"They might be useful, though," Lanxade tossed off as he gathered up his hat and cane from the commode table by the apartment's door.
"Americans?" Helio and Hippolyte scoffed. "Hah!"
"Many of them war veterans promised land instead of pensions, but have neither," Lanxade drolly pointed out. "Shuffling from one hard patch of ground to the next, when the land plays out… or the rich and powerful snap it up, messieurs, mademoiselle? Such motherless ne'er-do-wells will do anything merely for the promise of better. And if part of Lousiana was promised to them… far north of here, of course… what sort of army would they make to oust the Spanish?"
"They're heathen Protestants!" Don Rubio exclaimed with all the disgust that both his hidalgo-Catholic-Spanish father and the French Creole Catholic Bergrands had drummed into him with his mother's milk. "They're Anglo-Saxons, and they have no Spanish, much less knowledge of our beautiful French."
"We Creoles would be drowned in a flood of heretics," Helio de Guilleri quickly added.
"Our glorious language, our genteel way of life, our people./" Jean-Marie Rancour piped up, turning even paler. "They'd sweep us from the face of the world! They're hideous, they're-"
"Ambitious, and powerful in their numbers," Lanxade interjected. "Draw a border far to the north, along the Arkansas River, let us say. The Yankees are not at war with France, not a real war, and are mostly of two minds about the French, or Creoles. Without us, they would not be free of the British, and for that they are thankful still. Their priests direct their anger at Spain and its Inquisition. Mon Dieu, Americans are so English, they still despise the Spanish for the Armada! The United States may end up with every last stick of Florida east of Pensacola, but with American settler-veterans fighting to carve out their own little empire in our service, in the northern half of Louisiana, all the way to Lake Michigan… hmm?"
"But, we're so few, and those bumpkins breed like rabbits. They would swarm us under in a generation, Lanxade!" Don Rubio objected.
"Ah, but what if an entirely new country… Louisiana… came to be. For that, do you not think that the Directory in Paris might not suspend their wasteful war against the British… to recover just as much 'empire' as we lost in '63? Steal it from the haughty Anglais and the grasping United States?
"The chance of such a coup would assure our reunion with France… that we all hold dear," Lanxade dangled before them, almost playfully. "Hmm? Oh well, it's just a thought… adieu, messieurs and mademoiselle. I will do what I can to sniff out those newly arrived and mysterious anglais for you, before Balfa and I take the silver down to pay our impatient sailors. I will send you a report before we go. Once more, adieu"
"What an odious idea!" middle brother Hippolyte declared with a grimace once Lanxade was gone. "Even temporarily associated with those… brutish animals, pah!"
"The Americans press us so closely, even now, though, Hippolyte. The time may be shorter than we think before they march into Florida. The time we have in which to raise a rebellion," Charite glumly considered, pacing the parlour with a silent, graceful gliding motion that her town clothes enforced upon her, the artful attainments drilled into her by her parents, tutors, and dancing-masters.
"If that happens, Louisiana, and our city, are doomed," cousin Jean-Marie brokenly muttered, as if contemplating being driven from a second refuge. "And we think it's bad enough under the Spanish!"
"Good for business, though," said Helio, the most levelheaded among them, the eldest de Guilleri who would inherit the bulk of their lands and the resulting responsibilities. " New Orleans is already the most thriving port on the Gulf. With Yankee industriousness…"
"Shame on you!" Charite stormed, so outraged that she stamped a dainty foot on the floor. "Does the struggle to become French again mean so little to you, after all we've done? After all our hopes and plans? Saint Domingue, Martinique, and Guadeloupe are bursting with thousands of good Frenchmen who would flee here and join us. Swedish and Danish ships come here to trade as thick as mosquitoes. How many stout Republican soldiers and settlers could be smuggled here in those neutral ships, once Paris is aware of our movement? We must send another letter, many of them. Each of us writes two, claiming to be, ah… Maurepas, Bistineau! Bergrands and Bois-blancs… LeMoynes and D'Ablemonts, the leading citizens! Urging them to come to our aid, on the sly/"
"Sister, cherie," Helio had to point out. "The Spanish are the only allies the Directory has in the world. Even if they meant to betray the Spaniards, how would they sneak an army here, with the Anglais stopping and inspecting every ship they come across?"
"If they could, though," Don Rubio objected, "the Spanish can't spare troops or ships to fight them. And with our schooner, and soon even more vessels, the decrepit Spanish Navy could not move soldiers from Mexico or Cuba as long as that British Navy blockades them! Oui, more letters to Paris, and… what if we did hire on a few bands of Americans?"
"What? But I thought you-" Jean-Marie blanched.
"As backwoods troublemakers," Rubio Monaster expounded with an evil snicker. "To raid Spanish posts, massacre the soldiers, and loot them. We'd let them keep all they take, so we would not have to pay them. We begin a campaign of torching Spanish properties around the city… dressed in buckskins, so American visitors get the blame. I think Yankee patriots dressed as Indians when they dumped the teas in Boston harbour, ha ha!"
"I'd rather try to make a pet of an alligator," Helio objected. "You cannot trust them, no matter how destitute and dog-eyed they look at the moment. Give a Yankee a cubit, and he'll take an arpent! They have no lasting gratitude in their souls. Look how thankful they were after Yorktown, and how they turned on the France that saved them not twenty years later, and now make war on our commerce, did not declare war on the British to help our Revolution in '93, did not give grain to keep the suffering French people from starvation, but sold it!"
"Enough, cher Helio," Charite demanded, pressing fingers to her forehead as if suffering a mal de tete. "Capitaine Lanxade is a fool. Useful in his way, but still a fool. Helio is right. We can never rely on the Americans. They would betray us eventually. But until we can urge the Directory to come to our aid, and quickly, we must do something to rouse our sleeping fellow Creoles. Rubio, your idea has some merit. We must look into that."
Don Rubio Monaster almost wagged his nonexistent tail at such rare praise from her.
"And let's not forget that we must look into both the American backwoodsmen's arrival, and those strangers off the Panton, Leslie trader," Charite announced. "They're men, after all, and men always find themselves a cabaret, a grog shop, or a bordel after the hard journey is done. Who knows, they might even come right to us in our favourite boites? She chuckled. "If either party looks to be a danger to us, then… what better could we do than go to sea to take even more prizes, while they search for us here, n'est-ce pas?"
" Chere Charite, I swear if you are not the heart and soul of all we do, of all we dream," her brother Helio exclaimed with heartfelt admiration for her quick and clever thinking.