It had been the intention that the flag should remain there but a few minutes—just long enough to show that Upper Louisiana was French, and that France ceded it to the United States. But now Pierre and Auguste Chouteau, the older Papin, Dr. Saugrain, all the leading citizens on the gallery of Government House, gathered around Captain Stoddard and begged him, with trembling voices and misty eyes, to let the old flag stay for another day.
"Let us be Frenchmen for twenty-four hours," they begged, "and after that we will try to be loyal citizens of the United States, as we have been loyal citizens of Spain."
When Captain Lewis and Captain Clarke added their plea for the Frenchmen, Captain Stoddard willingly granted it, and stepping to the front of the gallery, he announced that for twenty-four hours the flag of the French republic would float over St. Louis.
Then broke forth a delirium of joy. Men threw their arms around one another and embraced and kissed in a fashion strange, indeed, to us Anglo-Saxons; and women fell into one another's arms and sobbed. The roar of the cannon had not ceased to roll over the heads of the people at intervals of every two minutes, and now the United States troops took their line of march up the Rue de la Tour to the fort on the hill (for though the American flag did not float from it, they were to hold it in the name of France); and the Spanish troops marched away.
The ceremonies for the day were over; the cannon ceased to roar, and Captain Stoddard who was now in possession of Government House, invited us all to stay to déjeuner. The meal was a long and ceremonious one, with the Spanish don on Captain Stoddard's right and one of the Chouteaus on his left, and I far down the table with some of the younger men; and through it all I was thinking of that first meal I had taken in St. Louis in this same Government House a year and a half before, and of the toast that roused such enthusiasm then; and every moment my impatience grew to get away and visit Émigré's Retreat and Madame Saugrain, and—the Rose of St. Louis.
CHAPTER XXX
THE ROSE OF ST. LOUIS
"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."