Old Creole Days: A Story of Creole Life, Page 3

  CHAPTER III.

  CAPITAINE LEMAITRE.

  He was one of those men that might be any age,--thirty, forty,forty-five; there was no telling from his face what was years and whatwas only weather. His countenance was of a grave and quiet, but alsoluminous, sort, which was instantly admired and ever afterwardremembered, as was also the fineness of his hair and the blueness of hiseyes. Those pronounced him youngest who scrutinized his face theclosest. But waiving the discussion of age, he was odd, though not withthe oddness that he who had reared him had striven to produce.

  He had not been brought up by mother or father. He had lost both ininfancy, and had fallen to the care of a rugged old military grandpa ofthe colonial school, whose unceasing endeavor had been to make "his boy"as savage and ferocious a holder of unimpeachable social rank as itbecame a pure-blooded French Creole to be who would trace his pedigreeback to the god Mars.

  "Remember, my boy," was the adjuration received by him as regularly ashis waking cup of black coffee, "that none of your family line ever keptthe laws of any government or creed." And if it was well that he shouldbear this in mind, it was well to reiterate it persistently, for, fromthe nurse's arms, the boy wore a look, not of docility so much as ofgentle, _judicial_ benevolence. The domestics of the old man's houseused to shed tears of laughter to see that look on the face of a babe.His rude guardian addressed himself to the modification of this facialexpression; it had not enough of majesty in it, for instance, or oflarge dare-deviltry; but with care these could be made to come.

  And, true enough, at twenty-one (in Ursin Lemaitre), the labors of hisgrandfather were an apparent success. He was not rugged, nor was heloud-spoken, as his venerable trainer would have liked to present him tosociety; but he was as serenely terrible as a well-aimed rifle, and theold man looked upon his results with pride. He had cultivated him up tothat pitch where he scorned to practise any vice, or any virtue, thatdid not include the principle of self-assertion. A few touches only werewanting here and there to achieve perfection, when suddenly the old mandied. Yet it was his proud satisfaction, before he finally lay down, tosee 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 termintended to convey the idea of blacksmiths who never soiled their hands,who were men of capital, stood a little higher than the clergy, andmoved in society among its autocrats. But they were full ofpossibilities, men of action, and men, too, of thought, with already apronounced disbelief in the custom-house. In these days of big carnivalsthey would have been patented as the dukes of Little Manchac andBarataria.

  Young Ursin Lemaitre (in full the name was Lemaitre-Vignevielle) had notonly the hearty friendship of these good people, but also a natural turnfor accounts; and as his two friends were looking about them with anenterprising eye, it easily resulted that he presently connected himselfwith the blacksmithing profession. Not exactly at the forge in theLafittes' famous smithy, among the African Samsons, who, with theirshining black bodies bared to the waist, made the Rue St. Pierre ringwith the stroke of their hammers; but as a--there was no occasion tomince the word in those days--smuggler.

  Smuggler--patriot--where was the difference? Beyond the ken of acommunity to which the enforcement of the revenue laws had long beenmerely so much out of every man's pocket and dish, into theall-devouring treasury of Spain. At this date they had come under akinder yoke, and to a treasury that at least echoed when the customswere dropped into it; but the change was still new. What could a man bemore than Capitaine Lemaitre was--the soul of honor, the pink ofcourtesy, with the courage of the lion, and the magnanimity of theelephant; frank--the very exchequer of truth! Nay, go higher still: hispaper was good in Toulouse Street. To the gossips in the gaming-clubs hewas the culminating proof that smuggling was one of the sublimervirtues.

  Years went by. Events transpired which have their place in history.Under a government which the community by and by saw was conducted intheir interest, smuggling began to lose its respectability and to growdisreputable, hazardous, and debased. In certain onslaughts made uponthem by officers of the law, some of the smugglers became murderers. Thebusiness became unprofitable for a time until the enterprisingLafittes--thinkers--bethought them of a corrective--"privateering".

  Thereupon the United States Government set a price upon their heads.Later yet it became known that these outlawed pirates had been offeredmoney and rank by Great Britain if they would join her standard, thenhovering about the water-approaches to their native city, and that theyhad spurned the bribe; wherefore their heads were ruled out of themarket, and, meeting and treating with Andrew Jackson, they werereceived as lovers of their country, and as compatriots fought in thebattle of New Orleans at the head of their fearless men, and--heretradition takes up the tale--were never seen afterward.

  Capitaine Lemaitre was not among the killed or wounded, but he was amongthe missing.