pitably received by the citizens, among whom they found faces and names that had once, like Louisiana, belonged by every right to France. They were the guests of that Creole and provincial magnate, Philippe de Marigny (who had once been a page at Versailles), at his plantation, then below the city, now just below Esplanade street. Costly entertainments were given them; they became familiar figures in the streets, and frequented the houses of the prominent citizens. They visited the plantation of Julien Poydras and of M. de Boré, who had been, in his youth, a mousquetaire noir in the court of their grandfather,—everywhere professing themselves charmed with the city, pleased with the Creole men, and as enchanted with the ladies as the Choctaw and Chickasaw chiefs had been. In fact, the young royal brothers left an impression of pleasure behind them in the city, not only ineffaceable but inexhaustible; reminiscences of the most miraculous origin spring up everywhere to commemorate the glory and honour of the visit. Houses built half a century afterwards, and in regions they never visited, show rooms which they occupied. There are enough beds in which they slept to fill a whole year of nights; and vases, tea-cups, and snuff-boxes for a population.
Philippe de Marigny, it is said, placed not only his house, but his purse, at the disposition of his guests, and their needs forced upon them a temporary use of the latter as well as of the former. In time the Duc d'Orleans became Louis Philippe, the bourgeois king of France. Philippe de Marigny died, and his son, Bernard, the historical spendthrift of Louisiana, fell into evil days, having pleasured away the large fortune left him by his father. He bethought him of his father's
