In my last post, I mentioned that I had figured out who Mary Lincoln was referring to in 1876, when she wrote home from Pau, France that “Our elegant & kind hearted friend Louis de Berbieu, had written several letters to the agents here & they immediately took me his charge, without opening an article of baggage.”
I suspected, from the use of the word “our,” that she was referring to someone known to her Springfield family. This ruled out the many semi-prominent people she knew in Washington circles while first lady, like Baron de Branneker.
She gave more information in the letter: “They [the agents] were equally as gentlemanly and distingué in appearance as Mr. De Berbieu, the latter, I am told, is of royal descent, is widower, certainly, a very cheerful looking one, with a beautiful young daughter, an only child. Every where, reverses of fortune are met with. Perhaps it has not been his fate financially. Each day, since have been here, about eleven in the morning, a carriage with a coachman and footman and livery, has called for me to drive, accompanied always, by the owner.’
This suggested that de Berbieu was a native of France and well-connected there, and had crossed the ocean with Mary. Since he had written to the customs agents, I wondered if he might have been a high-level employee of the luxury steamer line, splitting his time between New York and Havre. Research confirmed this guess. Louis de Bebian was an agent for the General Transatlantic Company, which offered the only direct voyage from America to France.[1] Some reports suggest he may also have been an agent for French show business acts touring America—it is likely he assisted his more famous passengers with other arrangements in an unofficial capacity. In 1876, he was about 45 years old, and his wife had died a decade earlier, when their daughter was only a few years old.
A sort of quasi-diplomatic role, similar to Baron de Branneker’s in Pau, was common in that era: duties included keeping watch over travelers, acting as a local guide, making arrangements, helping them adjust to new locales, introducing them to the locals and other Americans in the area, and generally making sure they were happy. Especially if they were high-profile or high-maintenance, and Mary Lincoln was both. As Mary’s description suggests, while they went out of their way to make their charges feel special, theirs was a pretty high-level role. They were cultured and polished aristocrats, not mere lackeys. Mary was consistently charmed by this type of worldly, diplomatic gentleman, and they knew how to handle her. More on de Bebian’s career, from the New York Times, September 26, 1888.
The article reveals that de Bebian was actually a native of the West Indies (Guadeloupe, which was/is a French territory)[2], and that he was an resourceful guy who juggled various enterprises. (Imagine being under the care of “Mr. Forget”!) While he had only been in the business a year when Mary sailed for Pau, he subsequently became highly respected in the NYC steamship community:
This was exemplified in his handling of an incident involving L’Amerique, the same steamer Mary would take home from Pau in 1881.[3]
This incident happened in January 1877, when Mary was already safely in Pau, but one can only imagine how highly she’d rate someone so dedicated to saving passengers’ baggage! Perhaps that’s why she chose to sail on the L’Amerique when she headed home accompanied by sixty-four trunks.[4]
De Bebian died in 1891. I’m not sure if he had any royal ancestry, but his beautiful young daughter, Corinne, did quite well for herself. Shortly before her father’s death, she married John Chandler Moore, whose own father had founded Tiffany & Co, and who became its president in 1907. The couple’s son, Louis de Bebian Moore, succeeded him in 1940.
In confirming biographical details for this piece, I realized that de Bebian was the son of the Louis de Bebian who shows up in the “War of the Rebellion” records. I’d previously considered whether this was the same Louis de Bebian Mary Lincoln wrote of, but dimissed the idea because this one had several adult children who begged for his release after he was imprisoned at Fort Lafayette. Louis was not among them, but ancestry records confirm this was indeed his father and siblings. (The date of death of the elder Louis de Bebian is incorrect at the linked record; others are not publicly accessible. It appears that their ancestry traces back to France, including the Pau region, and that one ancestor was a pioneer in the eduation of deaf students.) Perhaps the younger Louis didn’t want to call suspicion onto himself and jeopardize his own business, so he let his sisters make the case.
