There were bonfires and rejoicings that night. And Lafitte also was a hero, though his crimes had been many and his robberies more.
And they had pictured great things of this Jackson in the interval; surely he was a man magnificent, in gold tinsel and booted and in velvet and stars—a new Napoleon, a Louis the Fourteenth, armed cap-a-pie, in a new land to avenge their old foe. They would now defy the British—let them come!—long live Jackson!
It threw them into renewed spasms of exertion. Things had been dead, but now they were alive again; and Major Planché, the intrepid, rushed around to harangue his brave guards and call upon them to defend their country to the last!
It was several days later before they saw him, and then their enthusiasm went the way of all French ebullition. For it was a small party of horsemen who came in on the road leading from old Fort St. John to the city, a gray-haired, sallow, emaciated, gaunt, but terribly in earnest man, riding at their head. One glance from the Creoles and they knew he needed treatment for malaria, and they wondered how he sat his horse at all. And his dress—this proud Napoleon—it was absurd! Great boots, too big for his feet and legs, threadbare uniform and a little leathern cap on his head!
But his eyes—his way of going at things, his quick cut to the heart of things, his quiet assurance to the people who crowded around him—so sure that it carried absolute certainty and so bravely said that it fired them to the fighting pitch: “They’ll not enter New Orleans save over my dead body!”
Juliette had been in New Orleans long enough to love the place—as all who live in it long enough do—when one morning she received a note from Mrs. Edward Livingston to come over and help her entertain General Jackson and his staff at dinner.
“My husband,” the lady wrote, “has been appointed his aide-de-camp, and we shall give them a royal welcome. But I do confess, my dear, that I scarcely know how I shall be able to entertain this wild General from Tennessee—so do come and help me.”
Juliette smiled and flushed indignantly. “A wild General from Tennessee! Mother,” she said to the older lady, “listen! Is there not a surprise in store for her?”
The Livingston mansion, the most fashionable home in the city, had been lighted with many candles when Juliette arrived. From its wide-pillared portico a negro butler ushered her in where a hum of feminine voices greeted her and a beautiful sight met her eyes. Besides herself, a dozen of the most beautiful society women of New Orleans had been asked to help receive the noted Indian fighter.
“Oh, what does he look like?” cried one, as soon as she saw Juliette and greeted her, “and how shall we do to please him? I am told you know him well, ma chérie—does he wear coon caps, and, O, what do you call it?—furs?”