es. They were taken
from her and--liberated? Ah! no. They were sold by the sheriff, bid in by
her relatives, and by them sold back to her. Let us believe that this is
what occurred, or at least was shammed; for unless we do we must accept
the implication of a newspaper statement of two or three years
afterwards, and the confident impression of an aged Creole gentleman and
notary still living who was an eye-witness to much of this story, that all
Madame Lalaurie ever suffered for this part of her hideous misdeeds was a
fine. Lawyers will doubtless remind us that Madame Lalaurie was not
legally chargeable with the child's death. The lady at the window was not
the only witness who might have been brought. A woman still living, who
after the civil war was for years a domestic in this "haunted house," says
her husband, now long dead, then a lad, was passing the place when the
child ran out on the roof, and he saw her scrambling about on it seeking
to escape. But he did not see the catastrophe that followed. No one saw
more than what the law knows as assault; and the child was a slave.

Miss Martineau, in her short account of the matter, which she heard in New
Orleans and from eye-witnesses only a few years after it had occurred,
conjectures that Madame Lalaurie's object in buying back these slaves was
simply to renew her cruelties upon them. But a much easier, and even
kinder, guess would be that they knew things about her that had not been
and must not be told, if she could possibly prevent it. A high temper, let
us say, had led her into a slough of misdoing to a depth beyond all her
expectation, and the only way out was on the farther side.

Yet bring to bear all the generous conjecture one can, and still the fact
stands that she did starve, whip, and otherwise torture these poor
victims. She even mistreated her daughters for conveying to them food
which she had withheld. Was she not insane? One would hope so; but we
cannot hurry to believe just what is most comfortable or kindest. That
would be itself a kind of "emotional insanity." If she was insane, how
about her husband? For Miss Martineau, who was told that he was no party
to her crimes, was misinformed; he was as deep in the same mire as passive
complicity could carry him. If she was insane her insanity stopped
abruptly at her plump, well-fed coachman. He was her spy against all
others. And if she was insane, then why did not her frequent guests at
table suspect it?