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M Fr ançois Weil The Purchase and the Making of French Louisiana L afayette’sfive-dayvisittoNewOrleansinApril1825wasquiteanevent. The“Nation’sguest”wasreceivedwithextraordinaryrespect.The Cabildo was chosen to serve as his accommodations and cleaned, repaired, and refurnished for the occasion. “Elegant tints and draperies, brilliant chandeliers, heavy mirrors, novelty rugs—nothing, in fact, was spared to furnish properly what was already becoming known as ‘The House of Lafayette.’” A 68–feet-high triumphal arch, “decorated with colossal statues of Justice and Liberty,” was built on the Place d’Armes in honor of the revolutionary hero. When the “Guest of Louisiana” made his entry in New Orleans on 10 April after a stormy steamboat ride from Mobile, the rain that “fell by torrents” did not prevent the people of New Orleans from assembling in mass to welcome the great man. He was first addressed by Governor Henry Johnson at the house of William Montgomery, which had served as Andrew Jackson’s headquarters during his New Orleans campaign of 1814–15; then, he was complimented by Mayor Joseph Roffignac (a native of Angoulême who had emigrated to the United States to escape the French Revolution) under the triumphal arch, and finally, he was harangued by City Recorder Denis Prieur in the hall “where the City Council was convened.” There were parades , banquets, addresses, balls, and illuminations. Numerous visitors —including members of the Louisiana House of Representatives; members of the Bar of New Orleans; a delegation of the Spanish residents of the city; former revolutionary officers and soldiers; the bishop of New Orleans, Mgr Dubourg; Father Antonio Sedella of Saint Louis Church; a delegation of the free colored militia with its commander, John Mercier; the members of the Medical Society of New Orleans; and a deputation of the Grand Lodge of the State of Louisiana and “all the masons residing in this city”—called on Lafayette to pay their respects and invite him 302 franÇois weil to celebrations. Lafayette, in turn, paid many official and private visits. When he left the city on 15 April, a procession took him from the Cabildo through an immensely crowded Chartres Street to the river and the steamboat Natchez, which was to carry the great man to Saint Louis.1 Similar celebrations took place elsewhere in the United States during Lafayette’s grand tour. But in New Orleans they took on a meaning of their own. Not only did they serve—as elsewhere—as a symbol of national unity. Not only did they suggest the legitimacy of Louisiana’s place within the nation. They also signaled the presence in New Orleans of a vibrant French culture for all to see. Although “Louisiana did not share with you in the toils and glory of the war of independence,” Governor Johnson reminded his guest, “her inhabitants are as ardently attached to itsprinciplesastheirbrethren,andasfirmlyresolvedtopreserveinviolate the blessings conquered by their ancestors.” He added more importantly: “You will find in Louisiana one subject of consolation and delight which nootherpartoftheUnitedStatescanpresenttoyou.... ThisStatesettled by Frenchmen, and principally inhabited by their descendants, enjoys as a member of the American Confederacy the full measure of that liberty, for which you toiled and bled. And the wise and temperate use of which Frenchmen have here made of it, is a triumphant answer to those who have proclaimed them unfit for freedom, and stigmatised you for labouring to confer on them the greatest of all blessings.”2 Lafayette did not miss the point. He forcefully agreed that Louisiana gave “a daily evidence” of “the fitness of the French population for a wise use of the blessings of free institutions, and self government”— something, he hinted, that was denied to them during the Restoration as it had been during the Empire.3 Subsequently the “French” character of New Orleans was repeatedly emphasized by Lafayette and the various orators . To Mayor Roffignac’s address, Lafayette replied that he had always hoped that his “Louisiana countrymen might some day participate in the benefitsofrepublicanlibertyandindependence”andthathewashappyto see this “hope . . . now realized.” Recorder Prieur insisted that the inhabitantsofNewOrleansgreetedhim “asmembersofthegreatAmericanfamily ” and also “as the descendants of Frenchmen.” At a banquet, Governor Johnson toasted “the countrymen of the illustrious guest of the nation” who had proved in Louisiana that they are “fully capable of appreciating, administering and defending a free government.” On behalf of the marshals who superintended the general’s reception, Canonge insisted that New Orleans “was composed both of men proud of claiming their birth [18.117.184.62] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 19...

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