page_title: Micaela Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba
section_title: Shooting attack
hierarchical_section_title: Micaela Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba / Marriage / Shooting attack
caption_attribution_description: English: A matched pair of engraved and gilded muzzle loading percussion lock dueling pistols. Located in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
context_page_description: Micaela Leonarda Antonia de Almonester Rojas y de la Ronde, Baroness de Pontalba was a wealthy New Orleans-born Creole aristocrat, businesswoman and real estate designer and developer who endures as one of the most recalled and dynamic personalities in the city's history, though she lived most of her life in Paris.
  On April 26, 1798, when Micaela was just ​2 ¹⁄₂ years old, her Spanish father, Don Andrés Almonester y Rojas, died, leaving her his sole surviving heir. Micaela inherited a considerable fortune. Her estate was capably administered by her mother, Louise Denys de la Ronde, referenced as "a superbly competent businesswoman who had greatly increased the inheritance since Almonester's death." Following Micaela's marriage, in 1811, to her French cousin, Joseph-Xavier Célestin Delfau de Pontalba, she moved to France. The marriage was not successful and she became a virtual prisoner at the de Pontalba chateau near Senlis.
context_section_description: Micaela's attempts to protect her fortune and separate from Célestin so enraged Baron de Pontalba that he resorted to violence. On October 19, 1834, during one of her visits to the chateau, he stormed into her bedroom and shot Micaela four times in the chest at point-blank range with a pair of duelling pistols. After the first shot, she allegedly screamed out: "Don't! I'll give you everything". Whereupon he replied: "No, you are going to die" and shot her another three times in the chest, one bullet passing through the hand that she had instinctively put up to cover one of the gun's muzzles. Despite her injuries, Micaela made an attempt to escape her father-in-law and outside the door she fell into the arms of her maid who had rushed up the stairs upon hearing the first gunshot. With the armed baron still in pursuit, Micaela was dragged down the stairs to the drawing room where she fell to the floor, crying out, "Help me". Baron de Pontalba stood over her bleeding, unconscious body, yet he fired no more shots and returned to his study.
  She survived the shooting attack, despite multiple shot wounds. One of the bullets had crushed her hand; her left breast was disfigured and two of her fingers were mutilated. That evening, the baron committed suicide in his study by shooting himself in the head with the same dueling pistols.
caption: Micaela was shot with a pair of duelling pistols
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