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This is the last day we are to remain in this Franco-American
Metropolis of the South. What with shopping
with dear Bell, in assisting her in making bridal purchases—
with riding at twilight on the magnificent “shell
road,” with visiting the cathedrals, and churches, and
public edifices, and above all, for interest, the old cemeteries
of the city, my time has been fully occupied.

Our hotel is in the French quarter of the city, and a
grand, French Tuilleries' looking affair it is. It is
under the superintendance of Mr. Mudge, who is a native
of New England, was formerly a dry-goods merchant in
Portland, and being unsuccessful in business, came out
here many years ago to make his fortune, and, unlike
many who go from home for this purpose, he has eminently
succeeded. From being only a salaried assistant
in the office of the St. Charles, he rose by his probity,
industry, talents, and genius, to become its proprietor;
and now is manager temporarily of this until the St.
Charles is rebuilt. He is a gentleman of fine manners,
a pleasant countenance, and has a most interesting and
charming family. To manage a hotel now-a-days, requires
very much the sort of talent requisite in a commander
of a man-of-war or a military officer, and this
ability Mr. Mudge possesses. Hotel managing is a

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profession, and a highly honorable one. It requires training,
talent, nay, genius. The first hotel started in the United
States, on the modern plan, was the Tremont. Its clerks
became managers of others, till now, in all the best hotels,
the managers have either been educated to their office at
the Tremont or Astor, (which sprung from the Tremont
under Mr. Stetson,) or by gentlemen who graduated at
one or the other of the “Hotel Universities.” Those
large establishments are now regular colleges, and should
issue “diplomas” to their graduates. It is not now, as
it was formerly, that a man, who is not fit for any other
business, can keep a hotel.

All this knowledge I have got from hearing a conversation
between the colonel and one of the proprietors of
the house. Nothing can be more recherché, more superb,
more in perfection, than every appointment about
this noble house. It strikes me that Queen Victoria
could not entertain us better in Windsor Castle, than
Mr. Mudge does here.

I love to walk through the French streets, and look
into the prettily fixed-up shops, or sit in the drawing-room
window, and gaze out upon the streets, watching
the passers by, and the people in the neighborhood.
Two-thirds of them are French, the gentlemen with mustaches,
which seem to be worn universally here, and the
ladies in Parisian hats, and long lace veils, with dresses
very short, to exhibit their pretty feet,

“Like little mice peeping in and out,”

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that anybody looks or listens. They talk and gesticulate
in the most extravagantly ridiculous manner, and I
am infinitely amused a hundred times a-day at what
passes before me.

One old man comes out and sits in an arm-chair on
the banquette, and does nothing but make little paper
cigars and smoke them, and read an old torn book,
through a pair of enormous, round-eyed, iron spectacles.
No matter who goes by, what goes on around him, there
he sits, the crowd passing and repassing him, as quiet
and unconcerned as if he were alone on Robinson Crusoe's
island. At eleven o'clock, a little negress, in a
bright red 'kerchief bound tastefully about her brows,
brings him out on a waiter a bottle of claret and a little
tumbler. He drinks three glasses, and she retires, while
he resumes his smoking and reading the old book. Once
I saw a priest stop and address him. The old man rose,
bowed politely, crossed himself, offered the priest a cigar,
which was accepted; the priest bowed and went on,
while Monsieur, crossing his breast, bowed and reseated
himself, with a half smile on his old visage, as if the
brief interview with the priest had gratified him.

Not far from this person sits from morning to night,
in a shop door, a sallow, thin lady, engaged in working
a piece of embroidery. She has her soup and garlic
brought to her by a child, and eats her dinner in face of
the world with perfect indifference.

The French seem to love “out doors.” They turn
themselves, the whole population, from their doors at the
close of the afternoon, and sit on the banquette till bedtime,
talking, laughing, singing, and even eating their
suppers, if the banquette be wide enough. They are, as

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all say of the French, a gay, happy people, and seem to
be quite divested of all care for the morrow. It is our
American undue care for to-morrow, that makes the to-day
always so heavy. They make it bear its own weight
and to-morrow's, a double burden which our Saviour
wisely forbade us to put upon ourselves. A présent is
the life of the French.

