofher story is tradition, but comes very directly. A domestic in a Creolefamily that knew Madame Lalaurie--and slave women used to enjoy greatconfidence and familiarity in the Creole households at times--tells thatone day a letter from Prance to one of the family informed them thatMadame Lalaurie, while spending a season at Pau, had engaged with a partyof fashionable people in a boar-hunt, and somehow meeting the boar whileapart from her companions had been set upon by the infuriated beast, andtoo quickly for any one to come to her rescue had been torn and killed. Ifthis occurred after 1836 or 1837 it has no disagreement with HarrietMartineau's account, that at the latter date Madame Lalaurie was supposedto be still "skulking about some French province under a false name."

  The house remained untouched for at least three years, "ornamented withvarious writings expressive of indignation and just punishment." Thevolume of "L'Abeille" containing this account seems to have beenabstracted from the city archives. It was in the last week of April or thefirst week of May, 1836, that Miss Martineau saw the house. It "stands,"she wrote about a year later, "and is meant to stand, in its ruined state.It was the strange sight of its gaping windows and empty walls, in themidst of a busy street, which excited my wonder, and was the cause of mybeing told the story the first time. I gathered other particularsafterwards from eye-witnesses."

  So the place came to be looked upon as haunted. In March, 1837, MadameLalaurie's agent sold the house to a man who held it but a little overthree months and then sold it at the same price that he had paid--onlyfourteen thousand dollars. The notary who made the earlier act of salemust have found it interesting. He was one of those who had helped findand carry out Madame Lalaurie's victims. It did not change hands again fortwenty-five years. And then--in what state of repair I know not--it wassold at an advance equal to a yearly increase of but six-sevenths of oneper cent, on the purchase price of the gaping ruin sold in 1837. There isa certain poetry in notarial records. But we will not delve for it now.Idle talk of strange sights and sounds crowded out of notice any truehistory the house may have had in those twenty-five years, or until warhad destroyed that slavery to whose horridest possibilities the gloomypile, even when restored and renovated, stood a ghost-ridden monument. Yetits days of dark romance were by no means ended.