in the midst of pretty gardens, are peaceful, and the negro nurses stroll on the sidewalks, chattering in quaint French to the little children of their former masters-now their "employers." There is no attempt on the part of the French or Spanish families to inaugurate style and fashion in public in the city; quiet home society, the making of matches. and marrying of daughters, the games and dinner-parties among the "old boys," and the church, shopping, and calls, in simple and unaffected manner, content the young ladies. The majority of the people in the whole quarter seem to have a total disregard of the outside world, and when one hears them discussing the distracted condition of local politics, one can almost fancy them gossiping on matters entirely foreign to them, instead of subjects so vitally connected with their lives and property. They seem as remote from New York and Washington as if limitless oceans rolled between. The Americans do not come to them, bringing even a faint reflection of the excitements in these United States; they live very much among themselves, and it is astonishing to see how little the ordinary American citizen of New Orleans knows about the French; how illy he appreciates them. It is hard for him to talk five minutes about them without saying, "Well, we have a non-progressive element here, and it will not be converted." Having said which, he may perhaps paint in glowing colors the virtues and excellences of his French neighbors, but cannot forgive them for taking so little interest in public affairs.

The

fortunes. The rent of these solidly constructed old houses brings them a fortune, which, when translated from dollars into francs, is colossal, and which the Parisian tradesmen tuck away into their strong-boxes. With the downfall of slavery, and the advent of reconstruction, came such radical changes into Louisiana politics and society that those belonging to the ancien régime who could flee, fled; and a prominent historian and gentleman of most honorable Creole descent told me that, among his immense acquaintance, he did not know a single person who would not leave the State if he or she had the means. grooves in which society in Louisiana and New Orleans had run before the late struggle, were so broken that even a residence in the State was distasteful to him and the society he represented; since the war, he said, five hundred years seemed to have passed over the commonwealth. The Italy of Augustus and the Italy of to-day were not more dissimilar than Louisiana before, and Louisiana after the war. There was no longer the spirit to maintain the grand, unbounded hospitality which was once so characteristic of the South. Formerly, the guest would have been presented to planters who would have entertained him for days, in royal style, and who would have sent him forward in their own carriages, commended to the hospitality of their neighbors. Now, these same planters were living upon corn and pork. "Now," said the gentleman, "all these rich people have vanished from their homes, and I actually know ladies of culture and refinement, whose income was one hundred thousand dollars yearly before the war, who are

Here we are again at the Archbishop's Palace, once the Convent of the Ursulines, who now have a splendid convent and school further down the river, surrounded by beautiful gardens. This ancient edifice was completed by the French government in 1733, and is the most ancient in Louisiana. Its Tuscan composite architecture and its queer roofs and chimneys, its porter's lodge and its interior garden, make it well worth preserving, even when the tide of progress sets in as far as this nook on Condé street. The Ursuline nuns occupied this convent for nearly a century, and it was only abandoned by them because they were tempted, by the great rise in real estate in that vicinity, to sell. The new convent is richly endowed, and is one of the best seminaries in the South.

Many of the owners of property in the vicinity of the Archbishop's Palace have removed to France, since the war, and spend their rent-rolls there,-doing nothing for the benefit of the metropolis which gave them their

read nor write. There was, according to him, scarcely a single man of color in the last Legislature who was competent in any large degree. The Louisiana people were in such terror of the negro government that they would rather accept any other species of despotism. A military dictator would be far preferable to them; they would go anywhere to escape the ignominy to which they were at present subjected. The crisis was demoralizing every one. Nobody worked with any will; every one was in debt. There was not a single piece of property in the city of New Orleans in which he would at present invest, although one could now buy for $5,000 01 $10,000 property originally worth $50,000. He said it would not pay to purchase, the taxes were so enormous. The majority of the great plantations had been deserted on account of the excessive taxation. How deep the despair was, only those familiar with its real causes could imagine. Benefit by immigration, he maintained, was impossible under the present régime; white men from more bracing climates became demoralized in Louisiana in a few months, and also mingled in the distracted politics in such a manner as to neglect all proper development of the country. Thousands of Louisianians were fleeing to Texas: (and I could vouch for the correctness of that assertion.) He said that the mass of emigrants became readily discouraged and broken down in the Louisiana climate, because they began by working harder than that climate would permit. The Germans who had come into the State had in some instances been ordered by organizations both of white and colored native workmen not to perform so much daily, as they were setting a dangerous example! Still, he believed that almost any white man would at any time do as much work as three' negroes. He hardly thought that in fifty years there would be any negroes in Louisiana.

