For my first post here, I thought I would go with something few people outside of New Orleans tend to talk about: the haunting and subsequent reign of terror caused by the Ghost Rider himself, academy award-winning actor, Nic Cage.
I’ve spent a lot of time in New Orleans over the years, and locals, especially those who live in the Quarter, have stories. There are endless tales of alleged vampires, ghostly apparitions, and weird goings-on once the sun goes down. Still, by far the most intriguing thing is that almost everyone I’ve met who lived there has at least one completely insane Nic Cage story.
From drunkenly jumping on a cop car to bribing the Catholic Church to get a plot in New Orleans Cemetery No. 1 to erect a pyramid tomb, Cage seems to have left quite an impression during his tenure there, so much so that local police actually came to Bourbon Street several times to deal with him.
So, let’s set the scene for this alleged haunting - it’s 2006, Cage has finished filming National Treasure 2, and the world has already been blessed with this meme:
Cage was riding a career-high and flush with cash. And what does a man with heaps of cash and no impulse control do? He buys property in the French Quarter, but not just any property — he purchases 1140 Royal St.
The number might not ring a bell for you, but the name sure will.
At the corner of Royal and Governor Nicholls sits the infamous LaLaurie Mansion, the former home of the infamous Delphine LaLaurie (yes, yes, Kathy Bates played her on AHS: Coven).
It’s a somewhat familiar story that many of you have probably heard some version of over the years that involves a rich socialite in New Orleans and her proclivity for torturing, maiming, and murdering slaves. And when I first set out to write this missive that was exactly the story I was going to tell, but as I dove deeper into Delphine LaLaurie’s story, I discovered that even contemporaneously, her crimes were sensationalized, making it difficult to find a fully accurate account of what occurred at 1140 Royal Street.
So, who was the real Delphine LaLaurie? Was she a sadistic serial killer? Or is there more to her story? And who or what haunts the halls of LaLaurie Mansion?
Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
Marie Delphine Macarty was born in 1787 in Spanish Louisiana. The Macarty family owned a plantation in what is now known as the Bywater neighborhood, and held a prominent position in European-Creole society, particularly after an advantageous marriage between her aunt, Marie Céleste Eléonore, and Esteban Rodriguez Miro, who would go on to become the governor of Spanish Louisiana and Florida. Augustin de Macarty, first cousin to Delphine, also held significant power within the community, as the Mayor of New Orleans from 1815-1820.
As a child, Delphine grew up amidst a series of slave rebellions inspired by the Haitian Revolution of 1791. Several of these rebellions occurred not too far from New Orleans and would likely have been a topic of discussion amongst her family, as her uncle, Jeanne Françoise, had been murdered over a decade earlier when his slaves attempted an insurrection.
Perhaps, unsurprisingly, slaveholders at the time felt the only way to “deter” these rebellions was to become more aggressive and brutal with punishments. It’s not clear if Delphine’s father or other family members adopted these same views. At the very least, Delphine would have grown up in a time when the treatment of enslaved people was a salient topic.
At the age of thirteen, Delphine was married off to a high-ranking Spanish officer, Don Ramón de Lopez y Angulo, nearly 22 years her senior. In 1804, after the Louisiana Purchase, Don Ramón was given a new role as consul general or diplomat to the new Territory of New Orleans, representing the interests of Spain. He was called to appear before King Carlos IV and made plans to travel back to Madrid with his heavily pregnant wife. They planned to sail first to Cuba and then brave the long voyage to Spain.
Unfortunately, as they began their journey in 1804, Don Ramón died suddenly in Cuba leaving the then seventeen-year-old Delphine widowed. She would go on to give birth to her first child mere days after the loss of her husband, returning to Louisiana after the birth.
Four years later, she was wed to Jean Blanque, a “younger” man (only eleven years her senior this time). Blanque was a prominent and notably upstanding member of New Orleans society, purported to be a lawyer, legislator, and merchant, and was a good match for the widowed Delphine and provided her status within the community and independence from her father once more.
They would go on to have four children together before he died eight years later in 1816. What’s notable about Blanque in the greater scheme of Delphine’s story is historical evidence shows that despite his clean image, he was incredibly involved in the Louisiana slave trade — albeit illegally.
There are at least 335 trade records over thirteen years linked to Blanque. Of that number, only about 70 slaves seem to have been directly purchased by him, which begs the question of how he obtained the other 264 individuals. He likely engaged in the illegal trade of “black ivory”, as President Jefferson had outlawed transatlantic slave trading years earlier in 1807.
Now, it is important to note that about 70% of the recorded sales occurred leading up to and after his death and many appear to have been made in his name by creditors to settle his massive debts after his passing. We know from surviving records that Blanque was a partial owner of a plantation, but given the sheer number of bondspeople under his ownership, it is likely he made a majority of his money by “leasing” enslaved individuals or brokering sales for others. Whether Delphine was fully aware of her husband’s illegal activities is unclear, but how he came to acquire so many enslaved individuals without purchase records is curious.
Could her tenure as the wife of a slave trader have further desensitized her to the reality of slavery? Or did she perhaps realize, as her husband continued to acquire and sell people with no paper trail, that people didn’t pay much attention or care to the bodies they traded? Whatever the case may be, when Blanque died, he left Delphine with very little outside of some bondspeople she was able to retain and his debts.
Blanque’s death was a massive blow for Delphine. She was thirty years old with five children, little to her name, and once again she was dependent on her father. But, in a few short years with the death of her father, she would become one of the richest women in New Orleans inheriting a significant amount of money, property (including a stake in the Macarty plantation), and a portion of her father’s bondspeople.
