Strange True Stories of My Louisiana Ancestors Part II

Part I of Flournoy's "Strange True Stories" series can be found here, in our April 2023 issue. 

“I’m searching for the French identity of my fourth great-grandmother Marie Adelaide Guerne de Tavane (Tavanne), who I believe was a countess in the court of Marie Antoinette  . . .”

Like the proverbial message in a bottle tossed into the ocean, I lobbed these feelers into the online genealogical ether, hoping someone could help me discern the French origin of my Charpantier family of Patterson.

A 2015 trip from my home in Dallas to St. Martinville, Louisiana provided the name of my storied ancestor—who the records had confirmed lived in Patterson on Charpantier Plantation with her husband Joseph Charpantier beginning in 1797, and died in 1819.

But I still had so many questions. Did Marie Adelaide really come from France, from the Palace of Versailles, as family lore claimed? Could she possibly be Alix de Morainville, immortalized in the memoirs included in George W. Cable’s 1888 Strange True Stories of Louisiana?

In her memoir, Alix (or Marie Adelaide) wrote that she grew up in Le Château de Morainville in Normandy, as the daughter of Count and Countess de Morainville, who served in the court of Louis XV and Louis XVI. Her mother was among the ladies of the palace during the reign of both Queens Maria Leszczyńska and Marie Antoinette. Alix married her cousin, Abner Benoit Count de Morainville at age sixteen before joining her mother in Versailles as one of the dames de palais in 1788.

When the French Revolution broke out, Alix’s mother fled to England, while Alix stayed with her husband at Versailles. During a violent attack on the palace, he was captured, along with her father, and both purportedly faced their ends at the guillotine. (I haven’t found any record of a “Tavanne” or “Morainville” on the official list of those guillotined at that time.)

Alix’s memoir describes being rescued by the son of the gardener who managed the family’s Normandy chateau. Changing his name to Joseph Charpantier, he and the young countess, disguised as a peasant couple, sailed to London to join Alix’s mother—whom, they learned upon arrival, had died. They then fled to America, arriving in New Orleans, where they covertly journeyed to the Bayou Teche in south Louisiana. They then settled in St. Mary Parish and built a sugarcane plantation.

Louisiana parish records give their names as Joseph M. Charpantier and Marie Adelaide Guerne de Tavane—the same names that are on their tombstones in the St. Joseph’s cemetery in Patterson. Joseph retained the Charpantier name, as did their son and his children and their children, etc. Marie Adelaide, though, remained Tavane.

Researching the names Morainville and Tavanne (or Tavane) and Guerne among the nobles in the royal court at the dawn of the French Revolution, I found only one possible match: Gabrielle Charlotte Eléonore Saulx de Tavanne. Much of her life story lines up with my ancestor. Gabrielle’s mother, Marie-Éléonore-Eugénie de Lévis de Châteaumorand, Comtesse de Saulx-Tavannes, was a countess in the court of two queens, just as Alix’s mother was. But records indicate Gabrielle died in France in 1827. Marie Adelaide (Alix) died in Louisiana in 1819.

Without concrete records to confirm the claims in the Morainville memoirs, or to connect my family names back to France, my relative’s identity and that of her noble parents in France remain a mystery. Is there a chance that Marie Adelaide (Alix) is Countess Gabrielle Charlotte Eléonore of Saulx de Tavannes?

I compiled everything I knew into my online queries, crossed my fingers, and pressed send. A few months passed before I got a bite.

Frenchman Guillaume de Wailly, specializing in royal genealogies of the Ancien Regime (people born before the French Revolution), responded that, yes, Viscountess of Castellane, Gabrielle Charlotte Eléonore Saulx de Tavanne was named Lady of the Palace of Queen Marie Antoinette from 1786-1792, replacing her mother as a lady of the palace for Marie Leszczynska (1759) and later for Marie Antoinette. So far, the shoe fit.

However, he said, “During and after the revolution, the viscountess remained in France. There are papers in the National Archives concerning Gabrielle and her family, the Saulx-Tavannes. Their family ties, allies, and letters were visibly monitored. After the revolution, several branches of the Castellane family appear alongside Napoleon and certain members of the family make marriages with great figures from the imperial court (Talleyrand, among others).”

Guillaume agreed that Gabrielle almost perfectly matched the description of my ancestor, except Gabrielle definitely did not immigrate to America—her activities in France being well documented as they are. So, Gabrielle couldn’t be Marie Adelaide Guerne de Tavanne (Alix).

Back to square one.

I doubt Marie Adelaide (Alix) imagined that her memoir would become a source of literary debate, or that more than 220 years later, her great, great, great, great granddaughter would become obsessed with tracking down her story.

My mind darted. Maybe her memoir was an elaborate tale conjured by a French emigrée stuck in the Louisiana bayou backwoods, homesick for Paris, writing to pass the time, figuring no one would bother to check the facts. Or it could be a case of Occam's Razor, which holds that the simplest explanation is likely correct. Maybe I simply hadn’t found the right records.

