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4. Bosswoman of New Orleans When Marie Laveau was twenty-five she married a freeman of color, Jacques Paris; from all accounts it was a faithful marriage. The couple was married by Pere Antoine, the chaplain of the St. Louis Cathedral. Today, a famous alley running next to the Cathedral named after this priest. Its sister alley on the other side of the church is called Pirates Alley, named after Jean Lafitte and his Baratarian pirates, who helped Andrew Jackson defeat the British in 1815 at the Battle of New Orleans. Following Jacques' death (actually, he was presumed dead after going missing for a long time), the Widow Paris, as Marie was then called, lived with another man named Christophe Glapion. It is uncertain whether she was married to him, but Marie had an incredible number of children -- fifteen. One of her daughters, as previously mentioned, was named Marie as well. In later life the second Marie, a near lookalike, would often be mistaken for her mother. This probably gave rise to the notion that Marie Laveau's magic was so great that she could appear in two places at once, or "bi-locate." In reality, people were seeing the mother and daughter. Though Marie had used her knowledge of Voodoo to manipulate and acquire power, she was merciful as well. In her youth she helped the American wounded at the Battle of New Orleans. As an mark of how high in society she would climb, Marie was one of the few African-Americans invited to attend the funeral of General Jean Humbert, a hero of the Battle of New Orleans. Humbert, once a French general serving under Napoleon, had become famous for his fight against the British in Ireland. Later he moved to New Orleans, became a personal friend of the Baratarian pirate Jean Lafitte, and served on the staff of General Andrew Jackson, helping to defeat the British at New Orleans in 1815. Furthermore, it was said, Marie was acquainted with the Marquis de Lafayette, the American Revolutionary War hero who had visited New Orleans. And of course, Marie was a friend of Pere Antoine, the Chaplain of the St. Louis Cathedral. In her later years Marie visited the convicts on death row in the city's jail, bringing them comfort and food. Usually she brought them gumbo -- a traditional New Orleans seafood stew of African origins; it has been suggested she sometimes laced the gumbo with natural medicinal herbs that soothed the convicts' physical and mental pain. Some speculated that at least once, Marie actually drugged the gumbo with a substance which caused the premature death of a prisoner who had a date with the hangman, sparing the victim the trauma of execution. As another example of Marie's fame, during the Yellow Fever epidemic of the 1850s which devastated the population of New Orleans (and was spectacularly depicted in the old Bette Davis film Jezebel), prominent citizens called upon Marie Laveau to help heal the sick and fight against the plague. But Marie's chief works were in sorcery, Black Magic and the paranormal. Prominent politicians would seek her help, sometimes asking her to predict their futures. For a fee, Marie could cast and remove spells. She was reputedly good with love potions and curses, too. But one thing she was particularly skilled at was obtaining secret information about prominent locals. She divined her information not so much through clairvoyance as through a spy network of servants and slaves in New Orleans who feared the Voodoo Queen. Marie had once been a hairdresser and knew how the gentry foolishly liked to talk, even about confidential matters. Society women would chat away with Marie the hairdresser as though she were irrelevant, a mere servant. In reality, these silly aristocrats were feeding Marie vital information which she would use later to her advantage. Men, too, readily succumbed to the beguiling Marie. It is believed by some that Marie Laveau once operated a house of prostitution on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain, as a rather prosperous side-business. As she became more powerful, she had her spies listening closely in almost ever prestigious home in the city. Marie had many clever methods for recruiting new spies. One trick was to secretly place a Voodoo doll near the front door of her victims, usually the house-servants of distinguished New Orleans homes. The victims, upon discovering the Voodoo doll, would be convinced they were being hexed (by some witch other than Marie), and would run to the Voodoo Queen for help. Marie, also referred to by many locals as the "Bosswoman," would offer to dispel the doll's power if in return the victims would agree to spy for her. Thus Marie could covertly gain knowledge of goings-on within the household where the victims of the Voodoo doll labored. Next: Voodoo Doctors and Ceremonies
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