IV The Feud Is Ended
Hark! Is that the boom of distant cannon? The American troops are falling into line outside the walls of New Orleans on this 20th day of December, 1803. The tri-colour of France floats on the flagstaff; the sky shines irradiant, like the “suns of Napoleon.”
It is high noon; another salute shakes the city. “Ho, warder, lower the drawbridge!”
With chain-pulleys rattling down goes the bridge, never to be lifted again. The fortress bell strikes its last peal under the flag of France, or Spain. With thundering tread American dragoons file under the portcullis of the Tchoupitoulas gate, followed by cannoneers and infantry in coonskin caps and leathern hunting shirts.
Curiously these sons of the forest look upon the old world forts and donjons of masonry. The moat is filled with stagnant water. The ramparts of New Orleans are filled with soldiers from Havre and Madrid. The windows and balconies are filled with beautiful women weeping, weeping to see the barbarians.
Laussat was looking for Napoleon’s soldiers, not a sale. Pale as death he hands over the keys. Slowly the tri-coloured flag of France at the summit of the flagstaff in the plaza descends. Slowly the star-spangled banner uplifts; half-way the two linger in one another’s folds.
As the flags embrace, another boom, and answering guns reply from ship and fort and battery around the crescent of New Orleans. The flags are parting,—it is a thrilling moment; up, up, steadily mounts the emblem of America and bursts on the breeze.
The band breaks into “Hail, Columbia,” amid the roar of artillery and shouting of backwoodsmen. The map of France in the new world has become the map of the United States.
“The flag! the flag!” Veterans of the French army receive the descending tri-colour, and followed by a procession of uncovered heads bear it with funereal tread to Laussat.
“We have wished to give to France a last proof of the affection which we will always retain for her,” with trembling lip speaks the flag-bearer. “Into your hands we deposit this symbol of the tie which has again transiently connected us with her.”
And Laussat with answering tears replies, “May the prosperity of Louisiana be eternal.”
But of all in New Orleans on this historic day, none fear, none tremble like Sister Infelice, in the cloister of the Ursulines. She seems to hear the very sabres beat on the convent wall. When a tropic hurricane sweeps up the gulf at night she falls on the cold stone floor and covers her head, as if the very lightning might reveal that form she loved so well, the great Virginia colonel. To Infelice he was ever young, ever the heroic saviour of St. Louis. That time could have changed him had never occurred to her,—he was a type of immortal youth.
Infelice never speaks of these things, not even to her father confessor; it is something too deep, too sacred, a last touch of the world hid closer even than her heart. And yet she believes he is coming,—that is the cause of all this tumult and cannonading. Her hero, her warrior wants her, and none can stay him.
And when the cession is fairly over and he comes not, the disappointment prostrates her utterly. “He cares, he cares no more! The Virginians? Did you say the Virginians had come?”
From that bed of delirium the Mother Superior of the Ursuline house sent for the Mayor.
“I beg to be allowed to retire with my sisterhood to some point under the protection of His Catholic Majesty of Spain.”
“Going!” exclaimed Monsieur le Mayor of New Orleans. “For why? You shall not be disturbed, you shall have full protection.”
“Do you stand for France, revolution and infidelity?” gasped the aged mother, denouncing the Mayor.
The people pled, the Mayor went down on his knees. “Do not abandon our schools and our children!” But the Mother Superior was firm.
Twenty-two years had the Donna De Leyba been a nun. The old official records are lost, but out of twenty-five nuns in the establishment we know the sixteen of Spain went away.
All New Orleans gathered to see them depart. When the gun sounded on Whitsunday Eve, sixteen women in black came forth, heavily veiled. The convent gardens were thronged with pupils, slaves knelt by the wayside, the Mayor and populace followed until they embarked on the ship and sailed to Havana.
The old Ursuline convent of New Orleans is now the archbishop’s palace. Sister Infelice is gone, but near some old cloister of Cuba we know her ashes must now be reposing. Henceforth the gates were open. The wall decayed, the moat was filled, and over it to-day winds the handsomest boulevard in America.
The flatboatmen came home with romantic tales of the land of the palmetto and orange, luxuries unknown in the rigorous north. The tide of emigration so long held in check burst its bounds and deluged Louisiana.
Among other Americans that settled at New Orleans was the Fighting Parson. His son Charles Mynn Thruston had married Fanny.