Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1891-05-07
FOR IsoBEL.

While yet the public excitement ran
high in connection with discoveries made
when the old Bauderet house, on Bour-
bon Street, New Orleans, was torn down,
l was told the story of Augustin Verot.
1t was in the year 1889 that this young
man, rich, gifted, and handsome, came
to New Orleans to spend winter with
Charles Marot Bauderet, whose acquaint-
ance he had formed in Paris. The two
men were similar. Verot had been cap
tivated by Bauderet's wit, learning, and
subtitle personal charm. In turn, Bau-
deret's imagination was touched into
singular activity and his sympathies
borne away by Verot's magnetic genius.
1t is rare indeed that two young men,
poets both, find such an overmastering
mutual interest flo wing between them.
Their friendship became at once pas
sion.
When Bauderet left Paris after years
sojourn there, he exacted promise from
his new friend that he should come to
New Orleans and spend some months
with him. Thus it came about that early
in the autumn of 1889 Verot arrived after
a pleasant voyage, and took up his abode
in the Bauderet mansion on Bourbon
Street.
Charles Marot Bauderet was a bachelor
orphan, occupying the large, silent old
house all alone, save that he was sur
rounded with many faithful slaves.
The house was low, far spreading,
gloomy brick structure, whose immense
ly thick walls and small windows gave
it a jail-like appearance. Vines clambered
over it from base to roof, and it was en-
powered in dusky trees. Surrounding it
was high brick wall topped with a
picketing of iron. The gates were mas
sive, and closed with huge spring locks
that could be opened only from within.
They were attended by statuesque keep
ers as black as night.
Bauderet was descended from family
sof buccaneers. His wealth was the re-
suit of ancestral piracy, murder, and
rapine. In the young mans blood
burned the faint of unbridled passion,
and in his brain lawless Imagination
like those of Poe, Baudelaire and Wilton,
suffused with something that suggested
madness, but the young man showed
no sign of an unsound mind. On the
contrary, he was brilliantly, fascintingly
sane and logical in his conversation. He
went little into society and entertained
scarcely at all, in the meaning of the
word. A few friends, rarely more than
one at time, were admitted through his
portentous- looking gates and into his
luxurious twilight parlors and dusk-dim
library. He was cOnnolsseur of wines,
cigars, and old books; he smoked almost
necessarily, rarely drank to excess, read
medieval poetry, and in his conversation
was much given to advancing prepos-
terously romantic theories touching al
most all the relations of life.
When Verot arrived, Bauderet met
him at the wharf with every outward
show of irrepressible delight; but the
young Partisan at once felt that some
great change had taken place in his
| friend. At first he was inclined to fear
that Bauderet was not sincere in his ex.
pressions of affectionate joy over his ar
rival; but soon enough the mystery was
adequately explained. Bauderet was in
love- His whole nature was absorbed in
the new passion.
Mile. Des Champs was the daughter
of retired planter, whose home was but
! few steps from Bauderet's gate. Re.