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Madame Castel's Lodger
A biographical fiction of P.G.T. Beauregard, a full general, hero of Fort Sumter, victor at Manassas, first idol of the Confederacy.
410 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1962
About the author
Frances Parkinson Keyes
145 books96 followersFrances Parkinson Keyes was an American author who wrote about her life as the wife of a U.S. Senator and novels set in New England, Louisiana, and Europe. A convert to Roman Catholicism, her later works frequently featured Catholic themes and beliefs. Her last name rhymes with "skies," not "keys."
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 30, 2018
New Orleans has produced a fair number of authors, in particular George Washington Cable, John Kennedy Toole, and Ann Rice. However, it is more famous as the inspiration for writers of the first rank: Thomas “Tennessee” Williams III, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, and Truman Capote to name but a few. Then there are the ranks of lesser known authors inspired by the Crescent City. Its unique cultural mixture attracts people looking for something different, and the city has often changed how it sells itself to the world. Before the 20th Century it was gambling and commerce. Today it is culture, whether it is food, music, architecture, or the night life.
I was born in 1982, during the transition away from the city selling itself as the Creole version of the Old South. Atlanta sold Gone with the Wind memorabilia, but we sold steamboat cruises, plantation tours, and antebellum artifacts. The Garden District was a major tourist destination in the later phase of this era. The times were epitomized by the novels written by Virginia native Frances Parkinson Keyes. She was one of the first popular female authors of the twentieth century, and counted Franklin Roosevelt among her fans. She wrote some sixty novels, memoirs, and travelogues from 1918 to 1970. Many of them were about New Orleans. She bought a fine French Quarter home, renovated it, and made sure it was operate as a museum after her death. Today it is the Beauregard-Keyes House.
The home, currently at 1113 Chartres Street, was the postwar lodging of P.G.T. Beauregard. Keyes became obsessed with his story and started writing a novel about his life in the 1940s. In 1962 it was published, titled Madame Castel's Lodger. It represents the last of literary blush of the Lost Cause.
There is hardly a plot in Madame Castel's Lodger. Beauregard returns from the war and rents a room from Simone Castel. They are attracted to each other but do nothing about it; Keyes was a moralist at heart, although given to romantic flourishes. Instead, Beauregard recounts his life to various people in a strict chronological order. There is a subplot about Beauregard trying to find Lance Castel, a soldier in the Orleans Guard Battalion who has been missing since Shiloh. Lance is found but it is lacking in drama.
The book’s lack of drama can be seen in the book covers. The American hardback simply showed the house. The British edition showed an incorrect house but depicted one of the best scenes in the book, when Beauregard comes to seek lodging. Paperbacks which were looking to sell copious amounts, depicted scenes that never occurred: steamboats, carriage traffic jams, and even moss covered romantic meetings with a Confederate officer who looked like Ashley Wilkes. Imagine Beauregard blonde and clean shaven.
The Lost Cause elements are of the moonlight and magnolias variety. Indeed, Keyes even has Beauregard defending this, saying it was real. Issues of race and slavery are dodged. The central Lost Cause facet of the story is the idea of rebuilding Southern society after the war, in this case getting a job. Gone is the politics and the tumult, replaced with a dull subplot of getting employment. Beauregard’s internal debate about whether to ask for a pardon is missing. On the better end, Lost Cause villains Benjamin Butler and William Tecumseh Sherman are portrayed in a more complex light.
It might seem cheap to dismiss the book’s limitations from our vantage point; my main issue was the lack of plot, for it is mostly a kind of Beauregard biography. The ideas of memory and loss are explored but not in depth. Where the book is of some interest is Keyes’ attention to detail. Her sense of Louisiana geography is superb, no minor thing for a person raised on Hollywood movies where New Orleans is just the French Quarter and the swamp, with nothing in between. Keyes loved romance and old Creole families and those are best parts. Her attention to detail in this regard is superb and I actually learned some family lore from the novel. Keyes was friends with Beauregard’s granddaughter, Laure Beauregard Larendon, and repeated some of her stories. Keyes’ mistakes are more apparent in recalling Beauregard’s military career, but even then they more minor than damning.