washing for their daily bread. The misery, the despair, in hundreds of cases, is beyond belief. Hosts of lovely plantations now remain entirely deserted; the negroes will not remain upon them, but flock into the cities, or work on land which they have purchased for themselves." He did not believe that the free negro did as much work for himself as he formerly did for his master. The conditions of labor for planters at the present time he considered terribly onerous; the negroes were only profitable as field-hands when they worked the lands on shares, after the planters had furnished them the land, tools, horses, mules, and advanced them their food. He said that he would not himself hire a negro for a very small sum monthly; he did not believe it would be profitable. The discouragement of the native Louisianians, he believed, arose in large degree from the difficulty of obtaining capital with which to begin anew. He knew many cases where only ten or twenty thousand dollars were needed to make improvements in water-powers and on lands which would net hundreds of thousands. He had himself written repeatedly, urging people at the North to invest, but they would not; and alleged that they should not alter their determination so long as the present condition of politics prevailed. He said with great emphasis that he did not think the people of the North would believe a statement which gave a faithful transcript of the present condition of affairs in Louisiana. The natives of the State could hardly realize it themselves; and it was not to be expected that strangers, of differing habits of life and thought, should be able. He did not blame the negro for his present incapacity, but always proceeded on the basis that the black man was an inferior being who had been peculiarly unfitted for what he was now called upon to undertake, by ages of special training. The negro was, he thought, by nature kindly, generous courteous, susceptible of civilization only to a certain degree: somewhat devoid of moral consciousness, and usually, of course, ignorant. Not one out of one hundred, the whole State through, could write. his name; and there had been fifty-five in one single Legislature who could neither

ENTRANCE TO THE U. S. BARRACKS.

statuesque old house and body servants, who seem to have caught some dignity from their masters, they are by no means inviting. They gather in groups at the street corners just at nightfall, and while they chatter like monkeys, furiously smoke cigarettes, and gesticulate as if enraged. They live without much work, for their wants are few, and two days of labor in a week, added to the fat roosters and turkeys who will walk into their clutches, keep them in bed and board, and they find ample amusement in the "heat o' the sun," the passers-by, and tobacco. There are, naturally, families of color noticeable for intelligence and accomplishments; but, as a rule, the negro of the French quarter is thickheaded, light heeled and hearted, improvident, and not too conscientious.

Perhaps one of the most patent proofs of the poverty now so bitterly felt among the hitherto well-to-do families in New Orleans, was in the temporary suspension of the opera last winter. Heretofore the Crescent City has rejoiced in brilliant seasons, both the French and Americans uniting in subscriptions sufficient to bring to their scene artists of unrivaled talent and culture. But this year the expenses were too heavy to be borne, and a comedy company from the Paris theaters took their places upon the lyric stage. The French Opera House is a handsomely arranged building of modern construction, at the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse streets. The interior is elegantly decorated, and during the season of six months the salle is nightly visited by hundreds of the regular subscribers, who take tickets for the whole season, and by the city's floating population. Between each act

of the pieces all the men in the theater rise, stalk out, puff cigarettes, and sip iced raspberry water and absinthe in the open air, returning in the same mechanical fashion just as the curtain rises again; while the ladies receive the visits of friends in the loges or in the private boxes, which they often occupy four evenings in a week. The New Orleans public, both French and American, possesses excellent theatrical taste, and is severely critical, especially in opera, as it is difficult to find a Creole family of any pretensions in which music is not cultivated in large degree.

Society is no longer what it was before the war, even in the relations of one family to another; there is no pretense at ceremonious society in New Orleans. The older American and French families once constituted a very brilliant coterie, but there is only now and then an effort as of yore in the French quarter. "People," said an excellent authority to me, "are really so poor that they have no taste for comparing poverties." Of course there is a round of informal visiting, as a vast number of families are related by marriage, and the relations of all kinds are as intimate as might be expected in a city where the resident population changes so little.

People very generally speak both prevailing languages in the French quarter of the city; while the majority of the American residents do not affect the French. The Gallic children all speak English, and in the street-plays of the boys, as in their conversation, French and English idioms are strangely mingled. American boys call birds and fishes and animals by corrupted French names, handed down through seventy years of perversion, and a dreadful threat on the part of Young America is, that he will "mallerroo" you, which seems to hint that our old French friend malheureux, "unhappy," has undergone corruption with other words. When an American boy wishes his comrade

THE OLD SPANISH FORT.

to make his kite fly higher, he says, poussez ! just as the French boy does, and so on, ad infinitum.

Any stranger who remains in the French quarter of New Orleans over Sunday, will be amazed at the great number of funeral processions. It would seem, indeed, as if folks conveniently made their dying day as near the end of the week as possible, that they may be laid away on the Sabbath. The cemeteries, old and new, rich and poor, are scattered throughout the city, and most of them present an extremely beautiful appearance the white tombs nestling among the dark green foliage. It would be difficult to dig a grave of the ordinary depth here in the "Louisiana lowlands" without coming to water; and, consequently, burials in sealed tombs above ground are universal. The old French and Spanish cemeteries present long streets of cemented walls, with apertures into which once were thrust the noble and good of the land, as if they were put into ovens to be baked; and the queer inscriptions, dated away back in the middle of the eighteenth century, may still be read. Great numbers of the monuments both in the old and new cemeteries are very imposing; and, as in all Catholic communities, one sees long processions of mourning relatives every day carrying flowers to place on the spot where their loved and lost are entombed; or catches a glimpse of some black-robed figure sitting motionless before a tomb. The St. Louis Cemetery is fine, and many dead are even better housed than they were in life. The St. Patrick, Cypress Grove, Firemen's, Odd Fellows, and Jewish cemeteries, in the American quarter, are filled with richly-wrought tombs, and traversed by fine, tree-planted avenues.

The St. Louis Hotel is one of the most imposing monuments of the French quarter, as well as one of the finest hotels in the United States. It was originally built to

combine a city exchange, hotel, bank, ball rooms, and private stores, and is a superb edifice, with a façade composed of Tuscan and Doric orders of architecture. The rotunda, now metamorphosed into a dininghall, is one of the most beautiful in this country, and the great inner circle of the dome is richly frescoed with allegorical scenes and busts of eminent Americans, from the pencils of Canova and Pinoli. The immense ball-room is also superbly decorated. The St. Louis Hotel was very nearly destroyed by fire in 1840, but in less than two years was restored to its original splendor. The old Bank of Louisiana building, at the corner of Royal and Conti streets, is also a noticeable edifice. On the eastern and western sides of Jackson Square are the Pontalba buildings, large and not especially handsome brick structures, erected by the Countess Pontalba, many years ago. Chartres street, and all the avenues contributing to it, are thoroughly French in character; cafés, wholesale stores, pharmacies, shops for articles of luxury, all bear evidence of Gallic taste.

At the corner of Esplanade and Old Levee streets, on what was once Jackson Square, and the site of "Fort St. Charles," stands the United States Branch Mint, quite an imposing structure, built of brick plastered to imitate granite. It is a center building projecting, of the Ionic order, with two wings; and is surrounded with a profusion of shrubbery, planted in well-kept grounds. About three miles below Esplanade street, and near the outskirts of the town, stand the United States barracks, built in 1834-5, at a cost of $182,000. They occupy a parallelogram of about three hundred feet on the river by nine hundred in depth, giving ample room for a very handsome parade-ground.

Every street in the old city has its legend, either humorous or tragical; and each old building which pleads to an hundred years. has memories of Spanish domination hovering about it. The old families speak of their "ancestor who came with Bienville," or with such and such Spanish Governors, with bated breath and touching pride; and there is many a name among those of the Creoles there, which has descended untarnished to its present