LaSalle dans Texas, Aussi les Talons
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I have seen two
different versions of the following letter. One translated into English from German and one from
French. The German original was among papers in a wooden box I found at Mayor Whitlow's Indianola Trading Post in Port La Vaca Texas, which I understand came from a yard sale in Comfort Texas of salvage from a building razed in what was once Bettina Texas. When I googled Bettina Brentano von Arnim I found that she was a contemporary of Frances Wright
I've read nothing suggesting Frances and Bettina corresponded with each other, or even knew of each other's existence. But they were contemporaries, certainly common spirits, and doubtlessly would have, if they could have, friended each other on facebook. We surmised Berlandier to have played a role in the transmission of the source materials for the presentation of Genesis 25: "...dwelling in tents," because we know his family was poor and he worked as an apprentice in a drug company and presented research that brought him to the attention of Alphonse de Condalle the leading European botonist of the time, who sent him to Mexico in 1826 to gather specimen. it is certainly possible that Mde Fretageot took these other papers to interested Germans when she left Frances in 1832. If so they certainly would have stimulated the young intellectuals in Bettina's salon and a copy would have found its way into study materials brought to Texas.
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have to stop now for the sunset, which Bettina's proteges, like the
Talons who came with LaSalle might have agreed was worth the mosquitos,
rattle snakes, jelly fish, sharks, alligators, I thought the list was
longer. None are out now as of March 2 (election day; I have to stop
anyway to check the returns) 2010
Wed March 3, 2010: Perry beat Hutchison, the Probate Judge of Calhoun County was reelected (that's the main office here) and Ron Paul, who is the Congressman for this district, got 82% of the vote. Back to the story
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Image of LaSalle goes here
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This is the letter. It is attributed to Sor Juana (link to artists statement in dwelling in tents) who was the dear friend of the Vice Reina in Mexico when the Talon children were brought back from Ft. St. Louis. Louis XIV's wife was the daughter of the King of Spain, and the basis of his claim -- which launched the war for the Spanish Succession, which began about then and during which it is possible the Talon brothers who disappeared from historic records with Iberville's report "They are now in a Portuguese prison" to La Salle's brother. Sor Juana is no more likely to have known Santa Caterina, la China Poblana, than Frances is to have know Bettina 125 some years later. But again, they were contemporaries and common spirits, who would have corresponded on line if they could have. Sor Juana would have known OF Santa Caterina via her priest friend who according to the historic novel Sor Juana (link) spent much time back and forth between Mexico City and Pueblo. He ended up as geographer, back in Madrid, and If Sor Juana had asked him, I feel sure he would have found out about the Portuguese prison in Cochin from La China Poblana, who would have been interested in Marie Madeleine's Karankawan transcriptions, transmitted Sor Juana's letter to La Viz Reina, and helped solve the mystery of why were the Talons in a Portuguese prison and what did they do in the 14 years between Iberville's letter and their reappearance guiding St. Denis from Louisiana to Mexico and back. This is the letter found in the box from Bettina Texas at the Indianola Trading Post. We will have to piece out how it got to Germany. Of course, it could have never left Mexico until Chowell gave it to Say or Maclure who could have taken it back to Europe and given it to Bettina or someone in her Salon who was coming to Texas, or met one of the German intellectuals and artists who settled Bettina in Mexico or Texas. Maclure is recorded as wanting to establish Utopias like New Harmony, which Bettina was, in Mexico and even Texas. Furthermore, it is possible that one or more of the artistic free thinking Germans who came to Bettina or one of the other colonies, had simply heard what we now know about the Talons, and maybe more was known then, and composed the whole thing on board ship on the way to Indianola and left the letter and script here in a box at Milby's or Regan's store and it was in the bottom of a box Cheri Cain took to Jack Whitlow's Indianola Trading Post, when she moved here, just to keep the free thinking spirit alive. We know those Germans were a musical bunch, and Bettina's daughters promoted the collection of fairy tales. I must get in touch with Bunny Arnim and ask if her ancetor was a descendant of Bettina von Arnim. Funny, last I heard of Bunny, she was keeping the historic society going
La letre
French girl waiting upon the Vice Reina. She was rescued from the natives who killed her mother and adopted her and her brothers
This is a small play composed by the young vaders abondoned the women and children. Her skin is covered with strange pictures that cannot be removed, which she treats as sacred markings of the natives’ religion. She is a clever girl and with my encouragement has recreated two of the religious stories told natives. One with their writing--which does not resemble that of the Aztecs nor Mayans, but is with pictures -- as they draw it. I asked her to write the native words as they sound using our latin letters under the natives’ picture writing. The other which resembles the exchange between jacob and laban from our Genesis, I had her write as she recounted it to me in what French she remembers and the Spanish we are teaching her.
This little play is based upon her recollection and her brothers’ of what their mother and father told them about how they happened to leave France the first time for what they refer to as New France to the far far north of New Spain where she and her brothers were born. The mother herself was born in the New World, on the island the French call Martinique, where her father fled with other protestants and died. She was sent back to Paris with the daughter of another French protestant, herself but a girl, both ending up in a Catholic convent. The older girl, whom Marie Madeleine calls Tante Franciose, left the convent to marry and later found a place for Isabel.
