The Ghost of Pere Antoine
Like the architecture of the French Quarter
of New Orleans, Pere Antoine (known to the
Spanish as Antonio de Sedella) was an inheritance
from the Spanish regime. His death, on January
18, 1829 was looked upon in Louisiana, by
“Catholic and Protestant alike, as a
calamity. All New Orleans went into mourning.
The funeral rites were observed with a pomp
hitherto unknown to the city.” The old
friar was laid to rest in St. Louis Cathedral
among the people he had served to selflessly.
It was widely believed that Pere Antoine had
been a living saint.
But many of the older Creoles remembered
Pere Antoine differently: as the Spanish bigot
he had been during his early years in the
New World. They recalled how in the late 1780’s
he had fought in vain to set up in Louisiana
the Holy Office of the Inquisition. They also
remembered that fifteen years later, after
the purchase of the territory by the United
States, he again fought in vain to keep New
Orleans in the diocese of the Bishop of Havana.
Still, the younger generation recalled only
that Pere Antoine was a man of God, dedicated
body and soul to fulfilling the vows he took
upon becoming a Capuchin.
He lived on the Rue Dauphine, in a wooden
hut which he had built with his own hands.
On the stretch of turf in front of the kennel-like
structure he had planted a date palm. By 1828
the tree was big enough to provide shade for
the 80 year old friar as he sat on a stool
in his doorway listening to the accounts of
distress poured into his ears by this suppliant
and that.
Every day he made his tour of visits to the
sick. No man was more frequently seen walking
the streets of New Orleans than tall, thin
Pere Antoine, cowled and sandaled, no matter
what the weather, his brown eyes shining and
white beard flying. Often on a mission of
mercy he crossed Canal Street and entered
a Protestant home in the American faubourg.
To Pere Antoine the sick were the sick, whatever
their religion might be. Marvelous tales were
told of the physical endurance he manifested
when one of the ever-recurring epidemics of
yellow fever struck New Orleans. It was said
that he went without sleep for weeks at a
stretch, spending every hour of the twenty-four
in comforting the stricken, administering
last rites, and burying the dead. No one,
it was declared, ever saw him take food from
the beginning of an epidemic to the end. It
was said that so long as Yellow Jack loitered
Pere Antoine’s strength was sustained
by a flow of manna that entered his body with
the air he breathed.
In his lifetime of service to St. Louis Cathedral,
he is said to have baptized Marie Laveau and
many of her children, performed her wedding
ceremony and, together with her, did much
to advance the state of the poor, the imprisoned,
and the slave population in New Orleans. Pere
Antoine officiated at the baptism and the
wedding of Marie Aimee Brusle, the mother
of child prodigy and America’s first
great composer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and
another of the many ghosts that haunt the
darkened alcoves of St. Louis Cathedral.
As news of his death spread through the City
of New Orleans, throngs of the faithful, convinced
in their hearts that Pere Antoine was a saint,
demolished the hut on the Rue Dauphine. Even
the slightest splinter of wood was carried
away to be preserved as a holy relic. No two
in New Orleans appear to have agreed on what
happened to the date palm. In the many legends
which tell of its miraculous powers its actual
history was lost.
Yet, if many reports that come to us today
are to be believed, Pere Antoine is still
busily serving his beloved church and city,
even from the afterlife.
Many people have seen Pere Antoine’s
ghostly figure, clad in Capuchin black and
sandals, just as in life, walking slowly down
the small alleyway that runs alongside the
Cathedral and bears his name. Visitors and
locals alike report seeing the apparition
in Pere Antoine’s Alley in the early
morning hours when the French Quarter is most
quiet; on misty winter afternoons his ghostly
form has been seen treading through the Cathedral
garden on Royal Street. Eyewitnesses say that
he is almost always reading his breviary,
or book of prayers, and seems oblivious to
anyone nearby. But others have encountered
the ghostly priest rushing through the streets
surrounding the Cathedral, perhaps on some
urgent mission from beyond the grave.
