Book Review

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Book Review | The Journal of American History, 86.2 | The History Cooperative

Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba. By Christina Vella. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997. xiv, 426 pp. $29.95, isbn 0-8071-2144-4.)

In Intimate Enemies, Christina Vella traces the life of Michael (spelled Micaela throughout the book to prevent gender confusion for readers) Almonester de Pontalba from her original world of colonial Louisiana to the salons of nineteenth-century Paris. The life of the Baroness de Pontalba, notable for both her building projects in New Orleans and Paris and her experience as the victim of a notorious attempted murder, offers a fascinating look at women's status in both worlds. 1

When Don Andres Almonester died in New Orleans in 1798, he left a young French Creole widow, two infant daughters, a reputation as a philanthropist, and a fortune in real estate. At age sixteen, Micaela, the oldest and only surviving daughter, married Celestin Delfau de Pontalba, son of Joseph Pontalba, one of her father's New Orleans rivals who had retired to France and a barony. Micaela soon traveled with the spouse she had just met and her mother to France to live. . . .

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