GRAND PRE LOUISIANNE IV
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At Bouligny's urgings, la Freniere
and a companion were elected to
accompany the Spanish representatives down river for a meeting with
O'Reilly. They were received by the general with kindness and courtesy.
La Freniere explained the initial
difficulties and grievances presented by the change of allegiance, and
enumerated the ways in which these had been intensified by Ulloa's harsh
conduct.
The governor had been expelled, he
admitted, but the colonists were now
convinced that they had been irrevocably abandoned by their mother
country; and they entertained hopes for a just government under the
authority of O'Reilly.
No further resistance would be
forthcoming.
In a sincere and reassuring manner,
O'Reilly replied:
"Gentlemen, it is impossible to judge of facts and events,
without having previously obtained a sufficient knowledge of their
causes. On my arrival in your town,
I shall take special care to become
acquainted with the whole truth, to form right conclusions, and to
examine the reasons alleged for your justification. You may rest assured
that no one can be better disposed than I am to render good services to
the colonists, and that my doing the least injury to anyone would be to
me a matter of deep regret." During the dinner that followed, O'Reilly
showed himself to be so gracious and considerate a host that the
Frenchmen returned to the city filled with hope of a promising future
for the colony.
On August 17, 1769, the Spanish fleet appeared at New Orleans,
and O'Reilly was greeted with all the ceremony due his rank and
position. Both civil and religious ceremonies were held in his honor,
after which the Spanish retired to their new quarters. The next two days
were filled with social amenities between the two nationalities,
ostensibly. In private, however, O'Reilly proceeded to study the papers
and documents that outlined the events that had occurred in Louisiana
since the date of its cession to Spain.
On the twenty-first the Spanish
governor called to his house, on various pretenses,
twelve of Louisiana's leading citizens: la Freniere,
de Noyan,
Joseph Villere,
Pierre Caresse,
Pierre Marquis,
Joseph and
Jean Milhet,
Joseph Petit,
Balthasar de Mason,
Julien Jerome Doucet,
Pierre Poupet, and
Hardy de BoisBlanc.
To them he announced:
"Gentlemen, I regret to say, that you are accused of being the
authors of the late insurrection.
I therefore arrest you in the King's
name.
My earnest wish is that you may prove your innocence, and that I may
soon set you free again
.
Now, gentlemen, please to deliver up
your swords
"
Meanwhile, the house had been
surrounded by Spanish troops, and the rooms filled with grenadiers. The
prisoners were placed between two companies of grenadiers and conducted
to their places of separate confinement. It was ordered that they should
be interrogated, their depositions taken down in writing, and that they
not be permitted to communicate with each other or anyone else.
This last provision was adhered to
strictly. The Louisiana historian,
Judge Francois X. Martin, relates that Villere's wife learned of her
husband's imprisonment, rushed into the city, and took a boat out to
frigate where her husband was being
held.
As she neared the vessel she was ordered away.
Identifying herself, she begged
admission to see her husband.
Her request was denied. The prisoner
recognized his wife's voice and insisted upon seeing her;
he too was refused. A struggle ensued in which Villere was bayoneted by
the guards.
According to Martin's account: "his
bloody shirt thrown into the boat
announced to the lady that she had
ceased to be a wife; and a sailor cut the rope that fastened the boat to
the frigate."
On October 12, the eleven remaining Frenchmen were brought to
trial, or rather the trial was brought to them. The judges descended
into the cells of each accused and forced him to answer minutely all
questions the interrogators desired to ask.
The prisoners never saw the witnesses who testified against them;
indeed, not even the identities of the witnesses were revealed to the
accused.
The Court declared the prisoners
guilty on October 24. As president of the court, O'Reilly pronounced
sentence. La Freniere,
de Noyan,
Caresse,
Marquis, and
Joseph Milhet,
for their participation in "so horrible a crime" were "to be led to the
place of execution, mounted on asses, and each one with a rope around
his neck, to be then and there hung until death ensue and to remain
suspended to the gallows until further ordered." Anyone attempting to
remove the bodies would suffer the same sentence. The remaining six men
were given sentences of imprisonment ranging from six years to life.
The property of each man was to be
confiscated for the treasury of the
King.
The pronounced sentence was to be
carried out the following morning, but an unexpected difficulty
presented itself;
no one was willing to be the hangman. A large reward was offered, yet no
man stepped forward to claim it. The sentence was then amended to death
before a firing squad.
At three o'clock in the afternoon of
October 25, 1769, the five condemned men were taken from their prison,
their arms pinioned,
and then conducted to the place of
execution.
There a large body of Spanish soldiers were arrayed and the condemned
men were led before them. According to King: "A bench had been placed
for them, but they refused to sit down. Their sentences were read to
them in Spanish and French.
They refused to have their eyes
bandaged,
"I have braved death too often," said Marquis,
"to fear it now."
La Freniere enjoined upon his
son-in-law,
Noyan, to send the scarf he wore to his (Noyan's) wife, that she might
present it to her son when he became a man. With his finest Louis XIV
manner, he (la Freniere) faced his executioners, gave, himself, the word
to fire, and fell, shouting with his last breath, "Je suis Francais."
Although Spain had conquered his country,
la Freniere died a Frenchman.
His life was not lost in vain.
Throughout the Spanish dominion in
Louisiana, his descendants and his
countrymen remained Creole French at
heart, and although almost two centuries of
American domination have followed, the progeny that he left still
treasure their
French heritage. Most significantly,
the tradition of leadership that he
began has been perpetuated through the course of Louisiana's history by
Chauvin descendants bearing such proud Creole names as
Villere,
Delery,
Hutchet de Kernion,
de BoisBlanc and
LeBreton.
Chauvin dit Charleville
Elizabeth Shown
Mills,
Certified Genealogist
John Chase, in his book entitled
Frenchmen, Desire, good Children and
other streets of New Orleans, makes the following observation about the
execution of the Frenchmen by the
Spanish:
"It remained for Bernard Marigny,
thirty-six years later, to immortalize all these heroic Frenchmen with a
street name.
Marigny's land adjoined the Esplanade, and that section of this drill
ground and promenade where
La Freniere and his lieutenants were
placed for execution is today the
beginning of Frenchmen Street. The
street of the Frenchmen, Marigny called it;
and regardless of how much their dislike for Ulloa precipitated their
action; regardless, too, of how much their distaste for Catalonia wine;
it was for rebelling against Spain that they died, and France refused to
intercede in their behalf.
It was for freedom that their lives were forfeited."
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ALICE CHAUVIN BRADSHAW