Magloire et Henriette
I thought I would add a little French to the title since the subjects of this post spoke and wrote in French. For those of you that may not know, “et” is the French word for “and.” I never learned French when I was younger, but I wish I had. It would have come in handy since I have French ancestors.
It would have really helped with this letter, which was written by one of my ancestors in 1799. I found out about the letter when I was exploring some family connections on a Facebook group about southern Louisiana ancestry at the beginning of 2018. Someone posted rough, blurry photos of the letter and the transcription. Come to find out, it was a love letter from Magloire Dupuy to Henriette Serrette.
To find this couple in my family tree, you have to go through my paternal grandmother Germaine Erie Patureau Landry (Mee Maw) and her father Vincent Maximilian Patureau (Grampa Max). Grampa Max’s father was Ferdinand Patureau, who is the patriarch of all of the Patureau families in southern Louisiana. But the matriarch of all of these families was his wife Marie Emma Landry Patureau. Emma’s parents were Eli Onezime Landry and Jeanne Zerbine Dupuy. Jeanne Zerbine was one of the eight children of Magloire et Henriette.
So now that you know the results of the letter, I’ll tell you a little more about Magloire and Henriette. Magloire (I’ve seen it spelled “Magluar” in Spanish documents. It must have been spelled phonetically.) was born in 1777 in St. Gabriel, Louisiana. His parents and all of his ancestors were Acadians, so he would be the first generation Cajun. Henriette was also the first generation born in North America, but her parents and ancestors were born in France.
They lived and met in Louisiana when it was still under Spanish rule, but they both were part of the French-speaking culture. I don’t know the particulars of how Magloire and Henriette met, but this letter gives a little bit of insight into their relationship. It’s amazing that it survived through the years. I don’t know those particulars either. I just know that at some point it was in an attic and rediscovered. Then at some later point someone posted a blurry copy of it on Facebook. I decided to search for a better copy.
It didn’t take too long. I went to some type of Cajun reunion/social gathering in West Baton Rouge Parish and started asking people. Most people didn’t know what I was talking about, but then I came across Lucy Landry. She is related to me, but not through the Landry line – that’s her married name. We are related through Magloire & Henriette and she had a good copy of the letter that she was willing to share. Woo hoo! Thank you, Lucy!
So I got a copy of the original letter and transcription. I decided to edit it to try to bring it back to closer to what I thought it might originally look like. There were age spots from tape that was used to put it back together. It also had writing on top of it to fill in for parts that had been more damaged. I got rid of those things and then copied words from other parts of the letter.
I also changed the transcription a little bit. I took poetic license with the help of Google Translate. People nowadays are turned off by the phrase “I want to possess you as my dutiful wife.” The meaning of “have” and “possess” are very close, and the phrase “I want to have you as my faithful wife” sounds a little better. Things were a bit different back then.
So let me go ahead and give you my version of the transcribed letter. Imagine yourself sitting in your parlor back in June of 1799. No air conditioning, so it could have been rather warm in Iberville Parish in southern Louisiana. Here is the letter:
Iberville June 2, 1799
Mademoiselle
The esteem which everyone has for your virtue and your modesty, and my own familiarity with them which I have had for a long time, lead me to take the liberty of writing you these lines and telling you simply and genuinely that I should consider myself the happiest man if I could win a small place in your thoughts. Certainly I may often be found in the presence of a number of young ladies of very great merit, though I must acquiesce that none of them has been capable of significantly touching my heart as you have. O to Heaven that I might have enough good qualities that you might honor me with some consideration, and that this kindness might surely lead to my goal which would be to have you one day as my very dear and faithful wife. I should have nothing more to desire on earth, since I would have in you what I esteem more than everything else in the world put together. I am, Mademoiselle, with the most sincere devotion,
Your humble and very obedient servant,
Magloire Dupuy
That’s it. I hope you enjoyed it. I think it is a great treasure to have from an ancestor from so long ago.
One day I would like to see the original.
I thought I’d go ahead and post the original transcript that I got. It was very useful in working out some of the original words that were so illegible. As you can see, it is from the Peavy Family Papers. (Thanks again, Lucy!)
For a follow-up to this post, you can readMagloire et Henriette: After the Happily Ever After.