younger brother, a lieutenant in the navy.

On the twenty-seventh of October, 1768, every Frenchman in Louisiana
Province was marching toward New Orleans. That same night the guns at
the Tehoupitoulas Gate--the upper river corner--were spiked; while yet
farther away, along a narrow road bordering the great stream, armed
with fowling pieces, muskets, even axes, the Arcadians, and the aroused
inhabitants of the German coast, came sweeping down to unite with the
impatient Creoles of the town. In the dull gray of early morning they
pushed past the spiked and useless cannon, and, with De Noyan and
Villere at their head, forced the other gates and noisily paraded the
streets under the _fleur de lis_. The people rose _en masse_ to greet
them, until, utterly unable to resist the rising tide of popular
enthusiasm, Ulloa retired on board the Spanish frigate, which slipped
her cables, and came to anchor far out in the stream. Two days later,
hurried no doubt by demands of the council, the governor set sail for
the West Indies, leaving the fair province under control of what was
little better than a headless mob.

For now, having achieved success, the strange listlessness of the
Southern nature reasserted itself, and from that moment no apparent
effort was made to strengthen their position--no government was
established, no basis of credit effected, no diplomatic relations were
assumed. They had battled for results like men, yet were content to
play with them like children. For more than seven months they thus
enjoyed a false security, as delightful as their sunny summer-time.
Then suddenly, as breaks an ocean storm, that slumbering community was
rudely aroused from its siestas and day-dreaming by the report that
Spaniards were at the mouth of the river in overwhelming force.