yet struggling
colony into the control of the King of Spain. It was fully two years
later before word of this unwelcome transfer reached the distant
province, while as much more time elapsed ere Don Antonio de Ulloa, the
newly appointed Spanish governor, landed at New Orleans, and, under
guard of but two companies of infantry, took unto himself the reins.
Unrest was already in the air,--petitions and delegations laden with
vehement protests crossed the Atlantic. Both were alike returned,
disregarded by the French King. Where it is probable that a single
word of wise counsel, even of kindly explanation, might have calmed the
rising tumult, silence and contempt merely served to aggravate it.

It has been written by conscientious historians that commercial
interests, not loyalty to French traditions, were the real cause of
this struggle of 1768. Be that as it may, its leaders were found in
the Superior Council, a body of governors older even than New Orleans,
of which the patriotic Lafreniere was then the presiding officer, and
whose membership contained such representative citizens as Foucault,
Jean and Joseph Milhet, Caresse, Petit, Poupet, a prominent lawyer.
Marquis, a Swiss captain, with Bathasar de Masan, Hardy de Boisblanc,
and Joseph Villere, planters of the upper Mississippi, as well as two
nephews of the great Bienville, Charles de Noyan, a young ex-captain of
cavalry, lately married to the only daughter of Lafreniere, and his
younger brother, a lieutenant in the navy.

On the twenty-seventh of October, 1768, every Frenchman in Louisiana
Province was marching toward New Orleans. That same night the guns at
the Tehoupitoulas Gate--the upper river corner--were spiked; while yet
farther away, along a narrow road bordering the great stream, armed
with fowling pieces, muskets, even axes, the Arcadians, and the aroused
inhabitants of the German coast, came sweeping down to unite with the
impatient Creoles of the town. In the dull gray of early morning they
pushed past the spiked and useless cannon, and, with De Noyan and
Villere at their head, forced the other gates and noisily paraded the
streets under the _fleur de lis_. The people rose _en masse_ to greet
them, until, utterly unable to resist the rising tide of popular
enthusiasm, Ulloa retired on board the Spanish frigate, which slipped
her cables, and came to anchor far out in the stream. Two days later,
hurried no doubt by demands of the council, the go