Keyes’ Creole Old South is almost gone as a part of New Orleans’ popular memory. In her day, the emphasis was on powerful Creole families made up of grand eccentrics who could recall their European lineages, mostly French and Spanish, with the occasional person from England, Portugal, Belgium, and Italy finding their way into the family tree. This was not the world of Anglo-Americans coming to make money, nor that of poor Irish, Germans, and Italians who streamed into the city. Most importantly, it was a version of Creole life divorced from its African influences and blood relations. For Keyes, Grace King, and the rest the real New Orleans was a white Creole past that emphasized the colonial era. Today, New Orleans sells itself as a center of African-American culture, where one can buy a shirt that says “everything you like about New Orleans is because of black people.”
Whatever her faults, King was a wealth of anecdotes and family trees. The descendants of the great founding families such as Marigny, Toutant-Beauregard, de la Ronde, Villeré, and the rest draw much of their family knowledge from King. Keyes was useful about details of Beauregard family history, such as graves and plantation names. She even copied some letters to her book and grave inscriptions that are today so worn down as to be unreadable are preserved in the novel. Yet, she did not get to the heart of the matter. She was perceptive in understanding Beauregard’s dreams but not his limitations. He was not kind to the memory of his second wife, Caroline Deslondes. He was deeply jealous of Robert E. Lee. He could be exceedingly petty and mean, and in Madame Castel's Lodger he is neither. He is instead a nearly perfect Creole gentleman, undone by fate more than his hand. Both of his wives die, Louisiana secedes, and he runs afoul of Jefferson Davis, and in each case he has no choice in the narrative. In reality he did. He could have been better to Caroline, stayed loyal, and not feuded with Davis. All of this is the stuff of tragedy. Keyes instead went in for sympathy.
King and Keyes have their uses and their limitations. If they erred, it was in thinking they knew the “real” New Orleans. Today’s historians and artists often mock King and Keyes. Even worse they ignore them, while pursuing a new version of the “real” New Orleans, one that will inevitably be eclipsed by another type of authenticity we sell to ourselves and the world. That is, if the city even survives the century.
I was born in 1982, during the transition away from the city selling itself as the Creole version of the Old South. Atlanta sold Gone with the Wind memorabilia, but we sold steamboat cruises, plantation tours, and antebellum artifacts. The Garden District was a major tourist destination in the later phase of this era. The times were epitomized by the novels written by Virginia native Frances Parkinson Keyes. She was one of the first popular female authors of the twentieth century, and counted Franklin Roosevelt among her fans. She wrote some sixty novels, memoirs, and travelogues from 1918 to 1970. Many of them were about New Orleans. She bought a fine French Quarter home, renovated it, and made sure it was operate as a museum after her death. Today it is the Beauregard-Keyes House.
The home, currently at 1113 Chartres Street, was the postwar lodging of P.G.T. Beauregard. Keyes became obsessed with his story and started writing a novel about his life in the 1940s. In 1962 it was published, titled Madame Castel's Lodger. It represents the last of literary blush of the Lost Cause.
There is hardly a plot in Madame Castel's Lodger. Beauregard returns from the war and rents a room from Simone Castel. They are attracted to each other but do nothing about it; Keyes was a moralist at heart, although given to romantic flourishes. Instead, Beauregard recounts his life to various people in a strict chronological order. There is a subplot about Beauregard trying to find Lance Castel, a soldier in the Orleans Guard Battalion who has been missing since Shiloh. Lance is found but it is lacking in drama.
The book’s lack of drama can be seen in the book covers. The American hardback simply showed the house. The British edition showed an incorrect house but depicted one of the best scenes in the book, when Beauregard comes to seek lodging. Paperbacks which were looking to sell copious amounts, depicted scenes that never occurred: steamboats, carriage traffic jams, and even moss covered romantic meetings with a Confederate officer who looked like Ashley Wilkes. Imagine Beauregard blonde and clean shaven.
