Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

Comte de Beaujolais. French Commissioner Laussat also gave a ball there on the 16th of December (1803), which lasted from mid
evening until 9:30 the following morning, as guests ate, danced, and gambled all night. “You never saw anything more brilliant,”
Laussat wrote in his journal. “Entertainment lasted twelve hours. ….Sixty places were set at the main table, 24 at the small table, and
146 on 32 small round tables. As a local touch, twenty-four gumbos were served, six or eight of which were sea turtle.” 1 On the
evening of the transfer to the United States, Laussat hosted another all-night extravaganza for American, French, and Spanish
participants where supper finally appeared at 1:00 a.m. Among other card games, the guests play craps, evidence that the game was
well known in New Orleans before Bernard Marigny ever came home from school in Europe.
Laussat leased the house from Bernard Marigny (q.v.) from April to December, 1803, the extent of his tenure in New Orleans.
Following Marigny’s 1804 marriage to Mary Ann Jones, he lived there occasionally until her death in 1808, and later with his second
wife and family, until 1818. That year, he relocated and leased the mansion to a variety of tenants. It was demolished in 1831.
COURTESY OF THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION 1987.65 I-III.
NOTE: 1. PIERRE CLEMENT DE LAUSSAT, MEMOIRS OF MY LIFE. TRANSLATED BY AGNES-JOSEPHINE PASTWA, .O.S.F. ED ROBERT D. BUSH, (BATON ROUGE, 1978), 86.
BIOGRAPHIES
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