"It was Lieutenant Rosello, a young Spaniard, who came on horseback from
Fort Latourette to carry to my great-grandfather his sister's letter....
Not to lose a moment, he [the brother] began, like Lieutenant Rosello,
the journey on horseback, procuring a large ambulance as he passed through
New Orleans.... He did all he could to lighten the despair of his poor
sister.... All the members of the family lavished upon her every possible
care and attention; but alas! the blow she had received was too terrible.
She lingered three years, and at the end of that time passed peaceably
away in the arms of her brother, the last words on her lips being
'Leonard!--my child!'"

So we make way for the bright and happy story of how Francoise made
Evangeline's journey through the dark wilds of Atchafalaya.

FOOTNOTES:
[3] County.
[4] If this was an English ship,--for her crew was English and her
master's name seems to have been Andrews,--she was probably not under
British colors.--TRANSLATOR.
[5] The treeless marshes of the Delta would be very slow coming into
view.--TRANSLATOR.

THE ADVENTURES OF FRANCOISE AND SUZANNE.

1795.

Years passed by. Our war of the Revolution was over. The Indians of
Louisiana and Florida were all greedy, smiling gift-takers of his Catholic
Majesty. So were some others not Indians; and the Spanish governors of
Louisiana, scheming with them for the acquisition of Kentucky and the
regions intervening, had allowed an interprovincial commerce to spring up.
Flatboats and barges came floating down the Mississippi past the
plantation home where little Suzanne and Francoise were growing up to
womanhood. Many of the immigrants who now came to Louisiana were the
royalist _noblesse_ flying from the horrors of the French Revolution.
Governor Carondelet was strengthening his fortifications around New
Orleans; for Creole revolutionists had slipped away to Kentucky and were
there plotting an armed descent in flatboats upon his little capital,
where the rabble were singing the terrible songs of bloody Paris. Agents
of the Revolution had come from France and so "contaminated," as he says,
"the greater part of the province" that he kept order only "at the cost
of sleepless nights, by frightening some, punishing others, and driving
several out of the colony." It looks as though Suzanne had caught a touch
of dis-relish for _les aristocrates_, whose necks the songs of the day
were promising to the lampposts. To ad