True stories are not often good art. The relations and experiences of real men and women rarely fall in such symmetrical order as to make an artistic whole. Until they have had such treatment as we give stone in the quarry or gems in the rough they seldom group themselves with that harmony of values and brilliant unity of interest that result when art comes in—not so much to transcend nature as to make nature transcend herself. Yet I have learned to believe that good stories happen oftener than once I thought they did. Within the last few years there have dropped into my hands by one accident or another a number of these natural crystals, whose charms, never the same in any two, are in each and all enough at least to warn off all tampering of the fictionist. Happily, moreover, without being necessary one to another, they yet have a coherent sequence, and follow one another like the days of a week. They are mine only by right of discovery. From various necessities of the case I am sometimes the story-teller, and sometimes, in the reader's interest, have to abridge; but I add no fact and trim naught of value away. Here are no unconfessed "restorations," not one. In time, place, circumstance, in every essential feature, I give them as I got them—strange stories that truly happened, all partly, some wholly, in Louisiana.
Chapter 1 Gibraltar falls 343
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
From photographs of the originals, in possession of Mr. George W. Cable.
"Tonton" Frontispiece
Some of the Manuscripts 1
Part of Fran?ois's First Page 34
Part of First Page, "Alix Manuscript" 121
The Court Papers 168
The Entrance of the "Haunted House" 194
Printed on Wall Paper in the Siege of Vicksburg 339
Fac-simile of a Letter from Adj.-Gen. Thomas L. Snead 349
* * *
* * *
STRANGE TRUE STORIES OF LOUISIANA.
HOW I GOT THEM.
Chapter 1 Gibraltar falls 343
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Chapter 2 No.2
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Chapter 3 No.3
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Chapter 4 THE TWO SISTERS.
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Chapter 5 MAKING UP THE EXPEDITION.
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Chapter 6 THE EMBARKATION
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Chapter 7 ALIX CARPENTIER
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Chapter 8 DOWN BAYOU PLAQUEMINE-THE FIGHT WITH WILD NATURE
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Chapter 9 THE TWICE-MARRIED COUNTESS.
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Chapter 10 ODD PARTNERS IN THE BOLERO DANCE.
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Chapter 11 A BAD STORM IN A BAD PLACE.
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Chapter 12 MAGGIE AND THE ROBBERS
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Chapter 13 ALIX PUTS AWAY THE PAST.
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Chapter 14 ALIX PLAYS FAIRY.-PARTING TEARS.
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Chapter 15 LITTLE PARIS.
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Chapter 16 THE COUNTESS MADELAINE.
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Chapter 17 POOR LITTLE ALIX!
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Chapter 18 THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAT
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Chapter 19 THE BALL.
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Chapter 20 SALOME AND HER KINDRED.
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Chapter 21 SIX MONTHS AT ANCHOR.
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Chapter 22 FAMINE AT SEA.
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Chapter 23 SOLD INTO BONDAGE.
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Chapter 24 THE LOST ORPHANS.
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Chapter 25 CHRISTIAN ROSELIUS.
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Chapter 26 No.26
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Chapter 27 THE TRIAL.
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Chapter 28 THE EVIDENCE
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Chapter 29 THE CROWNING PROOF.
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Chapter 30 JUDGMENT.
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Chapter 31 AS IT STANDS NOW.
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Chapter 32 MADAME LALAURIE.
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Chapter 33 A TERRIBLE REVELATION.
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Chapter 34 No.34
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Chapter 35 A NEW USE.
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Chapter 36 FURNISHED ROOMS.
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Chapter 37 JOHN BULL.
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Chapter 38 DUCOUR'S MEDITATIONS.
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Chapter 39 PROXY.
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Chapter 40 THE NUNCUPATIVE WILL.
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