CHAPTER II

In the great confederation that occupies almost the entire North American continent, and whose states each year receive and absorb the overflow from the other nations of the world, there is one place, populated by men of Latin race, intelligent, educated, brave and independent, that fights victoriously against any attempt at absorption by the Anglo-Saxon race.

In Louisiana lives a population that sends its representatives to the federal congress, celebrates the 4th of July, and ten days later, with far greater enthusiasm, celebrates the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille: these are the Creoles, the Louisianais-Français.

If we draw an imaginary line from the south-western tip to the north-western tip of Louisiana, then down the Mississippi to Baton-Rouge, and draw another line to Chandeleur Bay in the Gulf of Mexico, we will have formed an immense triangle inhabited by a French-speaking population.

Throughout this region lie magnificent meadows, fields of sugar cane, cotton and wheat; in its pastures graze numerous herds; those who cultivate this countryside speak French, and generally have the blond hair and light blue eyes of the French of the North. Here, the names of bayous, rivers, lakes, villages and plantations are French; parishes bear the names of saints or feasts of the Church; and although, for the past fifty years, English-speaking Anglo-Americans have been becoming more and more numerous in this part of the state, the children in their schools still learn French and speak only that language.