In 1861, the elder Louis was living in North Carolina and engaging in maritime commerce, which meant the Union blockade was a problem for him. He probably tried to evade it for the purposes of making money, and also to take letters from associates North Carolina into the North. (It appears his adult children all lived in NYC). There are quite a few pages devoted to his case, and the affidavits are incredibly wordy:
The President of the United States, by his proclamation of April 27, 1861, for the reasons set forth therein, established a blockade of the ports of the States of Virginia and North Carolina, including the port of Wilmington in said last-named State. On the 6th day of August, 1861, the schooner Adelso, of Saint John, New Brunswick, having entered the port of Wilmington a few days previously by a fraudulent evasion of said blockade, sailed thence to Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a full cargo of turpentine and rosin, again violating the said blockade in her departure. The said schooner Adelso was built at Eastport, in the State of Maine; w as a vessel of ninety-eight tons, owned by John Kay, of Eastport aforesaid, and called the A. L. Hyde. Kay to save the vessel from seizure and loss, he being in trouble, put her in the hands of Henry Horton, his brother-in-law, a resident of New brunswick; and she was then registered as Horton's property and sailed under Captain Thomas Kimball, a naturalized American citizen of British birth, as master. Her name was also changed to the Adelso. This vessel with her doubtful ownership, equivocal hailing place, double nationality and master of twofold citizenship and allegiance was chartered expressly for the business of carrying on a trade with the said port of Wilmington in fraudulent disregard of the said blockade; and in pursuance of such intent sailed from the said port of Wilmington for Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the 6th day of August aforesaid; and was driven by stress of weather into the port of Newport, R. I., on the 13th day of the same month, when she and her cargo were immediately taken possession of by the officers, of customs. Louis de Bebia [sic], represented to be a native of the Island of Guadaloupe and claiming to be a French subject, was a passenger on the said vessel on her said voyage from Wilmington aforesaid, where he resides, bound for Halifax, and was on the said vessel when she came to Newport, constrained by stress of weather as aforesaid…
On the 17th of August De Bebian was permitted to land, and on the 19th he voluntarily made an affidavit stating that he sailed from Wilmington, N. C., on the said schooner Adelso on the 6th of the same month; that said vessel was bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a full cargo of turpentine and rosin; that he understood that the said port of Wilmington was declared to be blockaded at and before the time they sailed from that port…This affidavit was made by De Bebian to show that he was simply a passenger not connected with the said vessel or her voyage or her cargo; yet he wholly omitted to state anything of the contents of his own papers showing his own business or of his possession of letters from parties in an insurrectionary State for parties in other portions of the United Sates. The said collector of the port of Newport further reports that on inspecting his trunk the officers found concealed among his clothing letters and papers by which it appeared that he was to purchase an assorted cargo at Liverpool, England, and return with the same to Wilmington, N. C.
Early in the war, there was cooperation between Britain (and possibly France) and the Confederacy that de Bebian could have been involved in, which would have been a more serious matter. The record I’m copying from has some OCR errors, so I apologize for the typos:
The said collector further reports the discovery in De Bebian's possession of a number of letters, some addressed to parties in foreign countries and some to parties in each of the States of Vermont, Maine, New York, Missouri and Connecticut. The said collector although not previously intending the detention of said De Bebian- coming as he did from a port in the power of the insurrectionists, a passenger on a vessel detected in illicit commerce-on the discovery of these evidences of his conspiring to evade the blockade and render aid and assistance to the rebels and of his agency in the unlawful forwarding of correspondence between the insurrectionary States and other portions of the Union, ordered his arrest on the said 19th day of August, 1861, for the said offenses. The said De Bebian was sent to Fort Lafayette and held in custody there until September 16, 1861, when he was discharged on his parole for two weeks; which time was subsequently enlarged, and on the 4th day of October, 1861, he was discharged from his parole. The said collector of the port of Newport, Seth W. Macy, esq., subsequently made the following affidavit. *
It thus appears that Louis de Bebian had been engaged in illicit commerce in disregard of lawful blockade in transporting lumber from Wilmington to the West Indies, and had entered into engagements for the further prosecuting of the same business; that he had embarked on board a vessel of equivocal character then engaged in unlawful evasion of the blockade in which he participated; that he was engaged in the unlawful conveyance of clandestine correspondence between an insurgent State and other portions of the Union; that he had conspired with others to afford aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States by purchasing and importing supplies for their armies; by stealthily and fraudulently through the means of concerted reciprocal signals evading the blockade, and that he was detected on the way to carry these purposes into effect with the evidence of his criminality upon him. On the 21st of August, 1861, De Bebian addressed a paper to the French viceconsul at New York in which he alleges that his voyage "was for business purely commercial," and in giving the particulars of his mission makes the following statement:
Most of his argument seems to be that the firm he worked for sent him to Europe with a lot of money to purchase inventory, scoping out business deals until the Wilmington port reopened. It seems like he frequently made business trips to various European countries, and so his contacts with European customs officials and consuls were not necessarily suspicious. It does seem likely that, as any good businessman would, he was purchasing things badly needed in North Carolina due to the blockade. That he intended to wait for the blockade to be lifted before returning with them seems doubtful, but he wasn’t necessarily involved in anti-US political intrigue with European governments. But the mention of Halifax is also interesting, since the Confederacy had some Canadian networks. Then there was this was a rather bizarre excuse—possibly some sort of code.
I am going to Europe to be at hand to learn the decision of the two great powers on the question of blockades; to move to advnatage at the first possible chance by investing our funds in shipments of merchandise most in demand; our house means articles such as seem best for a future time, such as woolens and blankets, &c., for it is customary in autumn to lay in every sort of winter covering and a pair of blankets for each negro, the wants of the army having absorbed all that there was of blankets not only at Wilmington but nearly through the whole country. This article of blankets is most in demand. These blanekts were formerly known by the designation of negro blankets. I fear lest the house may have used in its letter the new appellation of soldiers' clothing; if such be the case that is the sole and only charge that can be made against me. To these papers must be added some letters from individuals giving good accounts to their families and to their friends at the North-letters which I was to mail at Halifax; t wo or three loose sheets with memoranda of merchandise suitable for the market and commissions to be executed for friends; and finally one pointing out what should be done to announce to me whether or no the port was blockaded.
The U.S. authorities weren’t impressed by this explanation, especially the last sentence.
The said letter of De Bebian to the French vice-consul seeks to mislead that functionary in regard to the intended investment of "funds in shipments of merchandise most in demand" by representing that the house meant "articles such as seem best for a future time," and by an attempt to confound army blankets or soldiers' clothing with negro blankets; and also to transfigure his system of reciprocal signals to facilitate the running of the blockade into a method of "pointing out what should be done to announce to him whether or no the port was blockaded. " Toward his excellency the French minister De Bebian was still more disingenous. In his letter to that personage he speaks of his intended evasion of the blockade under the disguise in the first place of a design to remit t he equivalents of certain funds in the shape of sundry merchandise in case the port of Wilmington should have ceased to be closed to commerce; and in the second place of referring to some instructions about the shipments of merchandise he was to make "in case the blockade should have ceased to trammel commerce," these equivocal expressions being evidently used to cover his premeditated design fraudulently to evade the blockade, and all reference to his code of reciprocal signals to effect that object being suppressed, as was also all notice of the letters attempted to be conveyed by him from parties in the insurrectionary States to parties in other portions of the United States. -From Record Book, State Department, "Arrests for Disloyalty. "
Interestingly, when the vessel arrived at Newport, the customs officer had the son of New York Herald editor James Gordon Bennett guard it while they investigated. Bennett had offered the use of the yacht he had bought his son, who was really into boats and yacht racing, to the U.S. Navy, if Lincoln would appoint the younger Bennett a Captain. He also offered to pay the crew’s wages and outfit them. Lincoln, desperate for vessels, agreed. The yacht was named Henrietta, after the elder Bennett’s wife.
Secretary of State Seward ordered de Bebian arrested and sent to Fort Lafayette based on the following letter, which was found in his possession:
WILMINGTON, N. C., August 5, 1861.
BARRON C. WATSON, Esq., Liverpool, England.
DEAR SIR: We were rather surprised a few days ago by receipt of a letter from your house in New York advising of the non-payment of our draft of them for $6,500, which was not very comfortable to us. We shall, however, provide for it here soon, and therefore request that you will pay over to Messrs. Brown, Shipley & Co., Liverpool, all the funds of [o]urs in your possession or which may accure from the sale of our cotton. We have instrudted them to invest our funds, and desire that our funds in your hands may be similary invested. Should you meet M. L de Bebian while in England please favor us by rendering him any service in your power by way of assisting him in the prosecution of his business. Old Abe hasn't whipped us yet, and we hardly think he will.
Very respectfully, &c.,
O. G. PARSLY & CO.
There was a lot of significance attached to de Bebian “lying” about being a Frenchman. NYC police reported that “He says that he is a French subject; that he never was naturalized.” As far as I can tell, this is an accurate description of someone born in Guadalupe at that time—maybe some officials just didn’t get the concept of being a French “subject.” When I hear maritime commerce + North Carolina + West Indies, it’s hard to avoid thinking of possible (illegal) slave trade or piracy involvement. I have no evidence that the elder de Bebian was involved in this, but the association could have given him reason to downplay his connection to the West Indies, if he indeed did so. He did insist that “ I am arbitrary [sic] arrested on an English vessel bound to an English province accidentally driven into American waters by stress of weather at sea.”
At some point, a former U.S. diplomat, then living in Boston, got involved, writing to Seward:
Having heard of the arrest and imprisoment of M. L. de Bebian, merchant of Wilmington, N. C., from on board of a vessel bound to some neutral port I would inform the Department that as has been stated M. de Bebian is a French subject only according to French jurisprudence which recognizes no alienation of native-born citizens even if such persons shall be naturalized citizens of another nation and therefor eunder their special protection. As to whether M. de Bebian is a naturalized citizen of the United States I am unable to state, but I am under the impression that he is. He was born in the Island of Guadeloupe, and has resided in Wilmington for ten or twelve years, and is connected with parties in the shipment of lumber, naval stores, &c., to French ports.
This is a good reminder that naturalization was pretty easy in the U.S. at this time for free white men—once you lived in the U.S. two years, you could just approach a local judge and testify to that, and it was done. No paperwork, or test of language or civics knowledge. States had different rules, and I believe some of them granted citizenship to non-white men. But the whole process worked much differently than it does now, or even than it did after the Civil War. Anyway, the former diplomat continued:
My acquaintance with him was formed while I had the honor to represent this Government at the Island of Guadeloupe at the several times he visited that port on business.
M. de Bebian having made certain demands against this Government for his losses and imprisonment I consider it my duty to inform the Department of my knowledge and opinions concernig him, formed while in conversation at the time he was last in this city. I consider him part owner or interested in the cargo of the vessel on board of which he was taken. He informed me that he had delivered a large cargo of lumber at Martinique as late as May last; that at this time he has two or three contracts for cargoes of lumber to be delivered as early as possible, and that he will evade the blockade if possible; also that he has been in the West Indies within the last six months for the purpose of shipping cargoes of salt and molasses to Southern ports.
I feel assured that he has no idea of leaving Wilmington; that he regards the United States as his country of adoption only on pecuniary motives, and will take every advnatage to that end. He said to me that he owed no allegiance to the Federal Government, to any State or to the Confederate States, but in this connection I will state that I have no knowledge of his having been the beraer of dispatches or carried any information to the States in rebellion. He informed me that during his stay in France he had conversed with persons high in authority, and had drawn the inference that any interference the South might have expected from the French nationa was hopeless. All my conversations with him were carried on in French and therefore not subject to the ear of bystanders.
I remain, sir, your obedient servant,
CHARLES W. KIMBALL,
Late U. S. Consul at Guadeloupe.
Well. So, de Bebian has said he is going to evade the blockade, that he has no allegiance to any government, and that he spoke to importaant people in France about their willingeness to ally with the Condederacy. Not looking good. Also, did de Bebian go to France after being paroled, while also suing the federal government? Bold move. The record says that upon being arrested in Newport, he “he commenced abusing both the Government and people of the United States and … also stated that he should go to England and blow the United States Government to hell, and then he would go to France and return with fifty ships of war and have full redress, and other conversations to the same effect.”
By February 1862, the same time Kimball was writing Seward, Seward’s son got another letter about de Bebian from a U.S. consul in Europe. De Bebian had indeed gone to England within weeks of being released. The letter is pretty crazy (contains OCR errors—sorry).
I see from a paragraph in the New York Weekly Herald of February 12, 1862, that M. L. de Bebian…claims damags from Congress for losses and is likely to get them. this gentleman was with me on the City of New York which left New York for Liverpool November 16, 1861. the first day out he told me his story. Sasid hye had been taken prisoner on a vessel bound to Halifax by Mr. Bennett's cutter. Was sent to Fortt Warren, thence to Fort Lafayette. Owing to the absence of the French minister he got no hearing until after four weeks when his release cme through the direct intervention of the French Government. His firm had made a first ventrure in cotton consgned to Brown Bros., in England. Fears as to the honesty of the consignees induced them to send De Bebian to Europe. He was greatly offended with what seemed to him the injustice of his treatment and fell into the hands of some insolent Englishmen, one of whom especially urged him to expose in the French press the villainies and tyrannies of the Lincoln Government immediately on his arrival in France, which I think he promised to do. Almost withoutt exception the Englishmen on the shiip were loud in unjust denunciations of the North and fellowship with the South.
I thought it my duty to thwart the intentions of this English clique Bebian. I found he was an old soldier of the First Napoleon, whose name he revered, and had been at Waterloo. by waking memories he had of England and Englishmen he was aroused and he promised me not to take their advice, but to go quietly about his business in France. He said he should seek redress in a legal way. I could make no objections to that. He asssured me he and been offered rank in the regel army, but declinde saying he would not fight the country which had treated him so well, "But," said he to me, 'sir, if the occasion comes when I can fight with America against England although I am no longer young and have a young wife and family I would galdy fight in such a cause. " As an iillustration of how deeply rooted is this national antipathy he one day said, "If I could put the English nation in this ship and could reach the magazine I would blow her up and gladly perish with the hated race. " Among the papers found with him was one containing the phrase, "Old Abe has not subdued us yet and I don't believe he will very soon. "
He also assured me that at the commencement of the secession movement a large meeting was hald in Wilmington favoring separation. A few days after the senior member of his firm called a meeting for the Union. Notice was given and the Amierican flag hung out. With the hour appointed came only twenty-five people. The old man attempted to speak, received some hisses and broke down in the effort. The younger member of the firm tried and met with equally bad success. The old man went home and wept over the ruin of the Union. "Now," said M. de Bebian, "the junior of the firm is a major in the Confederate Army, the son of the senior partner is a captain and the father is with the son. "
I give you these details in order that you may judge whether if M. de Bebian is reimbursed by Government for any losses sustained the other members of the firm ought to share his benefits after having under any circumstances so far forgotten their allegiance while so many thousand loyal men are lavishing treasure and life for the dear old honored flag. I hope you will excuse me if this letter should seem unnecessary, but I write it because it was my fortune to meet with and know somewhat of this mand and I mentioned M. de Bebian's name to Mr. Daytton when I passed through Paris coming here.
With assurances of respect, I am, sir, your obedient servant,
JOHN DE LA MONTAGNIE,
U. S. Consul.
Somehow, de Bebian got the French Emperor to pressure the U.S. government into allowing him back to Wilmington, though he’d been released on the condition he not enter the Confederacy again. At first, Seward wrote to French officials that “Brown, Shipley & Co. are well-known commercial and political agents of the insurgents and actually engaged in fitting out vessels for them in violation of the blockade and with contraband of war,” and that de Bebian’s conduct was disgraceful. But I guess the pressure mounted, and Seward asked de Bebian to call upon his return to the U.S., which he did, and he managed to obtain a pass to go to Wilmington.
But he must have kept up his activities, as Louis de Bebian the elder died in a shipwreck in April 1865, presumably returning now that he no longer had to worry about the blockade. One of his daughters kept the lawsuit going until 1888, but was unsuccessful, with the government declaring him a knowing blockade runner. Fortunately, his son, so “elegant & kind hearted” in Mary’s eyes, seems to have had a better life.
Author’s Notes
Note 1: The rumors about de Bebian being descended from royalty have to be understood in the context of the time: due to the various regime changes in France over the prior century or so, there were different royal lines in existence, all with some claim to the throne, some of which were exiled because of this. This was a delicate political situtation for other governments, and Mary met members of various rival factions as first lady. She ended up becoming pretty close with the Orleans family, seeing them frequently while she was in Europe after the war, but also had a fondness for Eugenie, the Empress during the reign of Napoleon III, who had overthrown the Orleans dynasty.
Note 2: Civil War-era consular correspondence is fascinating and seems seriously understudied. I’ve found a lot of good leads there. There must be a lot of overlooked revelations in there about international machinations, plus just general gossip and intrigue. Also, if I can find William Reid’s consular correspondence, there’s a slim chance I could find something related to the memoirs he drafted for Mary Lincoln.
Note 3: I don’t know what to make of all the talk about plots in Canada and elsewhere. Discussions about it sound like a mix of a bad spy novel and wild conspiracy theories, usually involving Booth in some way. In other words, they’re cheesy. But I’ve seen enough contemporary evidence to know that there was a lot of shady stuff going in Canada, much of it not discussed by historians. At some point, trying to separate fact from fiction might be fun. One thing to keep in mind is that people had plenty of wild conspiracy theories back then, too, and they tended to put more effort into them.
[1] I’m not sure if this was a transcription error or if Mary spelled the name incorrectly, as with Baron de Branneker—possibly a mix of both. She was generally quite good with names and spelling, so the errors or illegibility could reflect the fact that these were hastily written to her grand-nephew, Lewis Baker. The “our friend” is likely a reference to Lewis having accompanied her to NYC, from which she departed, and having become friendly with de Bebian while there.
[2] https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/206702195/louis-de_bebian
[3] De Bebian either sailed on the same vessel or met the ship at port; the 1881 press reports refer to his presence.
[4] I have not been able to ascertain the actual number of trunks; sixty-four may have been a newspaper exaggeration, but there were too many.
/Users/wshields/Desktop/The Story of Louis de Bébian.pdf
William Shields
just now
I had the same issues with the two Louis de Bebians, who were my great grandfathers. Found that the senior died in the foundering of the SS General Lyon off Hatteras in 1865. Meanwhile his son and daughters were in New York City. I have the entire chain of documents which makes this clear.
Son Louis worked in New York shipping for many years pre becoming head of the French Line.
Bill Shields (shields721@comcast.net)