Wednesday I switched hotels and because parking is such a nightmare in the French Quarter I decided on a day trip between check out at Hotel Provincial and check in at Soniat House. I wavered back and forth between visiting Laura Plantation and going back to
Oak Alley, but it was raining and I've already seen Oak Alley in the rain.
We had an absolutely brilliant guide for our tour. She was native Creole with the accent to prove it and she could talk very fast. Our introduction to Laura started with her great-grandfather, Guillaume Duparc who was born in France and at some point murdered someone. Not one to let that get in his way he joined the French navy, fought in the American Revolution and was named the French Governor to Louisiana. Our guide stated thusly, "He went from murderer to governor in five years, that is what we call Louisiana politics." HA! Hilarious.
Guillaume married Nanette and after Louisiana was famously purchased by Thomas Jefferson decided to turn his attention to running a sugar plantation. He commissioned Laura (at that time called
l'habitation Duparc), but died within the first year. In Creole culture women had been given tax rights and banking rights so Nanette continued to run the plantation for many years as "President" of the business.
In Creole culture the family is the business and the business is family so the Duparc's would live in and conduct business at Laura for nine months of the year. Then would then return to New Orleans (they owned 3 townhouses on Bourbon Street) and partied for the remaining three months, returning to Laura after the biggest party of the year, Mardi Gras.
Eventually Nanette tired of being President and decided that the smartest of her three children should take over. Her eldest, Louis, had killed two men already and was "hiding" in France, her second son, Flagy, was also unsuitable, and so her youngest and only daughter, Elisabeth, was tapped for the President's job - she was all of 13 or 14.
Elisabeth married Raymond Locoul and proving that she was the smartest of Guillaume and Nanette's brood she demanded a prenuptial. Raymond Locoul was a landowner from Bordeaux, France and it wasn't long before Elisabeth commandeered his wineries and became the largest wine distributor in the United States. She also harbored a dream to escape Laura and move to Bordeaux, but this wasn't meant to be. Eventually her granddaughter would write that she became meaner every day she lived. She was a very unhappy person. She was also very, very rich - a multi-millionaire in pre-Civil War America.
Now, Louis Duparc, the France-dwelling murderer, eventually married and wanted to come home, so Nanette (being very rich and this being Louisiana) simply bought off all the local authorities allowing Louis, and his wife to return to Laura Plantation in safety. Louis and Fanny had a daughter, Eliza, who was perfect in every way. She was the picture of Creole perfection and Louis was determined that it would be his daughter who took over from his sister, Elisabeth, as President. Unfortunately when Eliza was 16 she was no longer perfect. She broke out in terrible acne and her parents sent her for treatment. The doctor gave her three doses of arsenic and poisoned her to death. Louis left the plantation, never to return while Fanny imprisoned herself in the bedroom and didn't leave that room for the remainder of her life.
Elisabeth and Raymond had two children a son, Emile, and a daughter, Aimee. Elisabeth had written that it took a strong person to run the plantation and Emile was a sensitive boy. She packed him off to France to toughen up where he lived until he was thirty-something, at which point he learned that he was about to be disinherited because the family is the business and the business is the family, and he had no heirs to perpetuate the business. He returned to America married Desiree Archinard and fathered Laura. When his mother died, Aimee took her half (the wine half) and moved to France. Emile was made President. When he died it fell to Laura who begged and begged to do anything but run the family business. She was born just prior to the Civil War, knew that the plantation had turned her grandmother into a cruel and unhappy woman, and desperately wanted to be "American". When Laura became President she left her mother to run the plantation while she traveled for ten or so years. She returned to announce her impending marriage. She sold the plantation for a song ($21,000), married Charles Gore, moved to St. Louis, MO, and never spoke of her time in Louisiana again.
Eventually, she wrote her memoirs for her daughters, and that is how the plantation history was discovered. The plantation owned several Senegalese slaves who brought their tales of a clever rabbit and stupid hyena to America. The tales later became the tales of Brer Rabbit.
"American" houses were white, Creole houses were not. You could tell from the road who lived where.
You can see the "retirement home" in the background. Nanette lived there after retiring as President. She was 94 when the family abandoned their home during the Civil War (they heard that the Navy would be bombing houses from the river that hadn't sworn allegiance to the USA, and they had not - the main house was eventually bombed four times). They left Nanette and their slaves at the plantation. When they returned after the war Nanette was dead, and no one was talking about the how or why.
We saw pictures of the retirement home in all its former glory. There were plans to restore it as well, but then an electrical fire broke out and burned the back half of the house, and before they could get a roof back on the house Hurricane Katrina hit. All their funds went to restore the house.
Oak Alley wins on looks, but Laura wins on history, and everyone loses in the rain.
