Jean Lafitte

“ No time can be lost. I ordered the expedition off with all speed. Lafitte must be captured. Since the five hundred dollars reward be of no avail, we’ll try fire.
CHAIR. It is like the British to league themselves with those hellish pirates. (exeunt; enter Lafitte.)
LAF. She is not here and I can find no clue as to where she has gone. (leans against mantel; enter several ladies and gentlemen.)
1st LADY. She must have reconsidered her determination to become a nun.
2d LADY. No wonder! I think Don Manuel d’Acosta (Lafitte starts) is the most perfectly fascinating man I ever met. ”

“ Soon, too, the imitative faculty had its way, and the phalanx deepened by the accession of other negroes who locked arms with it, till it filled the sidewalk to the kerb-stone, which in turn opposed a slight barrier to the dense press of the multitude. But the passage through the stifling crush was still arduous, and the heat and foul odors made it more so. Awful, too, were the howls and cries and imprecations which greeted every glimpse of the Southerner. At that moment, Lafitte would have willingly given everything he was worth in the world to be out of the danger which menaced him. ”

“ Madame Lafitte sullenly listened, till they wailed away, the planter meanwhile calmly drinking his goblet of iced claret, and then filling the glass again from a slender bottle standing in a cooler on the table.
“These are the sounds I have to listen to, day after day, and year after year,” hoarsely murmured Madame Lafitte, her bosom heaving convulsively above her clasped arms, and her eyes burning with dark fire in the pale gloom of her face. “Every hour in the day they come from the field. All through the evening from the gin-house. ”

“ There must be not only bold men, with arms in their hands, to achieve, but there must be sagacious men in council to plan and direct. During the day a sort of provisional government was established by the insurgents, which continued in session until midnight. The voices of the street cannon [Pg 205] had summoned Lafayette to Paris, and he consecrated his world-wide renown to the cause of popular rights, for which he had fought in America, and to which he had been ever true in Europe. M. Lafitte, the wealthiest banker in Paris, consecrated his fortune to the cause. ”

“ I’ll look for the man in the locket. (exit.)
LIZ. Dis snake head pow’ful significant. (the moon rises, Lizbette puts locket in her bosom; takes her bottles from the grave and exits. Enter Lafitte; he walks across stage; sits absent-mindedly; rests his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Enter Mariana. “Her eyes are open, but their sense is shut.” She wears a long, filmy, trailing white dress; her hair falls over her shoulders; she has her back turned to Lafitte; she touches the tall flowers lightly going from one to another—)
MAR. (in a low, soft voice to a flower.) ”

“ One morning when Maurice was paying a professional visit, which afforded his only chance of seeing her alone, he curiously asked, "Miss Lafitte, what is the cause of your aversion to my cousin?"
She was silent a few moments, then with apparent irrelevancy said, "Do you believe in premonitions?"
An emphatic "No" was the answer.
"Why should they not be true? Our thoughts arise from the same source as our actions; or, rather, there must be a creative thought for every separate act. Now, whether the act follows its producing impulse by moments, days or years, the fact remains the same." ”

“ PED. (offers Dominique his hand; gives him a hearty shake.) At eleven o’clock on the morning of the 7th, you are to go to the Cafe Marin for an important paper containing news of urgent import for Lafitte. At three o’clock of the same day, you are to bring the documents to Lafitte at l’hotel des Exiles.
DOM. At three o’clock.
PED. I am understood?
DOM. Perfectly. Au revoir. (exit; enter Manuel.)
MAN. Just a word. You’d better make yourself secure with your lady-love. Otherwise, you may find that even with one fortune, you will be unable to get the other. ”

“ After ravaging the commerce of the East India Company in the waters of the Far East, he set up his headquarters on an island among the bayous and cypress swamps of that desolate region below New Orleans that is known as Barrataria. A deep-water pass ran to the open sea, only two leagues distant, and on the shores of the sheltered harbor of Grand Terre, Lafitte organized the activities of a large number of pirates and smugglers and formed a flourishing colony; a corporation, in its way, for disposing of the merchandise filched from honest shipping. ”

