CHAPTER III

FRANCE PREPARES TO TAKE LOUISIANA

As the moment approaches for the resig nation by Spain of the province she had held so many years, it will be interesting to give some outlines of the picture presented by McMaster of the land and the principal town. From the little posts near the mouth of the Missouri, and from Sainte Genevieve and New Madrid farther down-stream, scarcely a hamlet, on the west bank, met the eye of the boatman as he floated down until he arrived at Pointe Coupée. From this point plantations and villages succeeded one another until New Orleans was reached. To the men from the North there was much to wonder at-the great river flowing for hundreds of miles without a tributary, and at length within its levees, pouring on, high above the level of *History of the People of the United States, vol. iii, pp. 15, etc.

the fields on either hand; the bayous full, on a sunny day, of basking alligators; cypresses, palmettos, live-oaks, their branches hung with moss; pelicans and buzzards; houses without cellars, and cemeteries in which there was no grave. The town had been laid out in Bienville's time by the Sieur de la Tour. On three sides ran a low rampart, the fourth being open to the stream. From the Gate of France on the north to the Gate of Tchoupitoulas on the south was a mile, and precisely in the middle was the great square, the Place d'Armes. The streets, narrow, crossing at right angles, were named for the princes and nobles of France, but were squalid and without drainage. The creoles went in and out through the gates, liable always to the challenge of sentries. But outside the ramparts, particularly in the Faubourg Sainte Marie, to the south, was a turbulent population of strangers; here it was mainly that the Americans found quarter as they landed from the "broadhorns" that had brought them from afar. Near here, too, were many seagoing ships, lying sometimes three deep along the levee. The trade had become large at the

time of the purchase, the exports amounting to $2,000,000 in value, and the imports to $2,500,000.

In the bustling business life the levee was the great exchange, piled high with bales and boxes, and the scene of bargaining. There was a theater; and music and dancing had a large place among all classes, from the pure French and Spaniards, down through mulattoes of every gradation of shade to the coalblack negroes, who did the rougher work, often under compulsion of the lash. The colored people were generally slaves. Over all presided the "Cabildo," city council, composed of six hereditary "regidors," two "alcaldes," and the governor. One regidor was "alferez royal," and bore the king's banner; another was "alguazil," mayor; and others were treasurers and collectors. The "alcaldes " had special dignity, being judges, and never appearing in public without their wands of office. Each night an alcalde, with the alguazil and a scrivener, walked the streets to see that the laws were obeyed and that all was well. On the eves of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost the governor and alcaldes went

the rounds of the prisons, sometimes setting free culprits confined for petty offenses; but stern often was the justice meted out to the criminal. If he had reviled the Savior or the Blessed Virgin, his property was confiscated and his tongue cut out. If he had vilified the king or queen, half his property was taken and he was flogged. If he had stolen the sacred vessels from a holy place, or robbed a traveler, or committed a murder, or assaulted a woman, he was put to death.

No sooner did a craft draw up to the riverbank than it was visited by a "syndic," who made severe scrutiny of captain, crew, and cargo. Along the highways, too, were officers who interrogated sharply every passer. Tax, restriction, penalty, weighed upon everything, the governor, and the intendant, an officer set to oversee civil functions, being in general responsible for the administration. It was a system stately and ceremonious in a high degree; also cumbrous, clumsy, oppressivepervaded with a mildew of medieval tradition. A Latin people might tolerate it— indeed sit with a fair degree of comfort under its provisions. It had become inevitable now

that it should touch the Anglo-Saxon, as the young republic pressed and grew restless against its barriers on every side. Out of the contact there could, of course, come but one result.

In the fall of 1801 came peace with England, and the First Consul was free, as he had not been before, to pursue his great schemes for internal improvement, and also his colonial policy. Louisiana was in his thoughts, but before he could enter upon the American continent there was a matter on the threshold of that continent which must be seen to. Here he stumbled, and that stumbling on the threshold, since it brought the downfall of his wider plans, must receive some notice here. San Domingo, under the old régime the most important colony of France, had at this moment practically fallen away from her. Only the western end of the beautiful island was French; but when the Revolution broke out, in 1789, nearly two-thirds of the commercial interests of France centered here. The island had a population of 600,000, five-sixths of whom were negroes of full blood. Of mu