ultitude; it was nothing accounted of in the days of the
Grand Marquis. For Louis Quinze was king.

Clotilde, orphan of a murdered Huguenot, was one of sixty, the last
royal allotment to Louisiana, of imported wives. The king's agents had
inveigled her away from France with fair stories: "They will give you a
quiet home with some lady of the colony. Have to marry?--not unless it
pleases you. The king himself pays your passage and gives you a casket
of clothes. Think of that these times, fillette; and passage free,
withal, to--the garden of Eden, as you may call it--what more, say you,
can a poor girl want? Without doubt, too, like a model colonist, you
will accept a good husband and have a great many beautiful children, who
will say with pride, 'Me, I am no House-of-Correction-girl stock; my
mother'--or 'grandmother,' as the case may be--'was a _fille a la
cassette!_'"

The sixty were landed in New Orleans and given into the care of the
Ursuline nuns; and, before many days had elapsed, fifty-nine soldiers of
the king were well wived and ready to settle upon their riparian
land-grants. The residuum in the nuns' hands was one stiff-necked little
heretic, named, in part, Clotilde. They bore with her for sixty days,
and then complained to the Grand Marquis. But the Grand Marquis, with
all his pomp, was gracious and kind-hearted, and loved his ease almost
as much as his marchioness loved money. He bade them try her another
month. They did so, and then returned with her; she would neither marry
nor pray to Mary.

Here is the way they talked in New Orleans in those days. If you care to
understand why Louisiana has grown up so out of joint, note the tone of
those who governed her in the middle of the last century:

"What, my child," the Grand Marquis said, "you a _fille a la cassette?_
France, for shame! Come here by my side. Will you take a little advice
from an old soldier? It is in one word--submit. Whatever is inevitable,
submit to it. If you want to live easy and sleep easy, do as other
people do--submit. Consider submission in the present case; how easy,
how comfortable, and how little it amounts to! A little hearing of mass,
a little telling of beads, a little crossing of one's self--what is
that? One need not believe in them. Don't shake your head. Take my
example; look at me; all these things go in at this ear and out at this.
Do king or clergy trouble me? Not at all. For how does the king in these
matters of relig