“ Lafitte—true tokens of the nature which else his other features might have betrayed less surely. His form was muscular and manly, and his face, though dark and sinister, might have been justly called handsome, if only for the richness of its brunette complexion. Dark, wavy auburn hair, which he wore long, and a thick moustache of the same color, drooping over the mouth, conferred a certain [11] lordly grace upon the countenance. The nose, not finely cut, was bold, aquiline, and deeply curved in the nostrils, and the line of the jaw and chin was vigorous and masterful. ”

“ Weak and very nervous, they say, but quite conscious. It was the shock— (getting up and calling.) Narbonne. (enter Narbonne.) Order the false commander of the Creole brought before me. (Narbonne bows and exits; Lafitte walks about; enter Pedro in chains and escorted by pirates; Lafitte faces about as they enter; both start.) What! (to the man.) Is this the man who commanded the Creole?
1st PIR. This is the man.
LAF. Colonel Tolosa, what have you to say in your own defense? (Pedro is silent.) Perhaps you know the whereabouts of that ally of yours, Don Manuel d’Acosta? ”

“ Indulge your own Lafitte—your pirate lover. He loves to hear you.”
Maddened by his calm mockery, she did not reply, but kept her blazing eyes fixed upon his face. A weaker man than Mr. Lafitte might have shrunk from that gaze. ”

“ Lafitte had not. He was still in the city, at the Tremont House, and for the last three days he had kept his room, sick and shattered with the terrible shock he had received, and raging like a devil in his impotent fury. That he should owe his life to the man he hated was bad enough; but to a woman, and worse still, to a negro—oh, to his rank and insolent pride this was the humiliation of humiliations! ”

“ The smile on the sardonic visage of Mr. Lafitte expanded more and more tigerish, and as he came to the end of the letter, he burst into a smooth, soft roar of merriment, while floods of devilish delight raged within him.
“And so William Tassle’s food for worms,” he soliloquized, shaking with internal laughter. “Poor Tassle, that’s the end of you. And Jim’s roasted. Good! I hope they made the fire slow. Infernal scoundrel! I wish I’d been there to hear him screech the soul out of him. That’s the way to keep the black devils under. God! ”

“ Lafitte was as cool and collected as ever, and his face wore the same sardonic smile.
“Now Josephine,” he remarked in a tone more nonchalant, serene and soft than before, if that could be, “let me close this delightful conversation by a few brief observations on the value of opportunity. First, with regard to the dear negroes. I am a rich, but I have my little desire to be a very rich planter. Therefore I lay plans for a large cotton crop, on which, by the way, I have heavy bets pending. ”

“ Atkins,” replied Harrington, laughing—alas! [459] he found it hard to laugh, poor gentleman—“do you not see that if Mr. Lafitte refuses to take so extravagant a sum, he will only make himself ridiculous in the eyes of the New Orleans people. Why, they will hoot at him! And besides, they will extol your public spirit to the skies. It will give you a name there no other merchant possesses. Just think of it! Why, Lafitte would be forced to accept out of pure shame, even were he indifferent to the advantage of having the round sum of ten thousand dollars.” ”

“ Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, to see Ursin a favored companion and the peer, both in courtesy and pride, of those polished gentlemen famous in history, the brothers Lafitte.
The two Lafittes were, at the time young Lemaitre reached his majority (say 1808 or 1812) , only merchant blacksmiths, so to speak, a term intended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands, who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, and moved in society among its autocrats. ”

“ Fact is, gentlemen, we shall all get into trouble and have the police down on us, unless we get that man there off safe. That’s got to be done, gentlemen, and you’ve got to do it. What you’ve got to do, gentlemen, is to form in a hollow square, and put him in the middle of you, and walk him off handsome, to a carriage round the corner.”
They all stood staring open-mouthed with eyes revolving wildly at the speaker. Lafitte, coming to his senses again, was in an agony of apprehension, while both Muriel and Harrington stood with throbbing hearts. ”

