Thoughts upon the foreign policy of the United-States, from 1784 to the inauguration of Franklin Pierce: statistics of Spain, of the island of Cuba, & c
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Bernard de Marigny was an American planter and official and social leader.
Background
Bernard de Marigny was born on October 28, 1785 in New Orleans and was christened Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville. He was the son of Pierre Enguerr and Philippe de Mandeville, Écuyer Sieur de Marigny, Chevalier de St. Louis, whose grandfather, François Philippe de Marigny, the scion of a noble Norman house, was ordered to Canada as an infantry officer in 1709 and was later transferred to Louisiana as "commandant des troupes, " where he assisted Bienville in the founding of New Orleans. Bernard's mother was Jeanne Marie d'Estréhan, the daughter of a rich planter, who married Pierre Marigny when he was an officer in the Spanish colonial army in Louisiana. As the value of lands and slaves increased they became the richest family in the colony.
Education
Partly owing to Bernard's antipathy to study, and partly to his father's theory that a thorough training in fire arms, fencing, and horsemanship was the most important part of a gentleman's education, the boy did not have more than a common-school knowledge of the three R's.
Career
His political career began with his election to the territorial legislature in 1810, and from then on until 1838 he served continuously in either the upper or lower house of the legislature of his state, and was in addition a member of the convention of 1812 which drafted its first constitution, and of the second one in 1845 which modified it. In 1815 when General Pakenham and his English forces marched on New Orleans, Marigny was chairman of the committee of defense of the House of Representatives and indirectly persuaded Gen. Andrew Jackson to enlist Jean Lafitte and his pirates in the city's defense. After Louis Philippe had been on the throne of France for some few years, Bernard de Marigny, who had squandered most of his fortune, crossed the ocean to collect the money his father had lent the monarch when as the Duc d'Orléans he visited New Orleans. Louis Philippe received him cordially, made him a guest at the palace, and even asked his advice about the recognition of Texas by France, but he was deaf to every suggestion of repayment, and all Marigny got was the gift of a gold snuff-box and the promise of a cadetship at St. Cyr for his son Mandeville. Bitterly disappointed he returned to New Orleans and in the late forties his friends had him appointed registrar of conveyances to keep him from starving. He lost this position through politics in 1853. In order to make money he wrote a small history entitled Thoughts upon the Foreign Policy of the United-States (1854) and the House of Representatives passed a bill purchasing a thousand copies each of the French and English editions. This remarkable old Creole, who had "tutoyied" a king of France and who had lived through the conflicting influences of the five changes in the flag flying over Louisiana, stubbed his toe on the foot-scraper of his humble cottage and, in falling, struck his head. He never regained consciousness and died on February 3, 1868. In addition to his little history Marigny's published works include a few political pamphlets and his Réflexions sur la Campagne du Général André Jackson en Louisiane (1848).
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Personality
In 1798 Louis Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, and his two brothers came to New Orleans and were royally entertained by Bernard's father. To prove his hospitality further he lent them a large sum of money on their departure. Two years later Bernard's father died, leaving him an orphan at sixteen. The boy was so wild that his kinsman and guardian, De Lino de Chalmette, finally sent him to England. Here he continued his dissipations, spending much time at Almack's playing "Hazard, " a dice game then the rage at the coffee houses. When he returned he taught it to his Creole companions, and the Americans dubbed it the game of the "Johnny Crapauds, " their nickname for Creoles. Soon this was shortened to "Crapauds, " and finally "craps. " Marigny became more and more fantastically extravagant until he was forced to subdivide and dispose of his plantation below New Orleans. and when he opened up a roadway and sold off the lots on it to pay some pressing gambling debts, he named it Craps Street. Near it was "Rue de l'Amour" on which it was said he housed his mistresses in separate cottages; quite logically Good Children Street came next. In 1803 when Louisiana was retroceded to France by Spain and later transferred to the United States, Marigny was present at both these historic ceremonies as an aide to the French envoy Pierre de Laussat, and then was appointed aide to General Wilkinson.
Connections
On May 28, 1804, Marigny was married to Mary Ann Jones, who died after four years, leaving two sons. Within a year he married again Anne Mathilde, daughter of a former Spanish intendant of Louisiana, Juan Ventura Morales. Two sons and three daughters were the children of this marriage. His second wife was Anna Mathilde Morales.
Father:
Pierre Enguerrand Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville
Mother:
Jeanne Marie d'Estrehan de Marigny de Mandeville
Wife:
Anna Mathilde Morales
Wife:
Mary Ann Jones de Marigny de Mandeville
Daughter:
Mathilde Marigny
Daughter:
Rosa Marigny
Daughter:
Marie Angela Josephine Marigny
Son:
Prosper Francois Antoine Pierre Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville
Son:
Armand Marigny
Son:
Col Antoine Jacques Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville