Henri Rémy

Background

Henri Remy was born about 1811 in Agen, Department of Lot-en-Garonne, France. His full name was Charles Henri Rémy Carrete, but after his arrival in Louisiana he was known simply as Henri Rémy.

Education

He received a thorough classical education, and as a young man became a fervent Republican. This affiliation probably embroiled him in the political upheavals of 1830 and caused him to be exiled from France. He took refuge in London and then wandered through Italy, learning to speak fluently the language of that country. Sailing for America about 1836, he landed in New Orleans, where he supported himself by teaching French and Italian. Soon he entered the office of Pierre Soulé to study law.

Career

On May 19, 1840, was admitted to the Louisiana bar. In a short time he received an appointment as a notary. In 1843 he published, anonymously, in the Louisiana Courier, five excellent essays on the early history of his adopted state. Encouraged by their favorable reception, he submitted two additional ones over his signature.

The next year he issued a prospectus of a complete history of Louisiana, to be sold for ten dollars a copy. Although he got 160 subscriptions, the book never appeared. Rémy continued to practise law until Senator Auguste Thériot, wishing to increase his political influence, offered to finance a paper in St. James Parish, if Rémy would edit it. Rémy accepted the proposition, because writing was far closer to his heart than the law.

Going to Saint Michel (now Convent), a village sixty miles up the river from New Orleans, on Feburary 18, 1854, he brought out the initial issue of a tiny French newspaper with the imposing title, Saint Michel: Journal Hebdomadaire, Littéraire et Politique. In almost every number he published an installment of his state history until he had carried it down to 1750; then he again announced that he would publish a complete history of Louisiana, printed under his own supervision in his own plant. He even went so far as to copyright the title; but this plan proved as abortive as the other.

The paper continued with moderate success until Senator Thériot died, and in 1854 it was forced to cease publication for lack of financial support. There must have been, in this quiet, scholarly lawyer and editor, an adventurous streak, for the next thing he did was to join William Walker, the filibuster, in Nicaragua, to help him seize that little republic by force of arms. Although Walker made himself president, he was finally defeated in 1857 and Rémy escaped to Santo Domingo.

After a long trip over the island, including the Haitian end, he crossed to Mexico and finally returned to New Orleans.

He died in New Orleans.

Achievements

• He published his impressions of Mexico in French in a small volume called Tierra Caliente (1859), after they had appeared serially in Le Messager of St. James Parish. The book presents a most interesting study of sociological conditions, recorded by a man who observed with the analytical powers of an historian and the humanity of a poet. Although Tierra Caliente was Rémy's only published book, he left several interesting manuscripts, among them his much-heralded Histoire de la Louisiane, a partial autobiography, a long account of Santo Domingo, another of Haiti, and a history of the Walker Expedition.

Views

His sympathies were entirely with the oppressed and exploited Indians, and he pictured the Catholic clergy as selfish, avaricious, and debauched, predicting that they would soon lose their despotic power in Mexico.

Connections

He married Louise Chapdu, a New Orleans Creole.

Spouse:

Louise Chapdu