 |
|
|
Lecture to the Louisiana Historical Society
May 13, 1997
by
Dr. Christina Vella
Dr. Vella spoke on the story of Micaela Almonester de Pontalba and her husband Celestin Delfau de Pontalba. These Intimate Enemies, as
Vella entitled her forthcoming book on their lives, produced six decades of fireworks and legal wrangling in Paris and New Orleans. She was the creative force in the marriage. She bore six children, wrote volumes of letters, and closely supervised the erection of two of the handsomest buildings in Paris and New Orleans--the Hotel Pontalba, now the American embassy in Paris, and the Pontalba Buildings in New Orleans.
She was born in 1795, daughter of a wealthy Royal Notary Andres Almonester. He provided the funds to erect the Cabildo, the second St. Louis Cathedral, and two Charity hospitals. Xavier de Pontalba, having moved back to France and secured a title of Baron from the Napoleonic government, needed funds to maintain his life style. His solution was simplicity itself, he would marry his son Celestin to the Almonester money. At the age of fifteen Micaela left New Orleans for the isolation and intimidation of Mont-l'Eveque, the new Pontalba chateau fifty miles from Paris.
For the next twenty four years the elder Pontalba sued and coerced Micaela to secure her estate, shielding his oppression behind French laws that prohibited divorce and gave control of a wife's estate to the husband. She battled vigorously, till a fateful day in 1834 when the old man came to her room and fired four pistol shots at her from close range. She survived, and when help arrived, the elder Pontalba realized he had been beaten. Twelve hours later he turned his guns on himself.
Micaela lived almost forty more years and extended her activities and her building to both continents. Her life contains within it many stories that document the continuing Gallic connection between New Orleans and Paris. It provides a grim example for how older laws that once protected women could be used to oppress.
Dr. Vella will attend the September meeting of the Louisiana Historical Society on September 9 to sign copies of Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba published by LSU Press in August.
|
|
|
