several fine new
plantations were established." . . . .

The administration of the Marquis of Vaudreuil was long and fondly
remembered in Louisiana, as an epoch of unusual brilliancy, but which
was followed up by corresponding gloom. His administration, if small
things may be compared with great ones, was for Louisiana, with regard
to splendor, luxury, military display, and expenses of every kind,
what the reign of Louis XIV. had been for France. He was a man of
patrician birth and high breeding, who liked to live in a manner
worthy of his rank. Remarkable for his personal graces and comeliness,
for the dignity of his bearing and the fascination of his address, he
was fond of pomp, show, and pleasure; surrounded by a host of
brilliant officers, of whom he was the idol, he loved to keep up a
miniature court, in distant imitation of that of Versailles; and long
after he had departed, old people were fond of talking of the
exquisitely refined manners, of the magnificent balls, of the
splendidly uniformed troops, of the high-born young officers, and of
the many other unparalleled things they had seen in the days of the
_Great Marquis_.

. . . . . . .

The inventories made of the property of the twelve gentlemen, whom the
decree of the Spanish tribunal had convicted of rebellion, afford
interesting proofs of the Spartan simplicity which existed in the
colony. Thus the furniture of the bed-room of Madam Villere, who was
the wife of one of the most distinguished citizens of Louisiana, and
the grand-daughter of De Lachaise, who came to the colony in 1723 as
ordaining commissary, was described as consisting of a cypress
bedstead, three feet wide by six in length, with a mattress of corn
shucks and one of feathers on the top, a bolster of corn shucks, and a
coarse cotton counterpane or quilt, manufactured probably by the lady
herself, or by her servants; six chairs of cypress wood, with straw
bottoms; some candlesticks with common wax, the candles made in the
country, &c., &c.

The rest of the house was not more splendidly furnished, and the
house itself, as described in the inventory, must have looked very
much like one of those modest and unpainted little wood structures
which are, to this day, to be seen in many parts of the banks of the
river Mississippi, and in the Attakapas and Opelousas parishes. They
are the tenements of our small planters who own only a few slaves, and
they retain the appellation of _Maisons d'Aca