French Quarter residents and regulars are,
in fact, accustomed to seeing Pere Antoine’s
ghost at all hours of the day and night, and
in unexpected places. One recent account tells
of a local woman who was rushing through Pere
Antoine’s Alley on a rainy afternoon.
Tottering on high heels, she tripped on one
of the uneven alley flagstones and fell straight
into the arms of a black-robed man with a
white beard and surprised expression. He said
nothing as he helped her gain her balance;
when the woman turned to thank him, the man
was gone. The woman further claimed that a
sense of overwhelming peace came over her
that afternoon and she fully believes she
encountered not a ghost, but a saint.
Another local who works for a nearby cigar
shop claims to have presented Pere Antoine
with a free sample of the shop’s wares
when, one evening as he was about to end his
shift, he was approached by a priest wearing
a black frock and looking sternly at him.
The local smiled and said, “Take one,
they’re free!” Pere Antoine’s
ghost then took the cigar from the man and
walked away. Again, when the cigar shop worker
turned back around, the ghostly priest was
nowhere to be seen.
Worshippers at St. Louis Cathedral’s
Christmas Vigil Midnight Mass have reported
witnessing the ghostly form of Pere Antoine,
easily recognized from the 1822 portrait of
him that hangs in the church vestibule, walking
near the left side of the main altar carrying
a single, white taper. Others have reported
the ghost’s appearance in the choir
loft – a sighting that, though a regular
occurrence during the holidays, is always
alarming. Others say that Pere Antoine particularly
loves to show up for the practices and performances
of the St. Louis Cathedral Children’s
Choir. He has been seen sitting quietly in
an otherwise empty pew, facing the altar,
but swaying to the strains of the children’s
voices; he is always smiling when he appears
listening to the children and the music seems
to give his spirit great pleasure.
Many people have speculated on why such a
saintly man might still be haunting the familiar
surroundings of his earthly life. Though some
have suggested that, despite all his good
works, Pere Antoine continues to haunt the
great Cathedral because of the harm and trouble
caused by his wayward youth, most feel that
the old friar is simply still intimately connected
with his parishioners and the church that
was his personal charge for so many, many
years.
The Ghost of Pere Dagobert
Pere Dagobert was a Capuchin monk who became
pastor of St. Louis Church in 1745. Another
great champion of the poor and disenfranchised,
Pere Dagobert was far from being the image
of a quiet, prayerful friar. He is described
as a man with an immensely charismatic personality,
a great sense of humor, and a heart full of
charity.
When the City of New Orleans was ceded to
Spain in 1764 there was instant fear and rebellion
among the French. When the French monarchy
refused a petition on behalf of their Louisiana
colonists to preserve New Orleans for France,
a revolt was quickly organized. Six men –
respected locally and never before associated
with such an act – organized a rebellion
against the new Spanish regime. These men
– Lafreniere, Noyan, Caresse, Marquis,
Milhet and Villere – were all heads
of families well known to Pere Dagobert, families
whose religious life he had guided for many
years.
In March of 1766, the first Spanish governor,
Don Antonio de Ulloa, a man hated and reviled
among the citizenry, fled in the face of the
rebellion and took refuge in Havana.
In response, Spain sent a fleet of 24 ships
to New Orleans under the command of Don Alejandro
O'Reilly, an Irish expatriate, now fighting
for Spain: The rebellion was crushed and the
leaders were all arrested. On October 24,
1769, after a long imprisonment and the rejection
of all appeals from prominent citizens and
leaders of the church (including Pere Dagobert),
five of the original conspirators were executed
by firing squad near what is now Jackson Barracks;
the sixth, Villere, had died from a bayonet
wound in prison.
As an example against further rebellion,
O’Reilly refused to allow the men to
be buried and the corpses were left to rot
where they fell. New Orleanians, Spanish and
French alike, were appalled by this and the
by the fact that O’Reilly, a Catholic,
would deprive the men a decent Christian burial.
Despite the outcry, O’Reilly would not
relent and placed the swiftly decomposing
bodies under the watchful eye of a Spanish
garrison.
One night, however, something happened that
has never yet been explained.
