St. Louis Rising by Carl J. Ekberg Sharon K. Person

Author:Carl J. Ekberg, Sharon K. Person [Carl J. Ekberg, Sharon K. Person]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, United States, Colonial Period (1600-1775), State & Local, Midwest (IA; IL; IN; KS; MI; MN; MO; ND; NE; OH; SD; WI)
ISBN: 9780252096938
Google: W2aZBgAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2015-03-30T00:28:43+00:00

Pétrin and huche were used interchangeably in the Illinois Country for a dough-kneading trough. There was no baker in early St. Louis, and even humble households owned a pétrin or huche for kneading and storing bread dough. Reproduced from Petite Larousse Illustré (Paris: Larousse, 1911).

The couple’s diet was not very varied—eggs, milk (they had a milk cow with a calf), chicken, pork, whole-wheat bread, peas (two minots of dried were on hand), and apples, sometimes leavened with fresh venison or fish—but it was tasty, wholesome, and quite superior to the diets of most Frenchmen at the time, and very likely to those of most Africans as well. On their table at dinnertime, Comparios’s prized piece was a baking dish (“tourtière”) with its cover, appraised at 15 livres, the high value because it was made of copper. Of their three plates, two were faience and one earthenware, and if Marguerite made a potage they had earthenware bowls in which to serve it. Their friend La Fontaine the potter perhaps fashioned these earthenware vessels right there in St. Louis.14 Comparios and Marguerite had no cups and saucers but drank their breakfast coffee out of earthenware bowls (“pots à boire”)—as Europeans often do to this day—and, given their milk cow, Marguerite could whip up a rich café au lait in the morning. A Frenchman from Languedoc and a woman from Africa taking their morning coffee together at home in a vertical-log house perched on the west bank of the Mississippi River is not our usual image of an American West peopled by cowboys and Indians or by French officers in knee britches and tricornes; nevertheless, it presents a plausible and engaging tableau of early St. Louis.

Comparios’s earthly possessions were inventoried on July 17, 1778, and on the eighteenth de Leyba had to decide how to utilize these resources to provide a modicum of comfort for the poor man whose “body was infirm and his mind alienated.” So, who in St. Louis would be willing to assume the responsibility of caring for Comparios in return for receiving his entire estate? De Leyba was advised that the blacksmith Pierre Roy was a good, reliable man, and with the consent of Comparios’s caretaker (“curator”),15 La Fontaine, the following contractual terms were worked out: Roy would take Comparios into his home to care for as though he were his own son; he would provide him with food, lodging, and clothing; he would do everything in his power to assist and comfort Comparios. Should, however, Comparios somehow miraculously recover, regain his senses, get back on his feet, and become independent again, then Roy would be paid at the rate of 20 livres per month for his time, efforts, and expenses in providing care for Comparios. Labuxière drafted the documents in accordance with ancient French customary laws, and all of these intricate proceedings for taking care of a broken member of the community could just as well have occurred in fourteenth-century France—except that Comparios’s firearm, “un gros fusil,” and his slave would not have appeared on the inventory of his possessions.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.