Île d'Orléans

“ The Isle 491 of Orleans is twenty miles long and very fertile, largely supplying the markets of Quebec. To the northward Mount Sainte Anne, the guardian of the famous shrine, rises twenty-seven hundred feet. Jacques Cartier so liked the grapes grown on the island that he called it the Isle of Bacchus, but the king, Francis I., would not have it so, and named it after his son, the Duke of Orleans. Here were massacred the Hurons by the Iroquois, who captured from them the great cross of Argentenay, carrying it off to their stronghold, on Onondaga Lake, New York, in 1661. ”

“ Once past Quebec the river broadens into a great basin, across which we see the head of the beautiful Island of Orleans. We skirt, on the south side, the twenty miles of the island's well wooded shore, dotted with thePg 2 cottages of the habitants, stretched irregularly along the winding road. Church spires rise at intervals; the people are Catholic to a man. Once past this island we begin to note changes. Hardly any longer is the St. Lawrence a river; rather is it now an inlet of the sea; the water has become salt; the air is fresher. ”

“ But my strongest impression of New-Orleans is, that while it affords an instructive study, and yields some enjoyment to a stranger, it is the last place in which men are gathered together where one who prizes his humanity would wish to live. ”

“ On the morrow, Sunday, the 8th of May, being the Feast of the Appearance of St. Michael, it was announced in Orléans, in the morning, that the English issuing forth from those western bastions which were all that remained to them, were ranging themselves before the town moat in battle array and with standards flying. The folk of Orléans, both the men-at-arms and the train-bands, greatly desired to [Pg i.315] fall upon them. At daybreak Marshal de Boussac and a number of captains went out and took up their positions over against the enemy. ”

“ If the market at New-Orleans represents that city, so truly does New-Orleans represent every other city and nation upon earth. I know of none where is congregated so great a variety of the human species, of every language and colour. ”

“ Here is a small village of a dozen houses, a grog shop and a tavern. A steam ferry boat constantly plies across the river, and appears to have a plenty of business.
The city is connected with lake Pontchartrain, by a canal for small vessels, and a railroad. The distance is five miles. Steamboats regularly run from the end of the railroad, to Mobile and other ports. New-Orleans has no wharves. It would be more convenient in loading vessels to have them; but they cannot be built on a foundation sufficiently firm to withstand the strong current of the Mississippi. ”

“ Charles d'Orléans.
April was come, and the end seemed near, when whispers began to creep about. A bird [Pg 80] of the air carried the matter, a wind of the forest breathed it. Help was coming. A marvel had come to light: a holy Maid (or an accursed witch: it depended on which camp you were in!) had arisen, had visited the Dauphin at Chinon: was coming to rescue Orleans from its besiegers. Like wildfire the rumor spread. Brave Dunois listened, and his heart beat faster, recalling the prophecy. "France lost by a woman shall be saved by a woman!" ”

“ Mount Bouët leads to Fort "Aumale:" Point Joinville, at the north jaw of the river, faces Cap Montagnies: Parrot has become "Adelaide," and Coniquet "Orleans" Island. Indeed the love of Louis-Philippe's family has lingered in many a corner where one would least expect to meet it, and in 1869 I found "Port Saeed" a hot-bed of Orleanism.
The hotel verandah was crowded with the minor officials, the surgeons, and the clerks of the comptoir, drinking absinthe and colicky vermouth, smoking veritable "weeds," playing at dominoes, and contending who could talk longest and loudest. ”

“ Now the Isle of Orleans was vanishing on our rear and the bold heights of Point Levis had loomed up to the fore; and now we had poked our prows to the right and the sluggish, muddy tide of the St. Charles lapped our canoes, while a forest of masts and yard-arms and flapping sails arose from the harbor of Quebec City. The great walls of modern Quebec did not then exist; but the rude fortifications, that sloped down from the lofty Citadel on Cape Diamond and engirt the whole city on the hillside, seemed imposing enough to us in those days. ”

“ To be on land, even were it a sand bank, is all that is requisite to render it in the eyes of the new landed passenger, a Paradise.
During the first part of our sail up the river, there was nothing sufficiently interesting in the way of incident or variety of scenery, to merit the trouble either of narration or perusal. Till we arrived within forty-five or fifty miles of New-Orleans, the shores of the river presented the same flat, marshy appearance previously described. With the exception of two or three "pilot stations," near its mouth, I do not recollect that we passed any [Pg 75] dwelling. ”

“ Eight leagues further on, the island now known as the Isle d’Orleans was reached, and here the natives, reassured by the sight of their two fellow-countrymen, flocked on deck, eager to hear of their adventures in the strange land beyond the sea. Delighted with their accounts of the kindness shown them in France, Donnacona, the chief or lord of Saguenay, embraced Cartier, and swore eternal friendship with him and his people, little dreaming that the advent of the French meant the death of his own race as a nation. ”

“ We started early the next morning on our journey to the north, for our slight experience of the inns of central France made us anxious to reach Orléans by night. Such long runs cannot be made without the sacrifice of much that charms and arrests one by the way ”

“ Along the river front are congregated hundreds of steamers, and thousands of nondescript boats, among them numerous barges and flat-boats, thickly interspersed with ships of the largest size, from whose masts float the colors of every nation in the civilized world. New Orleans is emphatically a commercial town, depending in only a small degree, for her success, upon manufactures. ”

