It must be confessed that some damsels from Red River wore diamonds at breakfast; and that young ladies from Ohio would drive tandem to the lake! And then their laughs and jokes at a soiree would give a dowager from Frenchtown an apoplexy!
Que voulez vous? Pork is mighty! and cotton was king!
There was much difference of opinion as to the morals of the Crescent City. For my own part, I do not think the men were more dissipated than elsewhere, though infinitely more wedded to enjoyment and fun in every form. There was the French idea prevalent that gambling was no harm; and it was indulged to a degree certainly hurtful to many and ruinous to some. From the climate and the great prevalence of light wines, there was less drunkenness than in most southern towns; and if other vices prevailed to any great extent—they were either gracefully hidden, or so sanctioned by custom as to cause no remark, except by straight-laced strangers.
Oh! the delicious memories of the city of old! The charming cordiality to be found in no colder latitude, the cosy breakfasts that prefaced days of real enjoyment—the midnight revels of the bal masqué! And then the carnival!—those wild weeks when the Lord of Misrule wields his motley scepter—leading from one reckless frolic to another till Mardi Gras culminates in a giddy whirl of delirious fun on which, at midnight, Lent drops a somber veil!
Sad changes the war has wrought since then!
The merry "Krewe of Comus" has been for a time replaced by the conquering troops of the Union; the salons where only the best and brightest had collected have been sullied by a conquering soldiery; and their leader has waged a vulgar warfare on the noble womanhood his currish spirit could not gaze upon without a fruitless effort to degrade.
Of the resident ladies, I can only say that to hear of a fast one—in ordinary acceptation of that term—was, indeed, rare.
The young married woman monopolized more of the society and its beaux than would be very agreeable to New York belles; but, if they borrowed this custom from their French neighbors, I have not heard that they also took the license of the Italian.
Public and open improprieties were at once frowned down, and people of all grades and classes seemed to make their chief study good taste. This is another French graft, on a stem naturally susceptible, of which the consequences can be seen from the hair ribbon of the bonne to the decoration of the Cathedral.
The women of New Orleans, as a rule, dress with more taste—more perfect adaptation of form and color to figure and complexion—than any in America. On a dress night at the opera, at church, or at a ball, the toillettes are a perfect study in their exquisite fitness—their admirable blending of simplicity and elegance. Nor is this confined to the higher and more wealthy classes. The women of lower conditions are admirably imitative; and on Sunday afternoons, where they crowd to hear the public bands with husbands and children, all in their best, it is the rarest thing to see a badly-trimmed bonnet or an ill-chosen costume. The men, in those days, dressed altogether in the French fashion; and were, consequently, the worst dressed in the world.