There are two distinct cities that make up New Orleans—
the American and French. The former is so
much like a Northern city that I did not remain in it
much, although the most superb portion; but I took
kindly to the latter for its very novelty. In the French
part, few of the population speak English. Their language,
manners, customs, are preserved; and a Parisian
would think himself in a city of France, if he did not
cross Canal street, which is the Rubicon that separates
the American quarter from it.

In walking through the French municipality, or district,
I could hardly realize that I was in my native
land. French names to streets—Rue Bien-ville, Rue
Royal, Rue Chartres! French signs above the stores, and
within mustached Gallic visages of men, and dark-eyed
foreign-looking women, with smooth, raven hair dressed
a la Suisse; French architecture everywhere, and the
French tongue constantly heard by old and young, by
African and freemen! All these peculiarities made it
almost impossible for me not to fancy myself in Europe.
If I entered a shop Des modes, I was addressed in French
by a smiling dame, or a polite Monsieur. If I asked a
direction in the street, I was answered in the same
tongue. If I entered a book store, I found in every
volume I took up the native language of Lafayette. The

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yellow fiacre-men called to their horses in a patois of
the same language, and a woman at the corner of the
street offered me Boston apples, with a “Mam'sel, veut
elle des pommes ce matin?”

If I passed two gentleman conversing, I heard French;
and the children shouted to each other in the same universal
speech, much to the amazement undisguised of
Edith, who attended Bell, Monsieur Isidore, and me, in
our perambulations, and who could not comprehend how
little barefooted wretches of six and seven years could
talk the language which “Missy Bella” had been three
years in learning with masters at an expense of hundreds
of dollars.

It seemed to her ignorance of things quite an unequal
distribution of gifts of Providence. On her return she
will probably excite the wonder of the whole Ethiopian
population of the plantation, by asseverating that she
heard in New Orleans little children talking French. I
do assure you, frankly confessing it, Mr. —, that it
made me quite indignant to hear the little imps so independently
speaking the language without ever having
looked into a horrid grammar, and being wholly innocent
of dictionaries, who had never conjugated avoir nor faire,
and knew no more of étre than they did of the 119th
Psalm. I felt like giving every one of them a good
whipping, thinking how many wakeful hours I had spent
on grammars and dictionaries, to learn what came to
them, as their walking did, by nature. We found that
the French spoken to us in the shops was not a little
different from the Parisian pronunciation. I noticed that
the Orleanois clip their words, do not speak the nasal
termination so full and distinct, and have a shriller

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intonation throughout. I should judge that the difference
in pronunciation between them and the Parisians to be
greater than between New Englanders and educated
Englishmen. As these are easily distinguished from one
another although saying the same words, so are the
Louisiana French to be easily distinguished from the
Parisian.

There are a good many French gentlemen here at
present who have taken prominent parts in the politics
of France, and who find French soil unsafe for their feet
just now. One of these expressed himself to me at table
yesterday with great animation about this country and
the society of New Orleans, with which, he said, he was
perfectly charmed. “There is a naiveté and simple
grace in the ladies,” he remarked, “that we see not in
France, at least not exactly like it. They are gentle,
yet proud; independent, yet, like the vine, seem to look
to the sterner sex for support; intelligent, yet indolent;
not much learned in books, yet irresistibly captivating
in conversation. They seem to combine,” he added,
“the splendor and haughty bearing of the Spanish
women, with the tender loveliness of the Italian, the
bonhomie of the French, and the discretion and repose
of the English: a noble combination which would constitute
a perfect national character.”

I agree with Monsieur de B— so completely that
I give his description of the Louisianaise as my own.

Yesterday I had pointed out to me a large, heavy,
gigantic-looking personage, in a blue frock-coat and gray
trowsers, as the Prince de Wurtemburg, who is traveling
in the United States. He is a fair Saxon in aspect,
with a fleshy countenance, blue eyes, and double chin—

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a thorough heavy German. I was at once interested in
him, not because he was a prince, Mr. —, because all
our young Americans of “Young America” are princes
born,—but from the fact that he is a lineal descendant
of that good Duke of Wurtemburg who was Luther's fast
friend, and whose adhesion to the Protestant cause gave
such impetus to the Reformation.

There are scores of the old noblesse of France living
here in quiet and more or less competency; some as
gentlemen still, others as fabricateurs of cigars, teachers,
&c. Here also are to be found exiles of all nations,
and men of desperate fortunes, self-expatriated. Every
language of the civilized world can be heard in this city
in a day's ramble through its thoroughfares.

p613-357

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