bauble of this far western province, whose heart, nevertheless,
remained forever faithful to sunny France.

As late as 1768 New Orleans contained scarcely more than three thousand
two hundred persons, a third of these being black slaves. Sixty-three
years previously Bienville had founded Louisiana Province, making
choice of the city site, but in 1763 it suited the schemes of him, who
ruled the destinies of the mother country, to convey the yet struggling
colony into the control of the King of Spain. It was fully two years
later before word of this unwelcome transfer reached the distant
province, while as much more time elapsed ere Don Antonio de Ulloa, the
newly appointed Spanish governor, landed at New Orleans, and, under
guard of but two companies of infantry, took unto himself the reins.
Unrest was already in the air,--petitions and delegations laden with
vehement protests crossed the Atlantic. Both were alike returned,
disregarded by the French King. Where it is probable that a single
word of wise counsel, even of kindly explanation, might have calmed the
rising tumult, silence and contempt merely served to aggravate it.

It has been written by conscientious historians that commercial
interests, not loyalty to French traditions, were the real cause of
this struggle of 1768. Be that as it may, its leaders were found in
the Superior Council, a body of governors older even than New Orleans,
of which the patriotic Lafrénière was then the presiding officer, and
whose membership contained such representative citizens as Foucault,
Jean and Joseph Milhet, Caresse, Petit, Poupet, a prominent lawyer.
Marquis, a Swiss captain, with Bathasar de Masan, Hardy de Boisblanc,
and Joseph Villere, planters of the upper Mississippi, as well as two
nephews of the great Bienville, Charles de Noyan, a young ex-captain of
cavalry, lately married to the only daughter of Lafrénière, and his