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renovations to his residence, as well as the acquisition of elegant and costly furniture and fixtures. Many of the pieces were from noted local cabinetmaker and importer Francois Seignouret, to whom the Merieult succession owed $ 1,098.35. Items listed in Seignouret’s most illuminating invoices include a bidet and other bath luxuries; textiles and rugs; several pieces of fine furniture; lighting fixtures, drapes, and their accoutrements; and an “oil cloth, copper nails and gimp for fan.” The fan was most likely a punkah, an item de rigueur in southern homes at the time. Of particular interest is the inclusion in the receipts not only of items but also of services, such as upholstery work and drapery installation.
Both the Merieult House, at 533 Royal Street, and the site of Seignouret’s office, at 520 Royal Street, are properties ofThe Historic New Orleans Collection.
The Attakapas District
The vast Attakapas district of southwest Louisiana, centered on Bayou Teche and spreading westward into the prairies, began to attract Creole residents as early as the mid-]8th century. Though the majority were of modest socioeconomic standing, several Creole families and later French arrivals rose to the planter class. By the 1760s French exiles from Nova Scotia began to settle along the Teche and on the prairies, and it was their culture that would come
to define the region. Acadian homes were modeled on traditional structures from Nova Scotia, modified to Louisiana’s climate. These small, vernacular structures were sometimes composed of a single room, or of only two rooms arranged en suite, and were typically raised on cypress posts or brick piers. Steep, gable-ended roofs and clapboard siding protected bousillage walls from the elements. A front gallery with a lateral ladder or stair to the attic—which was traditionally used as a bedroom for young men, called a gargonniere—is a signature feature. Every space was utilized in these small homes, where especially large families dwelt.
A survey by historian Glenn R. Conrad of 172 early 19th-century estates, including both residential and commercial inventories, from the present-day parishes of St. Martin, Iberia, St. Mary, Lafayette, and Vermilion, reveals the relatively modest lifestyles of Attakapas habitants. Slightly more than half of the estates belonged to Acadians, nearly a third to “Non-Acadian French,” and fewer than a fifth to Anglo-Americans. Conrad notes that most homes were furnished with only one or two beds, almost invariably of cypress; rarely were there as many as four beds per dwelling. Armoires of cherry were relatively numerous—at least six appear in the inventories—as were other pieces crafted in cherry. Walnut items include an armoire (“ornamented in leather”), a daybed, a sideboard, and two tables. The rarest wood was mahogany, though it appears in at least one bed, an armoire, and a table. Chairs were usually noted as being “wooden” or with “straw” (rush) seats, five being the average number per dwelling. Armchairs were rare, recorded only four times in the record. Luxury items such as clocks, pier glasses and mirrors, candelabra, vases, silver table services, and cushioned chairs appear with less frequency in the Attakapas inventories studied by Conrad than in those of other contemporary Louisiana communities.
Apparent in this ca. 1970 drawing by R. Walter Robison are many of the typical features of an Acadian house: piers formed from cypress stumps, bousillier-entre-poteaux walls, and an outdoor stair leading to the attic used to house young men; Center for Louisiana Studies, University ofLouisiana at Lafayette.
4 Volume XXVIII, Number 1 — Winter 2011