The Lost Cause elements are of the moonlight and magnolias variety. Indeed, Keyes even has Beauregard defending this, saying it was real. Issues of race and slavery are dodged. The central Lost Cause facet of the story is the idea of rebuilding Southern society after the war, in this case getting a job. Gone is the politics and the tumult, replaced with a dull subplot of getting employment. Beauregard’s internal debate about whether to ask for a pardon is missing. On the better end, Lost Cause villains Benjamin Butler and William Tecumseh Sherman are portrayed in a more complex light.
It might seem cheap to dismiss the book’s limitations from our vantage point; my main issue was the lack of plot, for it is mostly a kind of Beauregard biography. The ideas of memory and loss are explored but not in depth. Where the book is of some interest is Keyes’ attention to detail. Her sense of Louisiana geography is superb, no minor thing for a person raised on Hollywood movies where New Orleans is just the French Quarter and the swamp, with nothing in between. Keyes loved romance and old Creole families and those are best parts. Her attention to detail in this regard is superb and I actually learned some family lore from the novel. Keyes was friends with Beauregard’s granddaughter, Laure Beauregard Larendon, and repeated some of her stories. Keyes’ mistakes are more apparent in recalling Beauregard’s military career, but even then they more minor than damning.
Keyes’ Creole Old South is almost gone as a part of New Orleans’ popular memory. In her day, the emphasis was on powerful Creole families made up of grand eccentrics who could recall their European lineages, mostly French and Spanish, with the occasional person from England, Portugal, Belgium, and Italy finding their way into the family tree. This was not the world of Anglo-Americans coming to make money, nor that of poor Irish, Germans, and Italians who streamed into the city. Most importantly, it was a version of Creole life divorced from its African influences and blood relations. For Keyes, Grace King, and the rest the real New Orleans was a white Creole past that emphasized the colonial era. Today, New Orleans sells itself as a center of African-American culture, where one can buy a shirt that says “everything you like about New Orleans is because of black people.”
Whatever her faults, King was a wealth of anecdotes and family trees. The descendants of the great founding families such as Marigny, Toutant-Beauregard, de la Ronde, Villeré, and the rest draw much of their family knowledge from King. Keyes was useful about details of Beauregard family history, such as graves and plantation names. She even copied some letters to her book and grave inscriptions that are today so worn down as to be unreadable are preserved in the novel. Yet, she did not get to the heart of the matter. She was perceptive in understanding Beauregard’s dreams but not his limitations. He was not kind to the memory of his second wife, Caroline Deslondes. He was deeply jealous of Robert E. Lee. He could be exceedingly petty and mean, and in Madame Castel's Lodger he is neither. He is instead a nearly perfect Creole gentleman, undone by fate more than his hand. Both of his wives die, Louisiana secedes, and he runs afoul of Jefferson Davis, and in each case he has no choice in the narrative. In reality he did. He could have been better to Caroline, stayed loyal, and not feuded with Davis. All of this is the stuff of tragedy. Keyes instead went in for sympathy.
King and Keyes have their uses and their limitations. If they erred, it was in thinking they knew the “real” New Orleans. Today’s historians and artists often mock King and Keyes. Even worse they ignore them, while pursuing a new version of the “real” New Orleans, one that will inevitably be eclipsed by another type of authenticity we sell to ourselves and the world. That is, if the city even survives the century.
November 2, 2009
This is a great novel for anyone interested in American Civil War history. Rather than acting as a plain-facts textbook we become involved with the characters and events on a warmer, more personal level. The book primarily looks at General Beauregard and his life, moving from the southern plantations to the Mexican war and then on through his engineering career to become heavily involved in the Civil War. We are introduced to his family and friends, meet major players in the war, read about strategy from the battlefields and are also encouraged to think about how it must have felt for those who endured the long wait to see if their loved ones would come home.
A fascinating, involving book that is a refreshing take on the usual style of dealing with the Civil War. Highly recommended.
A fascinating, involving book that is a refreshing take on the usual style of dealing with the Civil War. Highly recommended.
