Delphine LaLaurie: Socialite and Depraved Madame of New Orleans

If you are on the market for a good old American ghost story, you need look no further than New Orleans, Louisiana. NOLA is considered the #1 most haunted city in the U.S. which is why so many practitioners of the mystical arts are thrilled (and maybe chilled) to call it home. Serving as a backdrop to many preternatural-themed films and TV shows such as Interview with a Vampire, True Blood, and American Horror Story Coven, the haunting history of this city is ever-present in our minds. Today we will turn our eyes toward a mansion in the French Quarter, owned by a wealthy socialite and made famous by the secret atrocities that were revealed after a fire called the attention of authorities and neighbors. This is the story of Delphine LaLaurie.

Delphine and her Family

Marie Delphine Macarty was born in New Orleans on March 19, 1787. From Irish decent, her mother, Marie-Jeanne, and father, Louis, were well known in the European Creole community. The Macarty family had wealth as well as political ties, with one of Delphine’s uncles holding the position of Governor of the Spanish American provinces of Louisiana and Florida, and a cousin who was Mayor of New Orleans.

Delphine Got Married…Again…and Once More

It was June 11, 1800 when Delphine married a highly ranked Spanish royal officer named Don Ramón de Lopez y Angulo in the Saint Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. Four years later, Don Ramón was called to appear at the court of Spain, taking a very pregnant Delphine with him. Sadly, they never made it past Havana. Don Ramón dropped dead and Delphine gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Borja, a few days later. Unsurprisingly, the new widow, baby in hand, traveled straight back home to New Orleans.

Delphine sealed the deal on husband number two in 1808. His name was Jean Blanque and he was a big-shot banker, merchant, lawyer, and legislator. Jean bought a house at 409 Royal street where he, Delphine, her first child, and their four children (Marie Louise Pauline, Louise Marie Laure, Marie Louise Jeanne, and Jeanne Pierre Paulin) lived. Eight years later, Jean kicked the bucket.

Delphine’s third (and last) husband was a physician named Leonard Louis LaLaurie. With LaLaurie’s wealth, Delphine was able to acquire the property at 1140 Royal Street where she built a mansion, complete with slaves quarters, and lived there with Leonard and two of her daughters.

Up until this point, we have every reason to believe that Delphine lived a normal, though privileged, life.

Delphine LaLaurie and the Slaves

It was the 1820s, a time in human history disgraced by the legal ownership of slaves. For all of the power the wealthy whites had over their black Haitian prisoners, the fear of a slave revolt was ever-present. Delphine LaLaurie would have seen this first hand in the 1811 slave uprising in New Orleans. Discussions at white elite social gatherings turned to methods by which slave owners could prevent such insurrection in the future. The most widely accepted solution? Inflict more violence and more subjugation. And if that didn’t work, try more violence.

In public, Delphine LaLaurie had a polite demeanour toward black people and showed interest in her own slaves’ health. There are even court records showing that she freed two of her slaves, Jean Louis in 1819 and Devince in 1832. What happened in private; however, was utterly monstrous.

Reports of Mistreatment

It was 1831 when LaLaurie’s neighbors began to take notice of the troubling state of her slaves. Writer Harriet Martineau traveled to New Orleans. She documented the public rumors and quoted one to have said that LaLaurie’s slaves appeared to be “singularly haggard and wretched”. The rumors became so widespread that a local lawyer was sent to the house on Royal Street as a “friendly reminder” to LaLaurie that there were laws for the upkeep of slaves. During his visit; however, he reported no evidence of wrongdoing or mistreatment of slaves.

Leah

After the lawyer left, Martineau learned of (and documented) a particularly sad and cruel story of a 12-year-old girl named Leah. Leah was brushing LaLaurie’s hair and caught the brush in a tangle. Enraged, LaLaurie whipped the girl. In an attempt to avoid further lashes, Leah ran to the roof, but LaLaurie chased her. The young girl jumped to her death to avoid further punishment.

LaLaurie buried Leah’s body in the yard. Eye witnesses called authorities which triggered an investigation. This time, the LaLauries were found guilty of illegal cruelty and 9 of their slaves were removed from their home.

Unfortunately for the slaves, it didn’t take long for them to end up right back where they started. The LaLauries simply had another relative buy them back from the government on their behalf and the slaves were signed back over to Delphine in no time.

The Cook

Another example of Delphine’s cruelty was how she treated her cook. Delphine kept the 70-year-old woman chained to the stove by her ankle and would not allow her to eat. LaLaurie was documented to have beaten her own daughters for trying to feed the slaves.

The cook, having lived through so much misery and having seen other slaves removed from their posts and taken to the attic, never to return again, decided that she had had enough. She wanted to die and was prepared to endure inexplicable pain just to escape her prison. She had a plan.

On April 11, 1834, LaLorie’s cook set fire to the stove she was chained to, an act that would not kill her, but would bury Delphine LaLaurie.

The Fire

With smoke billowing from the windows, neighbors and bystanders rushed inside to help. Strangely, they found Delphine trying to save her jewels and furs, a task she would have delegated to a slave. When they asked her where the slaves were, she snapped at them and told them to mind their business. But the neighbors heard muffled screams coming from the attic. They asked LaLaurie for the keys so they could free the slaves from the fire. LaLaurie refused and left with what she could carry.

Irate, but undeterred, the brigade went upstairs and broke down the door. What they found was the unthinkable – Delphine LaLaurie’s torture chamber. There were 7 slaves, all starved, all horribly mutilated. Some of them were hung by their necks with their arms and legs stretched apart. They claimed to have been there for months. Others were fitted with iron collars with spikes on the inside so as to keep the slave from moving their head. Another had an iron mask to prevent him from eating. There was also an elderly woman who had a deep head wound and was so weak she could not walk.

Aftermath

When news got out about the horrors found in the LaLaurie attic, enraged local citizens ransacked the mansion and tore it apart. The authorities were called to send the crowd home, but by the time the officers arrived, the entire mansion had been destroyed.

The slaves were taken to a local jail where they were made available for public viewing so that people could see the atrocities that took place on Royal street for themselves. Shortly after their rescue, two of the slaves died. Upon digging in the yard and an unused well on the property, several other remains were found.

Delphine LaLaurie Escapes

Delphine’s life after the fire is not well documented. It is presumed that she fled during the mob attack on the mansion, taking a coach to the waterfront, a schooner to Mobile, Alabama, and making her way to Paris from there. According to the French archives in Paris, Delphine LaLaurie died on December 7, 1849, at the age of 62. She was never held accountable for her crimes.

The Mansion

The house on Royal street remained uninhabited and in a derelict state for 4 years after the mob tore it apart. It was rebuilt by Pierre Trastour, who maintained the same architectural aesthetic as the original house had. Over the years, the mansion was re-purposed and changed ownership many times, though no one seemed to be able to stay longer than a few years. Many believe that the property is haunted by the ghosts of LaLaurie’s slaves and claim that footsteps that belong to no one can be heard throughout the house regularly. But the slaves are not the only restless spirits surrounding the house. It would appear that the history of violence and evil remained in the soil, bringing pain and misfortune to all that come near.

Spooky Activity

At one point after the reconstruction of the mansion, the LaLaurie house was converted into apartments. In 1894, one of the tenants was brutally murdered in his room. Nothing of value was taken. When police interviewed the man’s neighbors, one of them said that the man had complained about having problems with a demon who would not let him rest. He said that the demon would not be happy until he was dead. At the time, the neighbor thought the man was joking, but the man’s murder was so jarring that the neighbor thought it was relevant to tell police about the alleged demon.

The LaLaurie house was also re purposed as an all girls school for some time. During those years the teachers would often have to console small children. The girls would run to them with scratches and bruises on their arms and tears in their eyes, claiming “that woman” had done it to them. Given that these girls were around 6-years-old, it would be hard to believe that they knew of the history of the building. Were these girls being attacked by some kind of poltergeist?

In 2007, actor Nicolas Cage bought the building for $3.45 million. Shortly after, his career began to suffer, the house went into foreclosure, and it sold at auction for $2.3 million. Did his over-acting put him into financial ruin? The locals in New Orleans will tell you that he lost it all because of the curse of the LaLaurie house.

Questions

Though there are a lot of things to be disturbed about with this story, one thing that I can’t seem to reconcile is the drastic change Delphine would have gone through between childhood, her first and second marriage, and her third marriage to LaLaurie. Was Delphine always a closeted monster toward those she held control over? Were her actions pre-LaLaurie so well hidden that she managed to pass through this period of her life without incident? Did her third marriage to Louis unlock a suppressed blood-lust that she unleashed on her slaves? Was there something sinister about the property at 1140 Royal Street that filled Delphine with hate and rage?

What do you think? Leave your comments below.

References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphine_LaLaurie https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3b7x53/a-portrait-of-cruelty-madame-marie-delphine-lalaurie-982 https://ghostcitytours.com/new-orleans/haunted-places/lalaurie-mansion/