Part 1 (1/2)
The Rose of Old St. Louis.
by Mary Dillon.
FOREWORD
My story does not claim to be history, but in every important historical detail it is absolutely faithful to the records of the times as I have found them. Every word of the debate in Congress, every word of Marbois, Livingston, Decres, Napoleon, and his two brothers on the subject of the Louisiana Cession is verbatim from the most authentic accounts. I am indebted for the historical part of my story to Gayarre's ”History of Louisiana,” to Martin's ”History of Louisiana,” to James K. Hosmer's ”History of the Louisiana Purchase,”
to Lucien Bonaparte's ”Memoirs,” to numerous lives of Napoleon, Jefferson, Talleyrand, and others, and particularly to Marbois himself, whose account of the negotiations on the subject of the cession is preserved in his own handwriting in the St. Louis Mercantile Library.
As to the local color of old St. Louis, both in its topographical setting and in its customs, I have also tried to be exact. And here I am very largely indebted to that simple and charming old writer, H.
M. Brackenridge, in his ”Recollections of the West” and in his ”Views of Louisiana”; and also to Timothy Flint in his ”Recollections”; to J.
Thomas Scharf's interesting ”History of St. Louis,” and especially to Mr. Frederic L. Billon, St. Louis's historian _par eminence_. I make also the same claim for exactness as to the local color of Was.h.i.+ngton at that early day; for which I have made so many gleanings in many fields--a little here, a little there--that it seems hardly worth while to give special credit to each.
In non-essential points I have occasionally taken the liberty belonging to a writer of fiction, having condensed into one several debates in Congress, as well as several interviews between Talleyrand and Livingston, and two interviews between Bonaparte and Marbois.
Nor have I hesitated to use the names of the early St. Louis settlers, because they are names still well known and honored in the city which they helped to found. I have touched upon them but lightly, and have tried to make those touches true to the characters of those estimable gentlemen and gentlewomen of the old French regime.
MARY DILLON.
THE ROSE OF OLD ST. LOUIS
CHAPTER I
I MAKE MY BOW IN CAHOKIA
”The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft a-gley.”
”And this is the village of St. Louis, sir?”
I bowed respectfully to my captain standing in the prow of the boat and looking across an expanse of swirling muddy water to the village on the bluffs beyond. I spoke more after the manner of making polite conversation than because I was desirous of information, for I knew without asking that it could be none other.
My captain answered me: ”Yes, my lad, yonder is St. Louis, and this is De Soto's river; what dost think of it?”
”I think, sir, 'tis a great river, though not so clear a stream as the Delaware, and muddier even than the Ohio.”
I spoke calmly, but my heart was beating fast, and I could feel the blood rus.h.i.+ng through my veins. I had been ill with what the boatmen call river fever, and had lain in the bottom of the boat wrapped in my blanket, alternately s.h.i.+vering with chills and burning with fever, oblivious to all about me, so that I had not known when we swept out of the Ohio into the Mississippi, past Fort Ma.s.sac, nor when we had tied up at Kaskaskia for a long rest.
We had landed late the evening before at Cahokia, and been most hospitably entertained by Mr. Gratiot. There had been a great banquet in honor of Captain Clarke, with dancing far into the night, and many guests from St. Louis. I, being still an invalid, had been put to bed in Mr. Gratiot's beautiful guest-chamber, and given a hot posset that put me to sleep at once, though not so soundly but that I could dreamily catch occasional strains of the fiddles and the rhythmic sound of feet on the waxed walnut, and many voices and much laughter.
Had I been well, it would have vexed me sore not to have been able to lead in the minuet one of the beauties of Cahokia, whose fame had reached even my distant home in Philadelphia, for I had been carefully trained in the steps and the figures, and was young enough to be proud of my skill in the dance. But feeling ill as I did, the sounds of revelry combined with the posset only to soothe me into a heavy slumber.
I woke in the early dawn to find Yorke, Captain Clarke's big black, standing beside my bed, with a bowl of smoking gruel. He showed a formidable array of white ivory as he grinned amiably in response to my questioning look:
”Mars' Gratiot send you de gruel wid his complimen's, sah, and he and de capen bofe say you's not to git up dis mohnen, sah.”
Yorke always considered that to state a request of ”de capen” was sufficient to insure compliance. He could not dream of any one setting his authority at naught. With me, too, Captain Clarke's authority was paramount. It had only been by a promise of absolute submission to that authority that I had persuaded my kinsman in Kentucky to allow me to accompany the captain on his mission to the governor of Illinois at St. Louis.