“ These faubourgs were so populous and so extensive that when, on the approach of the English, the people from the suburbs took refuge within the city the number of its inhabitants was doubled. [488]
The inhabitants of Orléans were resolved to fight, not for their honour indeed; in those days no honour redounded to a citizen from the defence of his own city; his only reward was the risk of terrible danger. When the town was captured the great and wealthy had but to pay ransom and the conqueror entertained them well; the lesser and poorer nobility ran greater risks. ”

“ I can see now the tall shining heights of Quebec, the pretty wooded Island of Orleans, the winding channel, so deep, so strong. The sun was three-fourths of its way down in the west, and already the sky was taking on the deep red and purple of autumn. Somehow, the thing that struck me most in the scene was a bunch of pines, solemn and quiet, their tops burnished by the afternoon light. ”

“ After the founding of the city of La Nouvelle Orléans, a fine example of foresight was shown by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de 9 Bienville, governor of the colony. He wisely realized that the land surrounding the young city would become valuable, and according to the custom, he asked for a grant of land from the Company of the Indies, the agency which operated the colony for the King. ”

“ The suburbs of Orléans were the finest in the kingdom. On the south the fishermen's suburb of Le Portereau, with its Augustinian church and monastery, extended along the river at the foot of the vineyards [Pg i.113] of Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, which produced the best wine in the country. ”

“ These points of defence have been selected with great judgment, and have been fortified with so much care, that it is supposed no enemy could ever again approach the city by the same passes, through which it was approached by the British in the past war. New-Orleans, the key of the Mississippi valley, and the great depot of its agriculture and commerce, is already a city of immense importance, and is every year becoming more so. This city has strong natural defences, in its position and its climate. ”

“ The Orléannais is one of the most populous and progressive sections of all France, and its39 inhabitants, per square kilometre, are constantly increasing in numbers, which is more than can be said of every département. There are multitudes of tiny villages, and one is scarcely ever out of sight and sound of a habitation.
In the great forest, just to the west of Orleans, are two small villages, each a celebrated battle-ground, and a place of a patriotic pil40grimage on the eighth and ninth of November of each year. ”

“ THE UNITED STATES IN 1803, AFTER THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.
NEW ORLEANS IN 1803
The people of that day did not realize the importance of their purchase. For the most part the territory was a wild region, uninhabited except for scattered Indian tribes, and almost unexplored. The place most alive was New Orleans, which would have interested you keenly had you been a pioneer boy or girl. New Orleans has been called a Franco-Spanish-American city, for it has belonged to all three nations in turn and been under French control twice. You remember that the French settled it. ”

“ To avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.
This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea-sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. ”

“ At Orléans, doubtless, there were certain who were keen enough to perceive that the numerous and ingenious engines of war, gathered together by the magistrates, had been of great service; but folk generally prefer to ascribe results to miraculous causes, and the merit of their deliverance the people of Orléans attributed first to their Blessed Patrons, Saint Aignan and Saint Euverte, and after them to Jeanne, the Divine Maid, believing that there was no easier, simpler, or more natural explanation of the deeds they had witnessed. ”

“ I am firmly convinced that Opal had aid in Los Angeles in preparing these acrostics.
It is significant that the angel mother, so tenderly referred to by Opal, is not pointed out in the acrostics, most likely because no biography shows that d'Orleans ever married. The acrostics also give much intimate information found in the will of d'Orleans, a copy of which—here is that odd chain of circumstances again—was in the Boston library. ”

“ Orleans, set off in 1797 from the southerly portion of Eastham, has an old-fashioned quaintness that is better than business prosperity. Sand has partially closed the harbors, and the population has been dwindling for the past half-century, but the ocean still serves old neighbors as it can with quahaugs and the seaweed, now collected for paper-making. The distinction of being the terminus of the French Atlantic Cable from Brest is in keeping with the name Orleans—a unique instance of a foreign title among these old Cape towns. ”

“ In one of these happily situated Towns, called Orleans, where abundance of People of the best Quality and Condition reside, there was a rich Nobleman, now retir’d from the busy Court, where in his Youth he had been bred, weary’d with the Toils of Ceremony and Noise, to enjoy that perfect Tranquillity of Life, which is no where to be found but in Retreat, a faithful Friend, and a good Library; ”

“ We had a strong desire to make a trip up the Yazoo and the Sunflower—an interesting region at any time, but additionally interesting at this time, because up there the great inundation was still to be seen in force—but we were nearly sure to have to wait a day or more for a New Orleans boat on our return; so we were obliged to give up the project. ”

“ They had better do it by practising the French language than by copying the French toilet. New-Orleans is [Pg 272] the only place in the United States where I am aware of having seen a particle of rouge.
Large parties are much alike everywhere, and they leave no very distinct impression. Except for the mixture of languages, and the ample provision of ices, fans, and ventilators, the drawing-room assemblages of New-Orleans bear a strong resemblance to the routs and dinner-parties of a country town in England. ”

“ A favorite trip for those living or staying in Quebec is that on the ferry steamers to the Isle of Orleans, originally called Isle de Bacchus by Jacques Cartier on account of the rich clusters of grapes that lined its shores when he cast anchor near. The island was occupied by Wolfe at the time of the fall of Quebec. There are many summer residences here, and it is a favorite place in summer for many who like to enjoy the cool river breezes. ”

“ Many times she said to him: "I shall live a year, barely longer. During that year let as much as possible be done." [1143]
Then she enumerated the four charges which she must accomplish during that time. After having delivered Orléans she must drive the Godons out of France, lead the King to be crowned and anointed at Reims and rescue the Duke of Orléans from the hands of the English. [1144] One day she grew impatient and went to the King when he was in one of those closets of carved wainscot constructed in the great castle halls for intimate or family gatherings. ”