| The three-storied home at 1140 Royal Street (Rue | | | | outraged readers most probably wondered how many |
| Royale) in the French Quarter is presently for sale for | | | | had been brought back to end up suffering such a |
| a cool $2.9 million, but for many years it stood empty | | | | horrible fate. |
| and ruined. It was only back during 1832 when it was | | | | As the story circulated throughout New Orleans, the |
| just newly built for its owners, Dr. and Madame | | | | fury it stirred finally broke loose five days later and |
| LaLaurie that it was as beautifully furnished as it is | | | | infuriated citizens of the Vieux Carre stormed the |
| now. | | | | house and destroyed the interior. The LaLauries barely |
| For two years Delphine LaLaurie, a Creole socialite, | | | | escaped with their lives and left the city, shortly |
| hosted lavish soirees that were attended by all the | | | | thereafter setting sail for France, never to be seen |
| prominent citizens in New Orleans; however all that | | | | again. |
| changed on a spring afternoon on April 10th, 1834 | | | | The house was not rebuilt until 1837, and even then it |
| when an old Negress cook set a fire in the kitchen. | | | | already had the reputation for being haunted. Ghostly |
| Neighbors rushed in to save valuables, including the | | | | apparitions, screams, moans and flickering lights finally |
| slaves and what they found confirmed their suspicions | | | | drove the new owner out within three months of |
| beyond their worse expectation. | | | | moving in, and he then rented it out to business |
| After leaving the kitchen which was located over the | | | | owners. During the Civil War it was a Union |
| carriageway building across the courtyard, volunteer | | | | headquarter and the stories of hauntings persisted, |
| firemen and other neighbors entered the main house in | | | | especially the sound of chains clanking coming from |
| search of other slaves. They finally found them in the | | | | the old slave quarters. The house went through |
| attic area in a secret room, more than a dozen poor | | | | different incarnations, as a school, private apartments |
| wretches, tortured, tormented and locked away where | | | | and by the 1920s it was a tenement where one |
| their screams could not be heard. Some were chained | | | | occupant described seeing a man walking around |
| to a wall emaciated and close to death, a few were | | | | carrying his head on his arm. Another apparition was |
| strapped to crudely made operating tables, and others | | | | that of a woman leaning out of a window. |
| squeezed into cages made for dogs. Human body | | | | By now the house was reputed to be the most |
| parts were found in buckets. | | | | haunted in New Orleans, and even though there were |
| The fire was extinguished, however the scandal that | | | | those that insinuated that many of the stories written |
| was ignited by an article published by the local | | | | about Madame LaLaurie and what had transpired on |
| newspaper, the New Orleans Bee telling of the | | | | April 10th, 1834 were grossly exaggerated, making her |
| conditions of the slaves and describing Madame | | | | a victim of yellow journalism, it is impossible to discount |
| LaLaurie as "the demon, in the shape of a woman" | | | | and explain the remains that workmen found while |
| swept the city. Many remembered an event only a | | | | doing repairs to the house. From under the floorboards |
| year ago when Delphine LaLaurie was seen by a | | | | human skeletons were dug up, too near the surface to |
| neighbor whipping a young female slave, who in a | | | | be part of a graveyard, and the bits of fabric and hair |
| frenzy to escape from her had fallen from a balcony | | | | still found on the jumbled bones confirmed they belong |
| and died. Rumors had it the child was secretly buried | | | | to Negroes. Even more chilling was the fact that it |
| that night on the grounds of the home. It was not a | | | | seemed they were put in the earth during the early |
| difficult story to believe since by then the mistress of | | | | part of the 1800s. Some of the skulls had large holes in |
| the house had a reputation for maltreatment of her | | | | them, this and the fact that they were not buried in a |
| slaves, which she justified as keeping them in control. | | | | trench confirmed this was not a mass burial due to an |
| Others wondered if this was Delphine's way of | | | | epidemic. Were these other victims of Delphine, |
| exacting retribution for her mother, Madame Macarty, | | | | secretly buried in shallow graves in the dead of night? |
| who was murdered on a Carrollton plantation during a | | | | So who does walk the halls of LaLaurie Mansion? Is it |
| slave uprising. At that time. a year before this incident, | | | | Delphine LaLaurie paying penitence for her deeds, or is |
| in response to reports of her ill treatment of the slaves, | | | | it her victims reliving their worse moments at her |
| a judge ordered for them to be sold at auction and the | | | | hands? Or maybe it's both, and in that dark upstairs |
| LaLauries were fined, however relatives bought the | | | | garret that's been sealed away the victims are now |
| slaves and sold them back to their mistress. Those | | | | allowed to exact their revenge in any way they see fit. |