Weeks later I came across a buried post submitted by M.M. Loeffler in a genealogy forum dated 2003:

“In a Louisiana cemetery is the tombstone of one of my French ancestors, Charles Michel CHAPANTIER, whose place of birth is given as Pittsburgh, PA, 29 Sept. 1795. His parents were refugees from France and Santo Domingo and only stayed briefly in PA. His father was Count Joseph Michel de Tavanne, who changed his name to Joseph CHARPANTIER, when he arrived in the U.S.  Mother’s name was Countess Alix de Morainville. I would appreciate any clues about finding documented records of the birth of C.M. Charpantier. Thanks!”

Wait, what? Joseph Michel Charpantier was Count de Tavanne? I circled my desk. So, why did he keep his assumed name of Charpantier, while Marie Adelaide identified herself as “de Tavanne?”

I tracked down Ms. Loeffler, who kindly shared what she knew. The “Countess story” was passed down by her grandmother, Louise Charpantier Meynier of New Orleans (1883-1967), the granddaughter of Abner Benoit Charpantier. Abner was Joseph and Marie Adelaide’s (Alix’s) grandson, named for Alix’s guillotined husband from her memoir, Count Abner Benoit de Morainville.

According to Loeffler’s story, Countess Alix de Morainville married her cousin at age sixteen. Both members of the court of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, they lived with their infant daughter Olive in Versailles. When the Revolution broke out, Alix’s father and husband were taken prisoner, while her mother fled to England. Alix and Olive escaped with her maid’s help.

She was then rescued by the gardener’s son (of Chateau Morainville). He helped disguise her as a peasant and escorted Alix and her baby onto a vessel bound for America. No one is sure, but the theory is that en route, the ship stopped at the French colonial island of Saint-Domingue (today known as Haiti), where Count Joseph Michel de Tavanne served as an emissary to the French Crown, sent there to quell the revolt. When it developed into an all-out massacre, Count de Tavanne slipped onto a ship disguised as a laborer, giving his name as Charpentier (French for carpenter). On board he recognized Alix from the royal court, despite her peasant disguise.

"I doubt Marie Adelaide (Alix) imagined that her memoir would become a source of literary debate, or that more than 220 years later, her great, great, great, great granddaughter would become obsessed with tracking down her story."

From here Loeffler is not sure what became of Olive, and the child is entirely lost to all available records. But following Loeffler's account, we might assume that Alix and Joseph stuck together during the journey to America and were married under their assumed name Charpantier in Pennsylvania, where they had a son, Charles Michel Charpantier.

Word that the Louisiana governor was awarding free land to French refugees settling in Louisiana might have prompted Joseph and Alix to journey to New Orleans and then down to St. Martinville.

Although Loeffler’s story somewhat differs from Cable’s, her family’s version seems more plausible. She explained, “The Charpantier name remained our family name, while the de Tavanne title and nobility were buried in oblivion.” The Morainville and Guerne names disappeared, too.

The earliest evidence of Marie Adelaide (Alix) and Joseph’s life in St. Martinville are found in records kept by a local priest, Father Hebert, as well as in articles and census lists from the time. As sugarcane took hold in the region, agricultural records confirm that the Charpantier family owned a successful sugarcane plantation on the Bayou Teche. It remained in the family for generations—first passed to their son Charles Michel Charpantier, Loeffler’s direct ancestor. Records and the inscription on his tombstone verify Charles was in fact born in Pennsylvania on September 29, 1795.

Why Pennsylvania? Cable’s book doesn’t mention Pennsylvania, nor does it include mention of any children. Perhaps Alix left the children out of her memoir for reasons of propriety.

Following the story to Pennsylvania, though, led me to an obscure historical place I’d never heard of—French Azilum (Asile Français).

In 1790, Americans followed the volatile situation unfolding in France with a sense of indebtedness, recalling France’s hefty financial support during the American Revolution, a debt carried by the commoners who would violently overthrew the oppressive French regime. Yeah, my relatives were the villains.

A handful of the French nobles who escaped the guillotine by fleeing to America after 1790 met in Philadelphia and hatched a scheme to construct a hidden refugee colony where aristocratic French exiles could hide out. Their haven could also house wealthy French planters fleeing the island of Saint-Domingue, where a bloody slave revolt erupted in 1791.

Tucked inside a three-hundred-acre meadowed hamlet in the Pennsylvania wilderness 150 miles southwest of Philadelphia, situated on the banks of the Susquehanna River, they set up a mini-Versailles. They built houses, a town square, shops, a chapel, even a distillery—all designed to accommodate hundreds of blue-blood French émigrés.

Word of French Azilum (asylum) traveled through back channels into France, drawing escapees beginning in 1793, around the time Alix and Joseph sailed to America—though I have not found a ship manifest carrying their names, real or fake, from France, England, or Saint-Domingue (now Haiti).

Azilum included a 3,600 square foot “Le Grande Maison,” built to house Queen Marie Antoinette and her children when they escaped. Of course, they didn’t.

