A LOUISIANA PURCHASE
by
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Louis-David Bertrand Henri de Sévigné, aged two and twenty, had been born into this land of rich promise—the fruits of the 1803 purchase—but had not seen his homeland during his years of study in Paris. “How unfitting,” he mused, “that my return should be masked in these despondent shades of gray. It is not at all how I remembered La Nouvelle Orleans. I envisioned her in less stark a contrast—contradictions of brilliant colors, yes—but not just black and white or a dismal gray!” Bertrand knew that the mystical image of his beloved city must soon materialize from these underdeveloped shadows, the product of a cold December light. Would that image do justice to his memory? He would have to balance his intimate knowledge with the face she now showed to the world. In exchange, his own new self would be revealed, but would she—the city of his birthing—recognize him? He had changed in so many ways, and had grown to worldly manhood. His simple, child-of¬ the-earth spirit had been retained and was ready for a new life to begin. This was the terminus of his journey from France—the completion of his education—and the return to his home and his family. It was the winter holiday season in the year of our Lord: 1839. * * * Bertrand de Sévigne was a victim of nature’s incongruity: an ordinary man to whom extraordinary things ‘happened’—sometimes to his favor, other times to his regret—but seldom through his singular fault. He hoped that this day would not be regrettable; it was the first day of his return to his native New Orleans, the first day of his new life. The initial realization of his abnormal attraction for bizarre experiences appeared to a black house servant when Bertrand was but five years of age: a dead, slack-jawed snake was found at the side of his bed; its body ripped from within by the unusually sharp spine of a hard-skinned iguana. How either creature had found its way to an upper-floor bedroom, or into so unnaturally fatal positioning, could not be readily explained, not even by an application of prevailing voodoo rationale. * * * Bertrand had left his homeland with the perception that he was not a particularly aggressive young man. His return would be as a libidinous champion, not unlike the religieuse lusting for a spectral god. His cerebral conformity, however, would accede to the standards set by his father and the elders of his community. Laissez-faire would be easy to preach but not easy to achieve. * * *
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About the Book
There was a 'Louisiana Territory' before there was a United States of America — it had existed alongside the 'colonies' as a foreign land, and its major city, New Orleans, had reigned as a 'Xanadu on the Mississippi' for over 100 years before the Territory and its crown jewel were purchased from France... With the Louisiana Purchase, New Orleans arrived into the United States as a glistening, flamboyant, fully-grown enigma of imperialism, with Catholicism an imposed state religion, and newly classified as a slave-state…the populace had been betrayed again. The French citizenry wanted no part of this upstart nation, but were now invaded by opportunists and adventurers from an antiroyalist, Anglo-Saxon-Protestant nation…its wealth, customs, religion and language totally setting it apart from the rest of the country. The city of New Orleans, more than any other portion of the Louisiana Territory, became a 'foreign' outpost on 'American' soil and a target for every exploiter of humanity from the infant union.
About the Author
The author began his first novel after retiring from various fields of endeavor that included merchant seaman during WWII, direct mail advertising in the '50s, a mural artist and international interior designer, having worked in London, Canada, Peru and the Grenadines, as well as important projects in the U.S.A. until his retirement in 1997 at the age of 75. He then began writing this book which was intended to be a trilogy that went from 1839 in New Orleans to 1888 in Brazil where there still exists a southern confederate colony called Americana. Since most of those confederates were non-Catholic, they had to be buried in their own cemetery and to this day there are antebellum ceremonies conducted by their descendents. Unfortunately books 2 and 3 are still in outline form because it took the author 14 years to finish the first book.