Pere Dagobert appeared at the home of the
slain men and summoned their grieving families
to the St. Louis Cathedral. When they arrived,
they found that the bodies of their dead had
somehow been brought to the Cathedral and
had been laid out with the utmost care; Pere
Dagobert stood by to perform the funeral mass.
Then, under the cover of a heavy mist, the
bodies of the men were taken to St. Louis
Cemetery No. 1 where they were secretly buried
in unmarked graves out of fear the Spanish
would seek to desecrate the final resting
place and remove the bodies.
When word reached O’Reilly that the
bodies of the five conspirators had somehow
vanished from the Spanish garrison, he went
himself to inspect the scene and questioned
every guard who had been on watch the night
the bodies disappeared. To a man, they all
stated that they had been standing watch on
an otherwise clear night when suddenly a thick
fog began to roll in through the barracks
gates. Soon, they said, there came the sound
of muffled prayers and then the black-clad
figure of Pere Dagobert appeared at the gate,
apparently to pray for the pathetic corpses.
At one point, when the fog was thickest, completely
obscuring the bodies, the voice of Pere Dagobert
singing the “Kyrie” wafted through
the heavy silence of the night. When the black
friar had completed his litany, he turned
away and left the gate. Some time later, when
the fog receded, to the amazement and dismay
of the guards, the bodies of the rebel leaders
had simply vanished…
According to old New Orleans legends Pere
Dagobert still sings the Kyrie in a heavenly
voice before the high altar of St. Louis Cathedral
when the church is empty and closed for the
night. Many have reported seeing a light moving
from window to window as the phantom voice
drifts out into the night. On rainy afternoons,
in the quiet solitude of the old Cathedral,
many say they have seen Pere Dagobert kneeling
in fervent prayer on the altar steps.
And most agree that Pere Dagobert never haunts
alone. Whenever he appears, it is said, the
shadowy figures of six long dead men can just
barely be discerned, keeping to the shadows
but never completely out of sight. These are
the ghosts of the dead men on whose behalf
Pere Dagobert performed a miracle that long
ago night: It is said they will never leave
the church unguarded nor the spirit of their
great patron unattended so long as St. Louis
Cathedral endures.
The Haunted Bell Tower
The imposing central tower of St. Louis Cathedral
was designed by Englishman Benjamin Henry
Latrobe and he received a commission from
the Diocese to begin building the tower in
1819, during the vicarage of Pere Antoine.
Benjamin Henry Latrobe was born in 1764 at
Fulneck in Yorkshire. He was the Second son
of the Reverend Benjamin Latrobe (1728 - 86),
a minister of the Moravian church, and Anna
Margaretta (Antes) Latrobe (1728 - 94), a
third generation Pennsylvanian of Moravian
Parentage.
The original Latrobes had been French Huguenots
who had settled in Ireland at the end of the
17th Century. Whilst he is most noted for
his work on The White House and the Capitol
in Washington, he introduced the Greek Revival
as the style of American National architecture.
He built Baltimore cathedral, not only the
first Roman Catholic Cathedral in America
but also the first vaulted church and is,
perhaps, Latrobes finest monument.
Hammerwood Park achieves importance as his
first complete work, the first of only two
in this country and one of only five remaining
domestic buildings by Latrobe in existence.
It was built as a temple to Apollo, dedicated
as a hunting lodge to celebrate the arts and
incorporating elements related to Demeter,
mother Earth, in relation to the contemporary
agricultural revolution.
Latrobe was a master exponent of symbolism.
Hammerwood's composition displays all of Latrobe's
latent genius which he took to the States,
designing both the house and the park as an
essay in perspective as well as the picturesque.
In this, Latrobe's work at Hammerwood achieves
perfection.
During the construction of the tower, the
City Council commissioned a New Orleans clockmaker
named Jean Delachaux to obtain a suitable
clock to be placed in the façade of
the new tower. On behalf of the City of New
Orleans, Delachaux traveled to Paris, France
where he purchased a beautiful bronze bell
from a French foundry that had supplied the
bells of famous Notre Dame.