When Azilum refugees learned King Louis and Marie Antoinette were guillotined, many of the estimated 200 families—royal relatives, former French courtiers, officers, clergy, and other royal liaisons—remained cloistered in the secret community, some for ten years. Records kept by French fugitives in Azilum do not include the name Charpantier, Tavanne, or Morainville, nor did I find a record of a baby named Charles born on Sept. 29, 1795. Stumped again.

The secret settlement was exposed by 1796, when the king’s son, Louis Philippe, the last king of France, visited Azilum. By 1800, the refugees had moved on, and in 1803, when Napoleon declared amnesty for French aristocrats, some returned to France, leaving the settlement abandoned.

Did Marie Adelaide or Joseph ever venture back to Azilum, or France, or Haiti?

I hadn’t paid attention to the history of Saint-Domingue until Loeffler mentioned Joseph Charpantier being a planter who fled the island during the same time Marie Adelaide (Alix) fled France. This threw another wrench into the Cable story—which happened frequently during my research, supporting the literary nay-sayer claims that his book, and Alix’s memoir within it, is more fiction than fact.

"Was my fourth great grandfather a brutal planter/enslaver in what is now Haiti?"

The island’s history became immensely relevant after I found two articles in the New Orleans Times-Picayune from 1883, identifying Joseph Michel Charpantier as a wealthy Parisian with sugarcane plantations in Saint-Domingue, who fled to Pennsylvania during the slave uprising and moved to Louisiana where he again became a wealthy sugarcane planter, active in local and state government, including serving in the state legislature.

Random clips, buried in the Times-Picayune, dated June 19, 1883, and May 8, 1883, are the only accounts of Joseph Michel Charpantier’s life I’ve found thus far. The articles make no mention of his wife, or the title Count de Tavanne. Could his real name in France have been Charpantier?

Based on these articles, Joseph was not a French emissary trying to calm the revolt in Saint-Domingue, nor was he the lowly son of the gardener who helped Alix escape to America. Rather, Joseph was a wealthy French plantation owner on the island, who fled to America during the slave revolt and made his fortune growing sugarcane on his south Louisiana plantation. I turned my attention to the West Indies.

Saint-Domingue is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in the Americas—claimed by Christopher Columbus for Spain in 1492. France captured Saint-Domingue in the mid-1600s. To promote the development of cash crops on the fertile French colonial island, France imported thousands of enslaved Africans to labor on the plantations. By 1767, Saint-Domingue, no bigger than the state of Vermont, had become the wealthiest colony in the world, exporting millions of pounds of raw and refined sugar, cotton, indigo, and most of the world’s coffee.

Called “The Queen of the West Indies,” “The Pride of France in the New World,” and “The Pearl of the Antilles,” this jewel in the crown of the French Colonial empire bolstered France’s wealth and supported the French navy—almost entirely upon the backs of thousands of enslaved people, controlled by hundreds of French masters, who used violent measures to maintain their control. This abuse resulted in France’s 1685 establishment of the Code Noir, which was meant to regulate the treatment of enslaved people in the colony. It didn’t work.

Rampant reports of brutality, torture, and inhumane treatment of the enslaved continued, leading to an uprising that went on from 1791 to 1804—the largest revolt by enslaved people in history. When the tables turned, many of these plantation owners and overseers fled to New Orleans.

Was my fourth great grandfather a brutal planter/enslaver in what is now Haiti? Most records for sugar plantations in Saint-Domingue were destroyed during the uprising.  But, I found the name Joseph “Tavern” linked to Charpentier (different name spellings) in a 1789 list of plantation owners in Saint-Domingue; as well as a “Count Jsf. De Tavane” listed as an inhabitant of Saint-Domingue published in the Gazette De St. Domingue.

A breakthrough? Yes, and though that’s the only mention I found of Count de Tavane, it underscores the significant interconnection of France, Saint-Domingue and Louisiana running through my roots.

If the articles are accurate, and Joseph was a rich French count with sugarcane plantations in Saint-Domingue who fled in the 1790s and began raising sugarcane around Bayou Teche, that would make him among the first successful sugarcane planters in American history—though his success must also be attributed to the labor of the people he enslaved. The fact that he ended up in Louisiana, armed with experience in overseeing a sugar plantation at the exact time the sugar industry emerged on the continent, was either incredibly lucky, or shrewd, or both.

He and Alix, having arrived in Louisiana seven years before Napoleon sold the vast Louisiana territory to the United States in 1803, beat the flood of immigration to the fertile region. They arrived just in time to take part in Louisiana’s role filling the void in the global sugar market left after the uprising in Saint-Domingue.

And thus, a new door opens in my family history: sugarcane. Following the route through the “Sugar Parishes” of Louisiana, along River Road, to Algiers and New Orleans, I spotted familiar names from Alix’s memoir, like De La Houssaye. Sidone De La Houssaye handed off her great-grandmother’s story about Alix to Cable in the 1880s, which set my quest in motion in the first place. So how could I dismiss the story in Cable’s book as mere myth?

Seems a consistent theme in my project—stumbling across unexpected ancestor connections. As the list of names mounts upon my family tree, I push away from my desk, wondering, “Where is this going?”