Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans

The Witch of the French Opera

The Witch of the French Opera Madame Marguerite Sauve" stood behind her glistening counter of delectable French pastries. Her shop was in Bourbon street, a square or two from the Old French Opera House, where Madame had been a chorus girl for more years than she ever acknowledged. Madame's head was held high, as usual. The liquid poudre blanche, which she used lavishly, made her features into a sort of mask from which her dark eyes flashed pleasantly like discs of jet. Her black hair, well-brushed with dye, was piled high on her head after the mode of that period. Her eyebrows also were brushed with the dye, and made an imposing setting for her quick eyes. As a matter of fact, Madame had been born Marguerite O'Donnell in the year 1842. Her mother was French, but Michael O'Donnell was only three years from Ireland. She was Maggie O'Donnell in those days, with five husky Irish brothers and seven buxom Irish sisters. She was the baby, was Maggie— and the only French-looking one in the lot. She married Octave Sauve when she was eighteen. The War Between the States took all of her brothers and four of her brothers-in-law. But Octave came home without a scratch. He grew sour and crabbed enough, as the years went on and no babies were in prospect. What was life without little ones to frolic with and plan for? He berated poor Maggie until she was sad and resentful indeed. "Sure," she wept, "it isn't as if I could find a baby in the rainbarrel!" 167 (Wo) 168 Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans "You do not care for me as you should," scolded Octave. "So le bon Dieu looks into your selfish heart and punishes you by sending no little ones. But me I am punish' also, and I do not deserve!" There was an eternal wrangle in the house. At length Madame could endure it no longer. So she applied at the French Opera House for a place as chorus girl. She was thirtythree at the time, but she said she was twenty-four. She could sing, oui; and she could dance, with a little training. Octave worked at night, and he never knew. She was very particular about that. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1878, she lost every member of her family. Octave sickened, and went last of all. So, down the years, she lived in one shabby room, applied the liquid poudre blanche and the hair dye a little more heavily, and cut a year or so from her age every time she had occasion to refer to it. In 1900, old Monsieur de Boisblanc took a fancy to her. Heaven only knows why. Perhaps because he was half-blind and could not see how brown and withered her skin was under the poudre blanche, and how unsteady her fingers were as she poured his champagne. Maybe it was desperation, on her part, for Maggie O'Donnell had been a virtuous girl and Marguerite Sauve had been a virtuous woman. But old Monsieur de Boisblanc , who had no end of money, took her to his house and to his bed. He dressed her in silks and gave her diamonds and a lady's maid. And when he died, three months later, he left her ten thousand dollars. Madame Sauve was a bit bewildered. She had moved out of the De Boisblanc mansion within an hour after its master's demise. With part of the money she opened the pastry shop. Les Camelias, she called it. She acknowledged forty summers, dressed in severe and intensely fetching black, and managed her pastry business like a veteran. Everybody who went to the French Opera House flocked to Les Camelias. Its orange sherbet was famous. Its delicate puff tartes, its heavenly gateaux, the frostings and the icings and the glaces, the chocolatiere that was always full and steaming hot, the dragees, and meringues, the darioles, the pates brisees, The Witch of the French Opera 169 the creme au vin—oh la la la, they were every one divine! Expensive, oui—taste heaven and die bankrupt. There was nothing so fine in all New Orleans. So Madame stood behind her counter. A faint smile hovered about her firm lips. Septime, the pastry chef, was not doing as well as formerly. But she had...