How Eighty-Eight French Women Began a Journey that Changed the Course of History in America

French diplomat, political scientist, and historian Count Alexis de Tocqueville, in his seminal work Democracy in America written in 1835, wrote:

“[N]ow that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.”

A recently published book has shed new light on how de Tocqueville’s home country added immensely to the “superiority” of the American women.

Click on the image to purchase The Brides of La Baleine.

That book is titled The Brides of La Baleine written by Randall Ladnier. Mr. Ladnier is a renowned genealogist of French Colonial Families who lives in Sarasota, Florida. Born in Gulfport, Mississippi Mr. Ladnier, while researching the history and genealogy of the Gulf Coast in the libraries of Louisiana, Mississippi and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris discovered the amazing story of one of his ancestors. His ancestor was one of eighty-eight French women who would become the matriarchs of families across the great states of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Illinois.

In his painstakingly researched book Mr. Ladnier lays out an amazing timeline of how these eighty-eight women, ages 12 to 30  years-old, began a long journey from the Hospital General at La Salpetrière in Paris via ox cart to the French coast port of Paimboeuf to board a small ship to make the arduous trip to “Mississippi” as prospective brides for the soldiers and French pioneers of the French colony of Louisiana. Not all made it alive but those who did made history.

These brave women have become forever known as the Brides of La Baleine.

According to Mr. Ladnier,

The Baleine’s genetic contribution to America approaches that of the the MAYFLOWER, which had arrived 100 years earlier. All of the Baleine Brides had volunteered. None of them had been deported.

Thus, Biloxi became the equivalent of “Plymouth Rock” for the French colony of Louisiana. On September 6th, 1620, twenty-nine Pilgrim women had set sail from England on the Mayflower, in order to escape religious persecution. Fifteen of those women died within six months of their arrival in America.

Governor Bienville apparently received at least 72 young women of child-bearing age, desperate to escape social and moral persecution in France. These French women eventually formed the genetic foundation on which Gulf Coast societies have been built.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this book is how the Hospital General at La Salpetrière in Paris was created by Louis XIV. In 1684, he ordered that “debauched women” would be arrested and incarcerated at La Salpetriere General Hospital in Paris. He issued an edict that any female prostitute caught with his soldiers, within a five mile radius of Versailles, would have her nose and her ears cut off. However not all of the women and young girls in La Salpetriere were prostitutes.

Many of these women and young girls were never prostitutes. Some parents or other relatives could file a claim with the court regarding the misbehavior of a family member (rebellion, sexual activity, stealing, rejection of religion, taking God’s name in vain, etc.) and the lieutenant general de police would ordinarily issue a lettre de cachet which was similar to today’s arrest warrant. The targeted person (usually a daughter) would be arrested and incarcerated. The family members could choose to leave her at La Salpetriere and pay a fee for her board, or they could request that their relative be deported to Louisiana, from whence there would be no return to France. There was not any legal mechanism for appeal against a lettre de cachet.

These particular eighty-eight women were screened prior to volunteering to becoming migrant brides. Records show that Cardinal Louis-Antoine de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris and spiritual advisor to La Salpetriere, approved the list of eighty-eight women and girls.

I highly recommend this book for those who want to understand how women helped shape not only the Gulf Coast states but America in general.

To learn more about The Brides of La Baleine please click here.

Mr. Ladnier has a vision to:

• Create a Mississippi non-profit corporation for the purpose of raising money to build or rent a permanent structure in Ocean Springs or Biloxi, which will house a museum  and tourist attraction that will open by January of 2021.
• Elect a board of directors from the pool of direct descendants of the Baleine Brides.
• Publish and sell copies of a book containing the genealogies of those brides who founded large families in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Illinois.
• Compile and maintain access to the family genealogies on a central computer database in the museum.
• Create a short film, which tells the story of the Baleine Brides, to be shown once every hour in the auditorium of the museum.
• Display tableaux in the museum which will illustrate significant places and events in the story, including early maps of Mississippi.
• Display a one-fifth scale model of the flute La Baleine with a cross-sectional view of the ship.
• Display historical artifacts from the period when Biloxi was the capitol of Louisiana.
• Staff a souvenir and gift shop to sell items bearing the copyrighted La Baleine logo.
• Provide a logo pin and certificate of membership to eligible descendants for a fee.
• Organize an annual convention for certified descendants to be held in Biloxi or Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Worthy goals indeed. American history must be preserved. It is important to remember from where we came. As de Tocqueville noted, “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”

These Baleine Brides were truly women of faith and morality.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is a depiction of prospective brides departing France in the 1883 painting entitled “L’embarquement de Manon Lescaut” [The boarding of Manon Lescaut] by Charles Edouard Delort.

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