Delphine was in an enviable position at this time. She was a woman with money and the ability to make even more money, which meant that she was no longer in need of a husband for financial security. For nearly a decade, Delphine enjoyed her life as an independent wealthy woman. That is until she met Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie, a young French doctor, fifteen years her junior, looking to make his fortune in Louisiana.
Contrary to popular belief, Louis LaLaurie was not the meek and mousey character he is often painted to be in lore, and the relationship between the two was wildly scandalous for the time (and tbh kind of messy).
We don’t know exactly how their paths crossed, but it is fairly possible they met through his work as a physician. From letters Louis wrote to his brother and father, we know he initially framed Delphine to his family as a wealthy benefactress, eager to help him make a name for himself.
He explained that she had a child with a deformity, and he felt that he could cement his reputation by fixing it via orthopraxy. While Louis’ brother agreed that such a feat would certainly help to establish him, but cautioned him to not overpromise results, as the “child” was seventeen and fully grown at the time and may not easily recover.
Yup. This is orthopraxy in the 1800s.
In 1826, Louis begins to write to his brother about a “moral dilemma” he is attempting to deal with. Louis never outright states that the dilemma is the child he is having out of wedlock with his forty-year-old “benefactress”, which makes it all the more difficult when his mother dies and his father begins to demand his return to France.
His father, unaware that Madame Blanque is anything more than a generous widow, believes Louis is wasting his time in New Orleans. He wants to help Louis find a suitable bride within their social circle and a placement where he can at least make a decent living. From their correspondence, we know Louis does push back for some time but seems to relent when his father determines Louis will not receive his inheritance from his mother outright, but rather receive 2,000 francs each year until his father passes.
Louis departs from Louisiana in the summer of 1827, leaving Delphine to give birth alone in August of 1827.
We don’t know what exactly prompted Louis to return to New Orleans, but in January of 1828, he returned to the city and reconnected with the Widow Blanque. The pair decides they will wed, but Delphine has several stipulations to this arrangement. Louis must agree to sign a marriage contract that prevents him not only from touching her premarital assets but also keeps their assets separate in perpetuity. He must also legally recognize their child. He agrees and the two are married that month.
Now, most records state that the LaLauries wed in June of 1825, but Delphine had the date on their marriage record altered, so at least on paper, it would appear that their child was not born out of wedlock. However, despite her maneuvering, Delphine and her new husband could not avoid being the center of local gossip.
You have to understand that while it was common for older men to marry women (sometimes even girls) decades their juniors, it was unheard of for an older woman in her forties, who was a grandmother at the time, to take up with a man nearly the same age as her eldest daughter, after giving birth to his illegitimate child. And as we said earlier, Delphine was an independently wealthy woman with powerful familial connections in an incredibly enviable position within society. It’s not hard to believe that, in a society where women were very much viewed as second-class citizens, people would be looking for a reason to laugh at or tear a woman like Delphine LaLaurie down.
But, to be fair to the gossipmongers, their relationship was curious. What did Delphine see in a man little more than half her age? Did she see someone who she could easily control? Or was she simply trying to save her reputation? Was Louis really in love with Delphine? Or was she the lesser of two evils when the other option was returning home to have his father run his life? Or was he merely an ambitious young man who believed her fortune and connections could help him realize his ambitions?
It’s impossible to know for sure what was in their hearts, but we do know from neighbors that their first few years of marriage were colored by violent screaming matches and near-constant fights. It’s not clear what the cause of all the tension was, but to outsiders, their relationship appeared to be hot and cold. There were occasions when Louis was kicked out or decided to leave, but time and time again he returned to Delphine.
The couple had been living at Jean Blanque’s countryside villa for several years when Delphine decided she wanted to buy a home in the Quarter. We’re not sure what precipitated this desire to move to town, but it is possible Delphine had always intended to return to society, hoping that people would forget the scandal surrounding her marriage after a few years.
In 1831, Delphine Laurie purchased 1140 Royal Street in her name, and the couple moved in shortly after. Much is often made of Louis not being involved in the purchase of the LaLaurie Mansion, as though it is proof Delphine purchased the home with ill intentions, but recall that part of their marriage agreement ensured that Delphine’s money and property would never be a shared marital asset. So, it’s unsurprising that she would continue to make sure she retained control of any potential assets, not simply for her benefit, but to ensure she had a way to take care of her children from her previous marriages after her passing.
And perhaps this arrangement was the sticking point for the couple. After years of attempting to build a successful practice, Louis had failed to build much of anything. And while he was stuck living off of the annuity his father provided him and what little income he made, Delphine continued to profit off her business ventures and spent money as she pleased to decorate her home with lavish furnishings, purchase the latest fashions for her and her children, and hold elaborate society parties at her mansion.
Then barely a year after purchasing 1140 Royal, Delphine filed a petition for separation, claiming it was “untenable” to live with her husband given his mistreatment of her. Three of her children from her second marriage would go on to testify on her behalf against Louis, and the judge would ultimately grant her request.
We don’t really know why Delphine petitioned for separation, as she never provided any details to the Court, but we do know at the time of her hearing she stated her husband was staying in Plaquemines Parish. It’s unclear what exactly Louis was doing out in that rural area. It would have been a strange place to attempt to build a practice, but prior to their separation, he had begun to spend more and more time there, away from home. It’s possible he had a mistress, that he was tired of living in the shadow of his wealthy older wife, or that he simply wanted to get away, but whatever the reason for his departure, their separation did not stick.
It was around this time that rumors began to spread about the mistreatment of slaves at LaLaurie Mansion, and it was also around this time that the facts started to get a little fuzzy. But, before we dive into the story of the LaLaurie House of Horrors, it behooves me to note a few things:
But to find out…you’ll have to wait for part 2.