St. Domingo,
took refuge in Baltimore during the last decade of the eighteenth
century. They gracefully and gratefully accepted favors and kindness of
various kinds, but they were too proud and self-reliant to resign
themselves to eat the bread of charity or lead lives of indolence. Some,
born to fortune and ancient titles, employed their talents and
accomplishments promptly and without hesitation. Counts and marquises
became gardeners (introducing a great variety of fruits and vegetables
unknown before in the United States), dancing-masters, music-teachers,
drawing-masters, architects, chemists, confectioners, cigar-makers and
teachers of their own beautiful language. The names of many of those
_emigres_ are now borne by the most estimable citizens of the community
which first sheltered their ancestors: they are ornaments of society,
distinguished in the professions and skilled in the arts and sciences.

But it is not of this high and noble class that I desired to speak: it
is of a more humble but not less worthy set of French people who came
here at the same time. I allude to the colored creoles who were the born
slaves of these ladies and gentlemen. Some shared the dangers of their
flight from St. Domingo: others found a way, by tedious voyages, to join
their old masters and tender their services, not as slaves, but as
honest, humble, faithful servants. It was honorable both to master and
slave that such cordial relations should have existed under such trying
circumstances. Some of the creoles were good cooks, bakers,
snuff-makers, laundry-women, etc.; and the most beautiful and touching
part of this relation between the master and their former slaves was
that hundreds of the latter laid the profits of their labor at the feet
of their white friends with reverence and devotion. Many old ladies and
gentlemen, accustomed to every attention from the best trained servants,
were altogether incapable of helping themselves, and were dependent on
the bounty and tender care of their former slaves. Most of the better
class of French _emigres_ retained all their former habits of domestic
life, such as taking a cup of coffee before rising in the morning and an
eleven-o'clock _dejeuner a la fourchette_, while those who could afford
it had a modest _petit souper_ at nine o'clock in the evening. At the
latter were often found the elite of this French society. Music, dancing
and refined conversation were indulged in for two or three