Alice of Old Vincennes

								

the Louisiana gulf coast, the rustling of palmetto leaves, the fine
flash of roses, a tumult of mocking-bird voices, the soft lilt of
Creole patois, and the endless dash and roar of a fragrant sea over
which the gulls and pelicans never ceased their flight, and beside
which you smoked while I dreamed.
MAURICE THOMPSON.
JULY, 1900.

Contents



     I. Under the Cherry Tree

    II. A Letter from Afar

   III. The Rape of the Demijohn

    IV. The First Mayor of Vincennes

     V. Father Gibault

    VI. A Fencing Bout

   VII. The Mayor's Party
VIII. The Dilemma of Captain Helm

    IX. The Honors of War

     X. M. Roussillon Entertains Colonel Hamilton

    XI. A Sword and a Horse Pistol

   XII. Manon Lescaut, and a Rapier-Thrust
XIII. A Meeting in the Wilderness

   XIV. A Prisoner of Love

    XV. Virtue in a Locket

   XVI. Father Beret's Old Battle
XVII. A March through Cold Water
XVIII. A Duel by Moonlight

   XIX. The Attack

    XX. Alice's Flag

   XXI. Some Transactions in Scalps
XXII. Clark Advises Alice
XXIII. And So It Ended

Alice of Old Vincennes

CHAPTER I
UNDER THE CHERRY TREE

Up to the days of Indiana's early statehood, probably as late as 1825,
there stood, in what is now the beautiful little city of Vincennes on
the Wabash, the decaying remnant of an old and curiously gnarled cherry
tree, known as the Roussillon tree, le cerisier de Monsieur Roussillon,
as the French inhabitants called it, which as long as it lived bore
fruit remarkable for richness of flavor and peculiar dark ruby depth of
color. The exact spot where this noble old seedling from la belle
France flourished, declined, and died cannot be certainly pointed out;
for in the rapid and happy growth of Vincennes many land-marks once
notable, among them le cerisier de Monsieur Roussillon, have been
destroyed and the spots where they stood, once familiar to every eye in
old Vincennes, are now lost in the pleasant confusion of the new town.
The security of certain land titles may have largely depended upon the
disappearance of old, fixed objects here and there. Early records were
loosely kept, indeed, scarcely kept at all; many were destroyed by
designing land speculators, while those most carefully preserved often
failed to give even a shadowy trace of the actual boundaries of the
estates held thereby; so that the position of a house or tree not
infrequently settled an important question of property rights left open
by a primitive deed. At all events the Roussillon cherry tree
disappeared long ago, nobody living knows how, and with it also
vanished, quite as mysteriously, all traces of the once important
Roussillon estate. Not a record of the name even can be found, it is
said, in church or county books.
The old, twisted, gum-embossed cherry tree survived every other
distinguishing feature of what was once the most picturesque and
romantic place in Vincennes. Just north of it stood, in the early