She was raised on the family plantation in what is now the downriver Bywater neighborhood, surrounded by the wealthy and numerous Macarty clan and their even more numerous slaves. Within six months they were married. While proceeding to his new post, the vessel on which he and Delphine were traveling met with an accident off the coast of Cuba. Jean Blanque was a merchant, lawyer, banker, state legislator, political intriguer, and a major slave trader.
He was also a close associate of the pirates Jean and Pierre Laffite. Blanque died in , leaving Delphine to settle his massive debts and raise five young children. A later inheritance from her father, plus her own shrewd business dealings, put Delphine back on a solid financial footing, and by the time she met Louis Lalaurie, she was a very wealthy lady indeed.
It is Dr. In February , Lalaurie, son of a respectable middle-class family in the French village of Villeneuve-sur-Lot, arrived in New Orleans from Bordeaux on the ship Fanny.
Twenty-two years old and fresh out of medical school, he appears to have been a naive but ambitious youth who had come to seek his fortune in the New World. Between and Louis received numerous letters from his father, urging him to establish himself in the medical profession, marry a rich girl, and return to France.
By late the relationship between Louis and Delphine had become intimate, and Delphine was pregnant. Their son Jean Louis Lalaurie was born on August 13, The St.
