Greetings Saint-Domingue/French West Indies researchers, Did you all know that the top three publications of the genius-statesman, Louis Médéric Élie Moreau de St.-Méry (1750-1819) are now online thanks to the Bibliothèque Nationale website, <Gallica>?? They can even be downloaded or printed out (make sure you have a couple of boxes of paper and some spare ink cartridges !!) If these quick links below don't work, just go to the Gallica main page and click on RECHERCHES, then plug in Moreau de St-Méry and they will all come up. And while you're on Gallica, do explore it for other works that have been digitized. There's a LOT there! Description.... de la partie espagnole de l'Isle Saint-Domingue http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k111191g and http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k111192v Description.... de la partie française de l'Isle Saint-Domingue http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k111179t and http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k111180r Loix et Constitutions des colonies Françoises de l'Amérique sous le vent (1550-1785) Vol 1 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k86107r.pagination Vol 2 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1099505 Vol 3 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k109951j Vol 4 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k109952x Vol 5 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1099539 (the first 10 images seem to be from Volume 2, but after that, it's all Volume 5) Vol 6 http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k109954p Not only is Loix & Constitutions a digest of all laws, ordonnances, edicts, etc. passed concerning all of the French West Indies (not just Saint-Domingue), but it's also full of interesting little vignettes of la vie quotidienne coloniale over the centuries. Like how Louis XIV helped priest's wife and children :-); regulations governing the production of a processed meat called "tasseau" (and we here in LA thought WE had the 'copyright' on tasso! -- it was being made in the West Indies in the early 1700s !); the colonial "Second Amendment"; laws which show that the French government was "green" even back in the 1700s (colonists were forbidden from tying their dogs to trees, because it might weaken the tree and kill it - how GREEN can you get !!??); laws governing abandoned children and runaway slaves, etc. etc.. It's a delightful feast of information about the French colonies. And better yet - each volume has a chronology at the end consisting of a short synopsis of each entry in the book. And THEN after that, there's also a subject and name index. I jokingly tell people that if this publication were the size of Readers' Digest, I'd have a copy to read in my each of my bathrooms ! :-) Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Feliz Navidad ! Augusta Augusta Elmwood Leader, Saint-Domingue Special Interest Group [email protected] Website: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~saintdomingue/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.17.2/1184 - Release Date: 12/14/2007 11:29 AM