New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-03-29
BELLIES DEMOISELLES PLANTATION.

Then, come, Enchantress come!
-lChambers Journal
BELLIES DEMOIsELLES PLANTATION
The original grantee was Count -, as
sumo the name to be De Charleu; the OLE
CreOles ever forgive public mention. HI
was the French Kings cOmmissary. ON
day, called to France to explain the luck.
accident of the commissariat having burned
down with his account books inside, he lief
his wife, Choctaw countess, behind.
Arrived at court, his excuses were ac
cepted, and that tract granted him where
afterwa rds stood Bellies DemOiselles plan
tation. man can not remember every
thing In fit Of fOrgetfulness he married
French gentlewOmaD, rich and beautiful
and brought her out" However, "Alrs
well that ends WE'LL famine had been in
the colony, and the Choctaw Comptesse
had starved, leaving noughJ but half
caste orphan family lurking on the edge OF
the settlement, bearing our French gentle
woman's own new name, and being men
toned in Mensieur's will
And the new comptessee-she tarrieG but
twelvemonth lett Monsieur lovely son,
and departed, led out of this vain world by
the swamp fever.
From this son sprang the proud Creole
family of De Charleu 1t rose straight up,
up, up, generation after generation, tall,
bIanchless, slender palm-like; and finally,
with all the rare beauty of a century-plant,
in Artemise, Innocente, Felicite, the twins
Marie and Martha, Leontine and little
Septima: the seven beautiful daughters for
whom their home had been fifty named
Bellies Demoiselles.
The counts grant had once been long
point, around which the Mississippi used to
whirl, and seethe, and foam, that 1T was
horrid to behold. Big whirlpools would
open and wheel about in the savage eddies
under the low bank, and close up again,
and others open, and spin, and disappear.
Great circles of muddy surface would boil
I'D from hundreds of feet below, and gloss
over, and seem to float away-sink, come
back again under water, and with only a
= soft hiss surge up again, and again DRIFT OFT
and vanish. Every few minutes the lOamy
bank wOuld tip down great load of earth
upon its beseiger, and fall back foot
sometimes yard-and the writing river
would press after, until at last the point
was quite swallowed up, and the great
river glided by in q majestic curve, and
asked no more; the bank stood fast, the
"caving" became forgotten misfortune,
and the diminished grant was long, sweep
ing, willowy bend, rustling with miles Of
sugar cane.
Coming up the Mississippi in the sailing
craft Of those early days, about the time
one first could descry the white spires of
the old st. Louis Cathedral, you would be
pretty sure to spy. just to your right
under the levee, Bellies Demoiselles man
sion, with it's broad yeranda and red painted
cypress roof, peering over the embank-
nent, like bird in the nest, half hid by
the avenue of willows which one of the de-
parted De Charleus-he that married a
Marot-had planted on the leyee's crown.
The house stood unusually near the river,
facing eastward, and standing four-sguare,
with an immense veranda about its sides,
and fight of steps in front spreading
broadly downward, as we open arms to a
child. From the veranda nine miles of
river were seen; and in their compass, near
at hand, the shady garden full of rare and
beautiful flowers; further away broad fields
of cane and rice, and the distant quarters
of the slaves, aud on the horizon every
where dark belt of cypress forest.
The master was old Colonel DeCharleu,
Jean Albert Henri Joseph De Charleu
Marot, and Colonel" by the grace of the
first American Governor. Monsieur-he
would not speak to any one who called him
"Colonel'-was a hOary-headed patriarch.
His step was firm, his form erect, his in
tellect strong and clear, his countenance
classic, serene, dignitied, commanding, his
manners courtly. his voice musical-fas.
cinating. He had had his vices-all his
life; but had borne them, as his race do,
with a serenity of conscience and clean
ness of mouth that left no outward blemish
on the surface of the gentleman. He had
gambled IN Royal street, drank hard in
Orleans street, run his adversary through
in the dueling ground at Slaughterhouse
Point, and danced and quarreled at the
st. Philip Street Theatre GuadroOn balls.
Even now, with all his courtesy and bounty,
and hospitality which seemed to be enter
tanning angels, he was bitter proud and
penurious, and deep down in his hard
finished heart loved nothing but himself,
his name, and his motherless children. But
these their ravishipg beauty was all but
excuse enough for the unbounded idOiatry
of their father. Against these seven god
desses he never rebeiled. Had they even
required him to defraud old De Carlos
can hardly say.
Old De Carlos was his extre nelly distant
relative on the Choctaw side. With this
single exception, the narrow, thread-like
line OF descent from the Indian wife, di-
minished to mere strand by iniudiciOus
alliances, and deaths in the cutters of old
New Orleans, was extinct. The name by
Spanish contact, had become De Carlos;
but this one surviving bearer of it was
known to all, and known only, as Iugin
Charlie.
One thing l never knew Creole to do.
He will not utterly go back on tine ties of
blood, no matter what sort of knots those
ties may be. For one reason he is never
ashamed of his or his fathers sins; and for
another-he will tell you-he is "all hearth
SO the different heirs of the De Charleu
estate had always strictly regarded the
rights and interests of the De Carloses,
especially their ownership OF a block of
dilapidated buildings in part OF the city,
but was beginning to be valuable. This
block had much more than maintained the
last De Carlos through long and lazy life
time, and, as his household consisted only
f himself and an aged and crippled negroes,
the inference was Irresistible that he had
money" Old Charlie, though BY alias an
!.Ipjin," was plainly dark white man,