ugs--even the
beautiful and selfless devotion of the "Howard Association" and its
like--availed nothing in the wrestle with the grim destroyer, when he
had once fairly clutched his hold. And in the crowded quarters, where
the air was poison without the malaria, his footing was too sure for
mortal to prevail against him.

New Orleans was, at this time, divided into two distinct towns in one
corporation--the French and American. In the one, the French language
was spoken altogether for social and business purposes, and even in
the courts. The theaters were French, the cafes innocent of English,
and, as Hood says, the "very children speak it." Many persons grow
up in this quarter--or did in years back--who never, to their old
age, crossed to the American town or spoke one word of English. In
the society of the old town, one found a miniature--exact to the
photograph--of Paris. It was jealously exclusive, and even the most
petted beaux of the American quarter deemed it privilege to enter it. A
stranger must come with letters of the most urgent kind before he could
cross its threshold. All the etiquette and form of the _ancien regime_
obtained here--the furniture, the dress, the cookery, the dances were
all French.

In the American town the likeness to Mobile was very marked, in the
manners and style of the people. The young men of the French quarter
had sought this society more of late years, finding in it a freedom
from restraint, for which their associations with other Americans in
business gave them a taste. The character of the society was gay and
easy--and it was not hedged in so carefully as that of the old town.
Strangers were cordially--if not very carefully--welcomed into it; and
the barriers of reserve, that once protected it, were rapidly breaking
down before the inroads of progress and petroleum.

The great hotels--the "St. Charles," "St. Louis" and others--were
constantly filled with the families of planters from all points of the
river and its branches, and with travelers from the Atlantic border as
well. Many of these were people of cultivation and refinement; but
many, alas! the roughest of diamonds with a western freedom of
expression and solidity of outline, that is national but not agreeable.
In the season these people overflowed the hotels, where they had
constant hops with, occasionally, splendid balls and even masques. Many
of them were "objects of interest" to the young men about town, by
reason o