Five of these baronies were those of d’Hauterive, Broutin, Darby, Carrière, and Livaudais, roughly situated between what was known as Felicity Road and almost to Grand Route Wiltz (Louisiana Avenue).
These five plantations, called Faubourgs by the old French people, gradually became consolidated into three small communities fronting on the river, with residences built on lots into which the earlier farm lands had been divided. The communities were called Nuns, Lafayette and Livaudais. Then in 1833 these three communities joined forces to become the city of Lafayette and were so incorporated by an act of the state legislature.
Eleven years later, Lafayette annexed a small settlement on its upper boundary, the Faubourg de Lassaiz, which extended the city to what is now Toledano Street. Further expansion was blocked still later when the citizens of the next upper community, Faubourg Plaisance, voted very definitely not to unite with Lafayette City.
Although the municipal personality called Lafayette City has disappeared, the way of life it launched within the framework of greater New Orleans will remain as long as there is a New Orleans. There was the gay, industrious, hard-working, but pleasure-loving commercial part of old Lafayette; and the spacious, gracious section of the great homes, the ante-bellum and post-bellum houses of the area known as the Garden District.
Why did the uppermost plantation of those which formed Lafayette City become so desirable as a district of imposing and elaborate residences?
Contemporary sketch of Mme. Livaudais’ house set in lovely garden. Plantation home was never completed. Ruins were removed in 1863.
In the year 1816, the river crevassed at the Macarty plantation, several miles upriver from the Livaudais property, and its waters inundated most of the large holdings down to New Orleans. Among them was the great plantation of Jacques François Esnould Dugué de Livaudais, whose father and grandfather had been large landowners.
François de Livaudais had married just about the best catch any man could aspire to: Célèste, the daughter of Philippe de Marigny, the wealthiest man in Louisiana and perhaps one of the wealthiest men in all America. The marriage represented the union of two vast fortunes, and the couple began construction of the castellated, lavish plantation home on their country domain.
Perhaps the floodwaters dampened their ardor for a castle on the Mississippi to rival those of their ancestors in France. Perhaps it was something else. In 1825 the Livaudais were separated. In the settlement, Madame Livaudais received the plantation among other properties and funds. She moved to Paris, where as La Marquise de Livaudais she cut a wide swath, being among King Louis Philippe’s inner circle. Through her New Orleans attorneys she sold her plantation to a group of real estate entrepreneurs for $500,000. They engaged the eminent surveyor, Benjamin Buisson, formerly an engineer of Napoleon’s army, to lay out the plantation into streets and lots.