Monsieur Motte

by Grace Elizabeth King

"I told Goupilleau, 'Goupilleau, nonsense! You don't know whom you are talking to! Can't get money out of this people! bah! Giving balls, going to balls, and not pay house-rent, not pay office-rent, not even pay interest on their debts! debts reduced to ten cents on the dollar! But what are you singing to me, mon ami' 'But Madame must not judge by the present.' 'And why not? Why not judge by the present?' 'The crises, the revolution, the reconstruction.

Hardcover

First published July 15, 2004

About the author

Grace Elizabeth King was an American author of Louisiana stories, history, and biography, and a leader in historical and literary activities.

Reviews

[Teresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

King wrote Monsieur Motte, her first published story, in response to George W. Cable and, in particular, his The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life, which King, along with most prominent New Orleanians of the time, found an unflattering portrait. In fact, they were outraged by Cable (also a native New Orleanian) and he eventually left the city. Though King belonged to an aristocratic (later impoverished) family, I was surprised to discover she was not a Creole, though she is their champion.

Cable set The Grandissimes: A Story of Creole Life in 1803 (time of the Louisiana Purchase), though it was also meant to be a criticism of his own time. King sets her story in her own time, the 1870s, the time of Reconstruction. Not only does she present a much more positive view of the Creoles, she also depicts freed slaves as completely devoted to their young-adult white 'charges'—to the extent that this ‘mothering’ is their whole identity.

The middle section (and the weakest and most superfluous) depicts life on a plantation, presenting a rather idyllic view of the lives of the workers—there is not a hint of rebellion for instance, as there was in the Cable. There are also no ‘bad’ characters: everyone is good-at-heart and working in harmony, despite personality quirks that are tolerated or worked around. Even an almost-‘villain’ (not a Creole, as the character herself states) in the last section has 'mother'-love as a reason for her ‘villainy’.

King is at her best when she depicts the sweet, fluttering, cloistered white girls of the convent school; their Greek-chorus-like lines as bridesmaids are superb. I was not surprised to read that King went to such a convent school.

[Mary Courtley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable read