BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 71 



to Bernard Marigny in 1800, and Congress confirmed 

 his title to it by a special act in 1836. 25 



Bernard Marigny served in the French army towards 

 the close of the Napoleonic period, and his return to the 

 United States from France, about 1818, is said to have 

 been hastened by a duel which he fought with one of 

 his superior officers. On his return he named Bonna- 

 bel's old tract on Lake Ponchartrain "Fontainebleau," 

 in remembrance of the place where his regiment had 

 been assigned for duty in France, and eventually built 

 upon the estate a sawmill and a sugar-house, and planted 

 sugar cane, living meanwhile on another plantation two 

 and one-half miles away. The latter estate was allotted 

 by him in 1832, when he gave it the name of Mandeville; 

 the settlement thus started has since grown to a village 

 of some 1,500 people. Here a summer house which be- 

 longed to Bernard's father still exists, although in al- 

 tered form; it has been raised to accommodate a lower 

 story, and is now known as the "Casino." According to 

 those who have most carefully investigated existing rec- 

 ords, this is the only house in Mandeville which belonged 

 to the elder Marigny at the time of which we speak. 



35 See Laws of the United States, Treaties, Regulations, and Other 

 Documents Respecting the Public Lands, vol. i, p. 301 (Washington, 1836). 

 In Number 756, entitled "An Act for the Relief of Bernard Marigny, of 

 the State of Louisiana," Marigny is mentioned as assignee of Antonio 

 Bonnabel, and his claim, which was confirmed, is described as follows: a 

 tract of land of 4,020 superficial arpents, in the State of Louisiana, parish 

 of St. Tammany, "bounded on the southwest by Lake Ponchartrain, and 

 on the northwest by lands formerly owned by the heirs of Lewis Davis." 



I am informed by Mr. Caspar Cusachs, president of the Historical 

 Society of Louisiana, who has carefully investigated the titles of this 

 property and to whom I am indebted for much information concerning 

 it and its owners, that the tract described above included the estate of 

 "Fontainebleau." Marigny's claim included also a smaller tract of 774 

 arpents in the same parish. This land was bounded on the southwest 

 by Lake Ponchartrain, on the north by Castin Bayou, and on the south 

 by the tract acquired from Bonnabel; it was granted to the heirs of 

 Lewis Davis in 1777, and certain of them filed a claim for it in 1812. 