This is where the play begins. The humor is appealing to the Spanish who have no love for the French king ---Sor Juana
Act I scene 1
Francoise returns to the convent to tell Isabelle about her marriage to the crippled writer and to tell her she has found her a position as a serving maid to the wife of the composer Lully who composes for the king.
Scene 2:
Isabelle is dusting in the parlor of Madame Lully. Trumpets are heard outside. Trumpeteers enter thru the aisle between the dons and donas seated in attendance for the in the vice rey’s august audience.
Trumpeteer: Fanfare by Lully, if there is one,
otherwise just a great de de de dum.
Mde Lully: Oh mon dieu, c’est le roi!
Isabelle: El Rey?
Mde Lully: Oui, the king
Isabelle: We the king?
Mde L: Oui, oui. oui, oui
Isabelle: Aqui?
This king wee wees where’r he please.
Trumpeteers: de de de dum
Enter M. Lully
M.L: Qui est?
Mde L: Quien es? Who do you think?
M.L: C’est le roi?
Mde L: Si el rey. oui oui.
Isabelle: See the king wee wee? Oh gee,
M. Lully throws open the door, and bows low. M. Lully curtsies low, and shoves Isabelle down in a bowlike flop.
M. Lully: Your majesty!
Isabelle slides out in bow position, returns with chamber pot.
King Louis turns his back to the audience and the musicians play tinkling music.
K: Merci. Lully.
Some ministuers now call for sewers
throughout Pari. But tell me Lully
Who built the royal factory?
L: Of France, the 14th King Louis.
K: And all for whom, Madame Lully?
Mde L: just for the workers of Paris.
K: no need to shop in Brussels now
L: to buy the royal tapestry
K: some singy songy about not importing
gold, and silver, porcelain ware
inlaid cabinetry, royal furniture, we’ll make our own better; all we need are the raw materiel
K: French artisans, their work is exquisite, but
K: their hygiene stinks. They do it in the streets.
I:not like our king, who drops in here to do his in a pot
it’s left to me to empty in the street.
K: And that is why: Sigh. I must build Versailles.
L: But what of the music and the ballet?
K: The arts cannot survive
the stench and poverty of the workers of Paris.
Mde L: That’s why he builds Versailles.
M. L: In the fresh air there, the arts will thrive.
K: So have you my new ballet?
M.L: Yes Sire, I finished it today.
K: Let us rehearse.
Lully gives the music to the musicians. Lully takes the hand of Mde Lully. The king stands behind him to learn the steps. Looks amiss that he has no partner.
Mde Lully motions for Isabelle to take the king’s hand.
They do a little French quadrille, during which the king pinches Isabelle on the bottom and Isabelle kicks the King in the balls. The king bellows in pain.
K: Off with her head
Isabelle runs away quickly.
Scene 2: Mde Lully and Francoise secrete Isabelle to a ship bound for New Spain under the Intendente Talon.
F: Give Intendente Talon this paper, my father copied of the speech Omar Talon gave at the last Parlemente that launched the Fronde.
L: But the king hates the Fronde
F: Scriver (check sp of her husband’s name) says that’s why anyone named Talon gets shipped to New France. They can’t keep them all in prison. They find ways to ship potential revolutionaries away.
I: but you need to keep it.
F: What I give you, Scriver copied from the paper of my father.
Isabelle rows off. Francoise and Mde Lully sing a Lully tune.
end of act 1 is sufficient to itself but there may be
Act II
Isabelle meets Lucien Talon
I: are you the Intendente?
L: I’m just an ordinary man.
I: Are you the grandson of Omar Talon?
L: I’m just an ordinary man.
I and Lsing: “I’m just an ordinary man.
I: He’s just an ordinary man.
Yes, an ordinary man.
And an ordinary woman I am too.
The only thing extraordinary
L: is we’ve met and we shall marry
The only thing extraordinary
I & L : is what becomes because we marry.
L builds a fire. I. stirs a soup. Others come by warm hands at fire. Sip soup.
L building a fire and a house. I stirring a soup and sewing a shirt and nursing a baby. Others come by, warm hands, get out of rain, sip soup, put on shirt, pat baby.
L. building a fire and a house and canoes. I. stirring a soup, sewing a shirt, sowing a garden, nursing a baby with one in lap. LaSalle arrives comes by with others, warm hands, get out of rain, sip soup put on shirt, picks a tomato, pats baby 1, baby 2.
L: etc, etc, and a water wheel, I etc, etc, and weeding the garden, a two year old, a one year old and a babe at breast. LaSalle comes by going the other way, ...etc, pats baby 1, 2, 3
L: etc, and a fenc
La Vice Reina et Sor Juana say I must practice my french by writing to you. This is a funny play I made up to entertain them about how Maman escape the king’s sold
end of 2006 act
feb 2010
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