Delachaux returned to New Orleans from Paris
bearing with him the bell and a Swiss clock,
and all was made ready to place the works
into the bell tower. Latrobe wrote in his
journal of the incident:
"When the new bell was ready to be put
into the tower, I wrote him (Pere Antoine)
a letter in Latin to apprise him of the circumstance,
in order that, if the rites of the Church
required any notice of it, he might avail
himself of the occasion and do what he thought
necessary. He thanked me, and I had the bell
brought within the Church. After High Mass,
he arranged a procession to the bell and regularly
baptized her by the name of Victoire, the
name embossed upon her by the founder."
It was to be Latrobe’s last project;
he died in New Orleans of yellow fever on
September 3, 1820, before the final completion
of the bell tower and his was one of the first
funerals for which beautiful “Victoire”
was to toll a mournful dirge.
Almost immediately following Latrobe’s
death there were reports of ghostly sounds
and sightings in the bell tower. Workers putting
the finishing touches on the construction
of the project so close to Latrobe’s
heart would only work in the tower in pairs,
refusing to be alone there for any length
of time. Many reported that even on still,
windless days, the bell resonated faintly
and sadly, as if still mourning the passing
of the man who had so little time to enjoy
her music. The movement of objects –
paint buckets moving from one place to another,
ladders being moved when no one was looking
– and strange sounds, frightened other
workers.
Even the clockmaker, Delachaux, whose job
it was to set the workings and the chimes
of the Cathedral clock, reported what he described
as a “strange atmosphere” in the
bell tower following the death of Latrobe.
He had no doubt that the ghost of the dead
designer was responsible for the activity
in the tower.
Though Delchaux himself was to die peacefully
many years later, many have reported seeing
the ghostly figure of a man clad in early
19th century clothing, who appears at random
hours, and always when the clock is chiming.
He has been seen standing directly in the
nave of the Cathedral, holding a pocket watch
in his hand as if checking that it is keeping
time with the bell tower clock. As the chimes
subside, the ghost puts his watch away and
simply vanishes into thin air.
The Organ Loft and the Weeping
Ghost
The Cathedral’s organ was imported and
installed in 1829, the year of Pere Dagobert’s
death. Its workings are Italian and at the
time it ranked among the finest examples of
church organs in America, if not the world.
Though there have been many reports of various
apparitions sighted in the Cathedral over
the years, one of the most compelling and
disturbing is the spectre haunting the organ
loft.
Several witnesses report seeing the figure
of a woman, dressed in a dark, flowing dress
of the beautiful Empire style of the mid-1800’s,
who stares down balefully from the organ loft.
At times the figure is said to appear angry,
or frustrated, as if she wants to communicate;
at other times, she is said to be “holding
back tears.” Sometimes there is no apparition
and only the sound of soft weeping can be
heard, echoing mournfully in the Cathedral
vaults.
New Orleans legend has it that the weeping
woman is the ghost of one of Pere Antoine’s
dearest parishioners, one whom he had baptized
and tutored in Catholic teachings, and who,
later in life and against his better judgment,
he had joined in matrimony to a man of the
Jewish faith. This legend maintains that the
weeping woman is none other than Aimee Brusle
Gottschalk.
Aimee Brusle was the daughter of a prominent
New Orleanian, Camille Brusle, who had come
to this city after escaping with his life
from the Haiti slave uprisings of the 1790’s,
and after distinguishing himself in the service
of the English King George III in Jamaica.
There he had wedded another French refugee
from Haiti, Josephine Alix Deynaud, and the
couple settled in New Orleans about the time
of the Louisiana Purchase.
Brusle immediately opened a bakery, for many
years the only one on the river side of the
French Quarter, supplying rich and poor alike
with their share of daily bread. In time the
Brusle family rose to local prominence and
Camille was able to provide his family such
luxuries as seats in the Theatre d’Orleans
during the opera seasons. Pere Antoine respected
the baker of Rue Chartres as a man of sobriety
and honesty, and took a special interest in
each of Brusle’s children.
Aimee, the most aspiring of the baker’s
children and the special favorite of Pere
Antoine, was born in 1808. She was described
as extremely beautiful and highly serious,
although sometimes her desire for position
and success blinded her to reality. Pere Antoine
had prepared young Aimee for life as a Catholic
at baptism, then at confirmation; he had been
a frequent guest in the Brusle household;
he had heard the secrets of her heart in the
confessional. He was the molder of her faith.
To say that he was blindsided by Aimee’s
ultimate choice of a husband might be an understatement,
and whether or not he voiced his concerns
openly to Aimee or her parents is not recorded.
Edward Gottschalk was a Northerner –
born in London in 1795, one of several sons
of Rabbi Lazarus and Jane Harris Gottschalk
– and was thirteen years older than
the friar’s beloved Aimee. Pere Antoine,
and everyone else in New Orleans, took Gottschalk
to be an Israelite; originally from Eisenstadt,
Hungary, the Gottschalk family name suggested
Jewish origin.
Yet Gottschalk had established himself as
a successful businessman since arriving in
New Orleans with three of his brothers in
the early 1800’s. He and two of his
brothers were well-known merchants; the third
brother, Joseph, was a popular French Quarter
physician. At the very least, Gottschalk had
the aged friar’s respect.
Where in the St. Louis Cathedral Pere Antoine
pronounced Edward Gottschalk and Aimee Brusle
man and wife has not been determined. There
appears to be no record that the groom was
ever received into the Catholic faith, although
all of his children and their descendants
were raised strict Catholics. It is likely
that the ceremony was held in the sacristy,
and this would have been the first of many
blows to Aimee Brusle’s pride.
Within a year, Pere Antoine was dead and
Aimee Brusle was the young mother of a new
son, named Louis Moreau Gottschalk in honor
of Aimee’s French godfather. Other sons
and daughters were to follow as the Gottschalk
family thrived according to the fortunes of
the times and struggled to survive the numerous
yellow fever outbreaks of the mid-1800’s.
Aimee herself was confronted with not only
marriage and motherhood, but almost instantly
with the fact that she would have to share
her husband with a quadroon mistress whom
Edward Gottschalk maintained in a house just
blocks from his family home.
There is no doubt that disillusionment plagued
the once beautiful Belle of New Orleans. All
her life she had demonstrated a love and talent
for music; Aimee is probably the source of
Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s prodigious
talent. She certainly encouraged it. In her
youth, she had passed hours at the grand piano
of the Theatre d’Orleans, singing to
her own piano accompaniment pieces from the
great operas and popular songs of the times.
Perhaps it was respect for Pere Antoine,
perhaps it was pity for the sadly disillusioned
young woman. No one knows. But soon after
the organ was installed, Aimee, who would
come daily to St. Louis Cathedral to receive
the sacrament and to pray, was allowed to
mount the stairs to the organ loft and find
solace at the keyboard of the great pipe organ.
Though she was never a master of it, and never
played publicly, it is said Aimee would spend
hours in the organ loft, until, when the shades
of evening were long over the Place d’Arms,
Sally, little Moreau’s faithful servant
would come to the Cathedral to collect her
mistress.
Aimee’s sadness became overwhelming
when Louis Moreau, still only eight years
old, was sent away to Paris by his father
and his instructors to study under the tutelage
of several of the great pianists of Europe.
This, coupled with the loss of a child, the
infant Therese, to yellow fever, plunged Aimee
into despondency. She became a fixture in
St. Louis Cathedral for many lonely years,
while her husband and children were occupied
elsewhere.
It is little wonder that this woman, who
knew such little genuine happiness in a life
that had been so full of promise, would retreat
to the solace of her church. Many believe
that Aimee is still haunting St. Louis Cathedral,
the one place in the old city of New Orleans
that provided some kind of sanctuary to her
tormented soul.
The Ghost of Madame LaLaurie
If Aimee Brusle Gottschalk is haunting the
organ loft of St. Louis Cathedral, she is
not the lone female haunting the grand old
church.
One of the most infamous women in the history
of New Orleans is said to be keeping Aimee
company.
Delphine Macarty LaLaurie, the daughter of
an aristocratic Irish officer in the French
service, was a contemporary of Aimee Brusle
Gottschalk. In 1832, Delphine and her third
husband, Dr. Louis LaLaurie, built the house
that stands at 1140 Royal Street on land purchased
from Edmond Soniat duFossat. The three storey
mansion had a plain, “Northern”
façade; but he interior was exquisite
and soon became the site of many aristocratic
parties and social events.
Delphine LaLaurie was the ultimate “Doyenne”
of New Orleans society. She had wealth, she
had pedigree, she had social standing, and
she was regarded as one of the elite of New
Orleans society.
As with anyone in her position, Delphine
soon became the target of jealous and envious
gossip. Many Creole ladies who envied Delphine
her happy and prosperous life missed no opportunity
to slander the LaLauries, and in particular
Delphine, in any way possible.
Stories began to circulate that Madame LaLaurie,
although by all appearances a scion of the
finest tree, was truly a willful and savage
woman, and that she exacted her horrible temper
against the most helpless in her service,
her slaves.
In 1833 a neighbor swore to allegedly seeing
Madame LaLaurie chase a house slave girl with
a leather whip, forcing her onto an upper
balcony of the Royal Street home and ultimately
to her death. Rumors circulated that Madame
LaLaurie kept her cook chained to the fireplace
in the kitchen, that many of the house slaves
and stable boys disappeared without explanations,
and that other horrible things were going
on behind the beautiful façade of the
fancy home.
The negative rumors and half-truths came
to fruition on an April day in 1834 when the
house caught fire (a fire allegedly started
by the cook, although, remember she was chained
to the stove) and the fire brigade was called.
A huge crowd formed outside the mansion, including
journalists from the local New Orleans dailies.
Many in the crowd later swore to have witnessed
first hand the horrific conditions of some
of the slaves that were discovered in the
smoldering ruins of the once-beautiful home.
There were fantastic and almost unbelievable
reports of all kinds of atrocities and mutilations
– noses and ears cut off, tongues and
eyes gouged out, sadist beatings and surgeries
– and each of these was attributed to
none other than Madame LaLaurie.
Whether or not the tales were true or were
the product of the first campaign of yellow
journalism in American newspaper history,
the social standing of Dr. and Madame LaLaurie
lay in ruins. They were forced to flee from
the scene of the fire, barely escaping with
their lives. It is known that they made their
way to the shores of Bayou St. John, taking
refuge in what is now the Pitot House. It
is said that they then took a barge across
Lake Pontchartrain where they stayed for a
time with the Coqueville family in Mandeville,
the little resort town founded by Bernard
de Marigny several years before. Ultimately,
the LaLauries escaped to Paris where they
lived out their lives. On her death, Madame
LaLaurie’s remains were returned to
New Orleans and were interred by her descendants
not far from those of another famous woman
– Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau –
in St. Louis No. 1 Cemetery.
In her lifetime Delphine LaLaurie worshipped
at St. Louis Cathedral like other good parishioners
of New Orleans. Whether or not Madame LaLaurie
actually fled to Europe, as most believe,
or whether she remained in the area and founded
a Satanic cult in the deep forests of the
Lake Pontchartrain north shore, as others
maintain, one thing is certain: Her ghost
has been seen again and again among the darkened
pews of St. Louis Cathedral.
Several people have reported seeing Madame
LaLaurie, whom they recognize from the famous
portrait of her circulated widely in tour
books and on the Internet, pale and ghostly,
kneeling and praying, face-upturned, in a
third row pew before the great altar of the
old church. Others have reported seeing her
apparition pacing sadly near one of the old
confessionals, waiting, it is said, for a
priest who is willing to absolve her of her
horrible sins.
http://www.nola.com/lalaurie/trail/trail.html
Madame
Delphine LaLaurie
A TALE OF TWO TALES: THE TRUTH ABOUT MADAME
LA LAURIE?
http://www.hauntedneworleanstours.com/hauntedhouses/lalauriehouse/
Madame
Delphine LaLaurie and the Crucible of Horror.