“ What they all feel is that his obstinacy will endanger everything; that by timely concession, and regulating the present spirit, real improvements might be made and extreme measures avoided. I met Rothschild coming out of Herries’ room, with his nephew from Paris. He looked pretty lively for a man who has lost some millions, but the funds were all up yesterday; he asked me the news, and said Lafitte was the best Minister France could have, and that everything was rapidly improving there. ”

“ Hadn’t Lafitte better bring him before a Commissioner, and have a certificate made out”—
“No,” interrupted the merchant, with strenuous emphasis. “I’ll have it said in New Orleans that a Boston merchant can show his devotion to the interests of the South without any ridiculous formalities. It’ll strike them well, Bangham, [208] and raise our credit there. Besides, if we go before the Commissioner, those infernal Abolitionists will have another long fuss about it, as they had about Sims, and who knows but that they’ll rescue him as they did Shadrach. ”

“ Things will come right troo a disguise.
BAP. An’ dis— (takes out the serpent-head locket.) I dunno who dat sen’ it, but de owner wan t’know ef her lover gwine be true to her? (Lizbette takes the locket.) I done got some money here wat Miss Bella sont yo..., (looks for the money; finds none; Lizbette shakes her head.)
[51]
LIZ. Wat use try to fool de powers?
BAP. (distracted.) But Aun’ Lizbette ... (Lizbette shakes her head.) Lordy! I’ll give you de las’ cent I got, Aun’ Lizbette—all de money I kin make so you woan gimme dat rep’tation. Dat sperrit jes sot on chasin’ me to dem blood-houn’s. ”

“ Other much less witty folk wrongly imagine that Lafayette is only an old man who is kept for show or used as a machine. But they need only hear him once speak in public to learn that he is not a mere flag which is followed or sworn by, but that he is in person the gonfalonière in whose hands is the good banner, the oriflamme of the people. Lafayette is perhaps the most significant and influential speaker in the Chamber of Deputies. When he speaks, he always hits the nail, and his nailed-up enemies, on the head. ”

“ His vast wealth, and the frequent and extensive aid it has afforded to the working classes, have rendered him one of, if not the most popular man in Paris: so that those most conversant with the actual state of affairs, pronounce that with Lafayette and Laffitte now rest the destiny of France. How strange is the alteration which has occurred within so short a space of time! Five days ago, Charles the Tenth reigned in the Tuileries; at present, on Lafayette and Laffitte it depends whether he ever enters his palace again! ”

“ One of the earliest and most determined of the partisans of a constitutional monarchy under the duke of Orleans, he was deputy for Bayonne in July 1830, when his house in Paris became the headquarters of the revolutionary party. When Charles X., after retracting the hated ordinances, sent the comte d’Argout [1] to Laffitte to negotiate a change of ministry, the banker replied, “It is too late. There is no longer a Charles X.,” and it was he who secured the nomination of Louis Philippe as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. ”

“ The resignation of Lafayette and Dupont de l’Eure still further undermined the government, which, incapable even of keeping order in the streets of Paris, ended by being discredited with all parties. At length Louis Philippe, anxious to free himself from the hampering control of the agents of his fortune, thought it safe to parade his want of confidence in the man who had made him king. Thereupon, in March 1831, Laffitte resigned, begging pardon of God and man for the part he had played in raising Louis Philippe to the throne. He left office politically and financially a ruined man. ”

“ When it is needed, when one of the great questions of humanity is discussed, then Lafayette ever rises, eager for strife as a youth. Only the body is weak and tottering, broken by age and battles of his time, like a hacked and dented old iron armour, and it is touching when he totters under it to the tribune and has reached his old post, to see how he draws a deep breath and smiles. ”

“ But there was no use in trying to keep the impressionable French people from worshiping a hero after their hearts had been captured by him. The gallantry and the human-heartedness of Lafayette, as well as the ideals he held—ideals that were becoming more and more captivating to the fancy and to the reason of the French nation—contributed to make him the favorite of the hour. A passage from a certain play never failed to receive enthusiastic applause from the audiences because it was held by all to be susceptible of direct application to Lafayette ”