Strange True Stories of Louisiana

  ATTALIE BROUILLARD.

  1855.

  I.

  FURNISHED ROOMS.

  The strange true stories we have thus far told have all been matter ofpublic or of private record. Pages of history and travel, law reports,documents of court, the testimony of eye-witnesses, old manuscripts andletters, have insured to them the full force and charm of their reality.But now we must have it clearly and mutually understood that here is onethe verity of which is vouched for stoutly, but only by tradition. It isvery much as if we had nearly finished a strong, solid stone house andwould now ask permission of our underwriters to add to it at the rear asmall frame lean-to.

  It is a mere bit of lawyers' table-talk, a piece of after-dinner property.It originally belonged, they say, to Judge Collins of New Orleans, as Ibelieve we have already mentioned; his by right of personal knowledge. Imight have got it straight from him had I heard of it but a few yearssooner. His small, iron-gray head, dark, keen eyes, and nervous face andform are in my mind's eye now, as I saw him one day on the benchinterrupting a lawyer at the bar and telling him in ten words what thelawyer was trying to tell in two hundred and fifty.

  That the judge's right to this story was that of discovery, not ofinvention, is well attested; and if he or any one else allowed fictitiousembellishments to gather upon it by oft telling of it in merry hours, thestory had certainly lost all such superfluities the day it came to me, ascompletely as if some one had stolen its clothes while it was in swimming.The best I can say is that it came unmutilated, and that I have done onlywhat any humane person would have done--given it drapery enough to coverits nakedness.

  To speak yet plainer, I do not, even now, put aside, abridge, or alter asingle _fact_; only, at most, restore one or two to spaces that indicatejust what has dropped out. If a dentist may lawfully supply the place of alost tooth, or an old beau comb his hair skillfully over a bald spot, thenam I guiltless. I make the tale not less, and only just a trifle more,true; not more, but only a trifle less, strange. And this is it:

  In 1855 this Attalie Brouillard--so called, mark you, for presentconvenience only--lived in the French quarter of New Orleans; I think theysay in Bienville street, but that is no matter; somewhere in the _vieuxcarre_ of Bienville's original town. She was a worthy woman; youngish,honest, rather handsome, with a little money--just a little; of attractivedress, with good manners, too; alone in the world, and--a quadroon. Shekept furnished rooms to rent--as a matter of course; what would she do?

  Hence she was not so utterly alone in the world as she might have been.She even did what Stevenson says is so good, but not so easy, to do, "tokeep a few friends, but these without capitulation." For instance therewas Camille Ducour. That was not his name; but as we have called the womanA.B., let the man be represented as C.D.

  He, too, was a quadroon; an f.m.c.[30] His personal appearance has not beendescribed to us, but he must have had one. Fancy a small figure, thin, letus say, narrow-chested, round-shouldered, his complexion a dull clay colorspattered with large red freckles, his eyes small, gray, and closetogether, his hair not long or bushy, but dense, crinkled, and hesitatingbetween a dull yellow and a hot red; his clothes his own and his linenlast week's.

  He is said to have been a shrewd fellow; had picked up much practicalknowledge of the law, especially of notarial business, and drove a smarttrade giving private advice on points of law to people of his caste. Frommany a trap had he saved his poor clients of an hour. Out of many a dangerof their own making had he safely drawn them, all unseen by, though notunknown to, the legitimate guild of judges, lawyers, and notaries out ofwhose professional garbage barrel he enjoyed a sort of stray dog'sprivilege of feeding.

  His meetings with Attalie Brouillard were almost always on the street andby accident. Yet such meetings were invariably turned into pleasant visitsin the middle of the sidewalk, after the time-honored Southern fashion.Hopes, ailments, the hardness of the times, the health of each one's"folks," and the condition of their own souls, could not be told all in abreath. He never failed, when he could detain her no longer, to bid herfeel free to call on him whenever she found herself in dire need of a wisefriend's counsel. There was always in his words the hint that, though henever had quite enough cash for one, he never failed of knowledge andwisdom enough for two. And the gentle Attalie believed both clauses of hisavowal.

  Attalie had another friend, a white man.

  FOOTNOTES:[30] Free man of color.