That brings me to the Favrot family. Judge Favrot was a prominent citizen of the parish, and his son, a law student when I knew him, was much above the average. I scarce should mention this family that I saw almost daily and knew so well in connection with the obscure Creoles of the simpler life that I met and knew quite as intimately. The judge, and his son, were violinists. It was no unusual thing for him to play dance music for us, accommodating old gentleman that he was! We always had to adjourn to Lafiton’s to “trip the light fantastic,” for there was a great barn of a room, with bare floor, and no furniture to mention, which they called le salon.
Mme. Doussan often visited friends, by rowboat, on the opposite side of the river. She felt the responsibility of the care of the young girls, so strangely placed in her hands, so she never embarked on her frequent visits by boat or voiture without the company of one she might have esteemed an incumbrance if I had not already been received into the holy of holies of her loving heart.
There were two families of Choppins we saw frequently. The daughter of one, quite a child then, became at a later date wife of Dauphin. The eldest son of the other Choppin family, a youth of less than twenty, was already studying medicine in the office of a country town doctor. We saw much of him, the bright, attractive fellow! as he used to row himself over to the impromptu dances in the Lafiton salon. Later his ambition carried him to Paris, and later still he returned, a distinguished physician and surgeon, to New Orleans. He was a devoted citizen also. None who heard his impassioned address, and his rendering in thrilling tones the inspiring “Aux Armes! Citoyens” of the Marseillaise from the steps of Clay’s monument, on Canal street, at the beginning of the war, ever forgot it.
Madame and I often visited other families in Baton Rouge, the Bonnecazes, Lanoues, Huguets and so on. As I remember, all lived over or in the rear of their shops. Very many families lived over shops in those days, not always over their own shops either. John Winthrop, a scion of the Massachusetts John Winthrop, and his aristocratic family lived over Symes’ lace store, on Royal street in New Orleans. There was a shoemaker’s establishment on the ground floor of the Miltenberger residence. My father’s family lived over an exchange broker’s office on Canal Street. In 1842, when a mob raided, or threatened to raid, banks and exchange brokers’ offices, the strong box of the firm in our basement was conveyed to my mother for safekeeping. But this was in New Orleans, and I see I am wandering from my Creole friends on the coast, where I delighted to visit with ma chère madame.
Twice during that lovely six months’ episode of my life, escorted by the doctor, we boarded the fascinating Belle Creole and made longer flights and longer visits to relatives of madame living beyond a voiture’s possibilities. Once it was to spend a few days with the Valcour Aimes at their incomparable home; at another time we had two never-to-be-forgotten days at Sosthène Allain’s, where I met two sweet girls of my own age. Then and there began a friendship that continued through our young ladyhood. We were three inseparable companions until three weddings sent us (as is the nature of things) on divergent paths. Celeste went to Paris, so remote then that she was practically lost to us. I do not suppose a single one of those who made those six months of my girlhood so happy is living to-day. Some have left no descendants; I do not know who has or who has not, but I pay this tribute to the Creole simple life, that seems in the retrospect almost ideal, and no episode of my checkered life is sweeter to recall.
Dr. Doussan was a botanist. His garden was the mecca of all lovers of plant life. I imagine it was excelled only by the noted grounds of the Valcour Aimes. Fruit and vegetables were sent daily in a skiff to the town market. Ma chère madame, in her black silk blouse volante and her cap, with stiff, fluted frill tied under the chin, often let me help her make the formal little bouquets for the market, the dear old stiff bouquets, flat as a plate and nestling in a frill of lace paper! The doctor spent hours in his cabinet with his botanical treasures. Daily I was summoned to read to him his Paris Journal, and to write a composition. No teacher could have been more painstaking; no scholar more appreciative.
Early in 1847 a nephew of the doctor’s arrived from France, a dapper, Frenchified youth of eighteen. The Doussans were childless, but they had adopted a young girl. At the time of which I write she was about my age, and was being educated at Sacré Cœur Convent. She was home only for Easter vacation. No one told me, no one even hinted it, but I intuitively understood that a mariage de convenance was planned for the dapper young Frenchman and the pretty blonde girl, and the visit was meant to introduce Marie to her prétendu; they seemed to accept the arrangement complacently, but I was most interested in watching the proceedings, and, to say the least, much entertained.
It was fully fifty years after these events when Doussan neveu and I met again, two old gray-haired folks. When the first frost of astonishment melted, and we could recognize each other, we had a grand time recalling places and people. How we laughed over the remembrance of the antics of the doctor’s pet monkey; and, oh yes! the voluble Lafiton parrot! For a brief hour we lived again the halcyon days of fifteen and eighteen. The following year Doussan passed away—severing for me the last living link that bound me to the simple Creole life, on the borders of which I had such a happy girlhood.