A Very Haunted House on Royal Street
The Ghost of Marie Laveau
Most people don’t readily associate
the infamous Voodoo Queen of New Orleans with
one of the great bastions of the Catholic
faith, St. Louis Cathedral. But the truth
is, in her lifetime, Marie Laveau was one
of the most devout Catholics this old city
ever knew.
Although many visitors crowd into St. Louis
Cemetery No. 1 hoping to glimpse the ghost
of the Voodoo Queen at her shrine-like gravesite
and others hope to meet her in one of the
many French Quarter locations associated with
her in life, few know that one of the best
places to encounter Marie’s spirit is
St. Louis Cathedral.
It is widely agreed that Marie Laveau was
born in 1794 in New Orleans. Her father, Charles
Laveau, is said to have been a wealthy white
planter and her mother, Darcantel Marguerite,
a beautiful free woman of color. Marie married
Jacques Paris, a free man of color, on August
4, 1819. Because the ceremony was performed
in St. Louis Cathedral, her contract of marriage
can still be found in the files there.
At the time of her marriage, there is no
evidence that either she or Jacques were practicing
Voodoo. Marie and Jacques had both been raised
in the Roman Catholic faith and she still
practiced it devoutly, attending daily worship
at St. Louis Cathedral.
Only a short while after the wedding, Jacques
disappeared, probably lost at Sea, and Marie
began calling herself the Widow Paris, entering
a common law marriage with Charles Glapion
and embarking on her infamous career as the
Witch Queen of New Orleans.
Among the legends of haunted St. Louis Cathedral
none is perhaps more intriguing than the sightings
of the Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau, a beautiful
mulatto woman in the prime of her life, clad
in white, her head wrapped in the bright quadroon
turban of the times, kneeling and praying
quietly at the Cathedral’s high altar.
She is reportedly seen in the early morning
hours, just after the church has opened for
the day, although other reports have her appearing
at sundown: it is possible that Marie is keeping
the old Catholic tradition of offering both
morning and evening devotions.
One local woman, who wishes to remain anonymous,
said that she observed the ghost of Marie
Laveau praying in the first row to the left
of the altar. She watched as the ghost made
the sign of the cross, rose to her feet, and
disappeared into the shadows of the vestibule
– lost from sight in a flare of sunlight
as the main door opened. The woman immediately
went to the pew where, she said, she felt
a chill where the ghost had been. To her astonishment
and never-ending pleasure, the woman discovered
a worn rosary in the crux of the pew. Looking
every bit like it came from another century
– nothing modern about it – the
woman immediately grabbed it, even though
it felt to her as if she had just taken it
from a freezer. Could this local witness have
in her possession the rosary beads of Marie
Laveau?
Though many who have met her or been slapped
by her at her overcrowded tomb, or encountered
her ghost at recreations of her great “bamboulas,”
the voodoo dances of Congo Square, everyone
expects her entrance to be grand. That is
why the appearance of this most famous of
New Orleans Voodoo icons in the quiet solemnity
of an old Catholic church is so disconcerting
to those who have encountered her.
When they understand that Marie Laveau did
as much to evangelize the Catholic faith among
slaves and the poor as she did to maintain
her links to their Voodoo heritage, it is
not surprising at all to believe that she
can be encountered in the great old haunted
Cathedral as well as anywhere in this Haunted
City of New Orleans!
Marie
Laveau
http://www.hauntedneworleanstours.com/marielaveau/
In
recent days a controversy has arisen regarding
the legend and practice of marking the alleged
final resting place of Voodoo Queen Marie
Laveau with X’s in the infamous “wish
spell” ritual popularized throughout
the past several decades by certain companies,
groups and individuals working in the New
Orleans tourism industry.
(click
Here for more)
http://www.hauntedneworleanstours.com/marielaveau/marielaveaustomb/
Editor's Note: Information on the lives
of Pere Antoine and Aimee Brusle Gottschalk
taken in part from the book
Where the Word Ends: The Life of Louis Moreau
Gottschalk by Vernon Loggins, Copyright 1958,
Louisiana State University Press
and from Gottschalk family members' recollections.