September 5, 2019
This novel seemed to mix a little fiction within the truth of what was General Pierre Beauregard's life. A Beautifully told story. It showed the undying love and passion he felt for his first wife Laure,' and the search for companionship he found with his second wife Caroline. Told through the story of the Generals fictional search for a decent abode after the civil war in war torn New Orleans. A wonderful read !!
May 27, 2024
This novel is based on the bio of General Beauregard. While he lived a fascinating life, & was what passes for New Orleans royalty, it's also a treasure trove of a literary time capsule. I could have done with a bit less of the details of the wars he served in, but that's my personal taste, & any real history or war buff of that time frame will appreciate it.
January 27, 2009
Keyes' historical novel opens with General Beauregard returning to New Orleans penniless after the Civil War. Only 100 pages in so far. Set in the same home as her novel about Paul Morphy.
August 4, 2025
This is only the third book I have read by Frances Parkinson Keyes. The first two were Joy Street and Steamboat Gothic, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. This one - not so much.
From the foreword, it seems the author was preparing and planning this account for about twenty years, partly because she was living in the Beauregard House in New Orleans where the book is set. The book tells the story of a Confederate general, P.G.T. Beauregard, at the time of the American Civil War.
Some of the book is fictional, such as the landlady Simone Castel, her mother, her missing son Lance and the developing relationships between Beauregard and this family. These are the sections of the book I enjoyed most.
Pierre Beauregard has returned depressed and almost destitute after the defeat of the Confederates. While he is renting rooms from Mme. Castel, Pierre is going through his papers and reliving both his war experiences and his early life.
To me, much of the biographical account seemed rather a stodgy recital of names and dates. However, I must admit that the book has sparked in me an interest in the American Civil War, of which, as a Brit I knew virtually nothing.
From the foreword, it seems the author was preparing and planning this account for about twenty years, partly because she was living in the Beauregard House in New Orleans where the book is set. The book tells the story of a Confederate general, P.G.T. Beauregard, at the time of the American Civil War.
Some of the book is fictional, such as the landlady Simone Castel, her mother, her missing son Lance and the developing relationships between Beauregard and this family. These are the sections of the book I enjoyed most.
Pierre Beauregard has returned depressed and almost destitute after the defeat of the Confederates. While he is renting rooms from Mme. Castel, Pierre is going through his papers and reliving both his war experiences and his early life.
To me, much of the biographical account seemed rather a stodgy recital of names and dates. However, I must admit that the book has sparked in me an interest in the American Civil War, of which, as a Brit I knew virtually nothing.
December 16, 2024
I guess if you are deeply interested in the exact happenings of battles retold this could be interesting to you. It painted a picture of "Beauregard was actually one of the NICE slave owners and HIS slaves always LOVED being slaves and the south was filled with people just trying to do their best by their slaves."
Something impactful it DID do was illustrate how probably ordinary people just got....swept up in it. They might not have had a strong opinion on the subject but were at the mercy of their governments, their having no money to relocate, their conscience of feeling like they should probably defend where their family has lived for generations. And it did a good job of illustrating how they might have tried to ignore it or hope it wasn't happening and then, suddenly, a crash.
Something impactful it DID do was illustrate how probably ordinary people just got....swept up in it. They might not have had a strong opinion on the subject but were at the mercy of their governments, their having no money to relocate, their conscience of feeling like they should probably defend where their family has lived for generations. And it did a good job of illustrating how they might have tried to ignore it or hope it wasn't happening and then, suddenly, a crash.
March 6, 2019
A delightful mixture of fact and fiction about Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard. The book included pictures, letters, and articles throughout which made it possible for me to see the Civil War through his eyes.
July 5, 2019
Learned a lot about the Civil War, especially General Beuregard. Her writing tends to be very detailed, which makes for some tedious reading.
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December 26, 2012My main interest in this book had to do with the Beauregard House in New Orleans, where part of the book was set. Because I'd been there, I could visualize the events. Characteristic Keyes - long on descriptions. I did learn a lot about Beauregard and overall was interested, but the war flash backs got a little boring.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews