Overview
The legend attaches to a Royal Street townhouse in the French Quarter of New Orleans and to a young woman remembered as Julie — in the telling an 'octoroon' mistress under the plaçage system, by which white Creole men kept women of colour in relationships the law and society bound with cruelty; whatever affection existed, the arrangement's power lay wholly one side, a truth this record states before any romance. The story: Julie begged her Creole lover to marry her against law and family; he set a mocking test — spend a December night naked on the roof — never believing she would; she did, and was found dead of exposure toward morning. No documentation supports the tale, which folklorists trace through Quarter storytelling traditions, and versions vary. Telling since describes a shivering figure on the rooftop on cold December nights, glimpsed from the street, and cold passages within. The building is privately occupied: street viewing only. Present Julie's legend with dignity — a story whose sorrow indicts the system that made it — hedged and humane.