"Has your freedom done you any good? You are poorer than you were, you don't even have a roof over your head for your daughter. In my house Rosette always had a place."
"The place of a slave, monsieur. I would rather live in poverty and be free," Tete replied, holding back her tears.
"Your pride will be your damnation, woman. You don't belong anywhere, you don't have a job or skill, and you're not young any longer. What are you going to do? I feel sorry for you, and that's why I'm going to help your daughter. This is for Rosette."
He handed her a pouch with money, went down the five steps to the street, and walked away, satisfied, in the direction of his house. Ten steps more and he'd forgotten the matter; he had other things on his mind.
During that period an idee fixe had begun to stir around in Violette Boisier's head, one that had first taken shape a year before, when the Ursulines put Rosette out on the street. No one knew men's weaknesses better than she, or women's needs; she planned to take advantage of her experience to make money and, in passing, offer a service that was greatly lacking in New Orleans. With that goal in mind, she offered her hospitality to Rosette. The girl came to the house in her school uniform, serious and haughty, followed two steps behind by her mother, who was carrying her bundles and had not stopped blessing Violette for having taken them under her roof.
Rosette had noble bones and eyes with her mother's golden streaks, the almond skin of the women in Spanish paintings, dark lips, wavy hair to the middle of her back, and the soft curves of adolescence. At fourteen she was already fully aware of the fearsome power of her beauty, and unlike Tete, who had worked from childhood, she appeared to have been born to be served. "She's going to have a hard time. She came into this world as a slave and she gives herself the airs of a queen. I will be putting her in her place," Loula observed with a disdainful snort, but Violette made her see the potential of her idea: investment and income, American concepts that Loula had adopted as her own. That convinced her to give her room to Rosette and go sleep with Tete in the servants' cell. The girl would need her rest, Violette said.
"Once you asked me what you were going to do with your daughter when she got out of school. The solution has occurred to me," Violette announced to Tete.
She reminded her that for Rosette the alternatives were scarce. To marry her without a good dowry would be to condemn her to forced labor at the side of a destitute husband. They could not even consider a Negro, it had to be a mulatto-but they tried to marry above them to better their social or financial situation, something Rosette could not offer. Neither did she have the makings of a seamstress, hairdresser, nurse, or any other of the jobs suitable to her situation. For the moment, her only capital was beauty, but there were a lot of beautiful girls in New Orleans.
"We are going to arrange things so that Rosette lives well without having to work," Violette declared.
"How will we do that, madame?" Tete smiled, incredulous.
"Placage. Rosette needs a white man to keep her."
Violette had analyzed the mentality of the clients who bought her beauty lotions, her whalebone armament, and the airy dresses Adele sewed. They were as ambitious as she was, and they all wanted their descendants to prosper. They gave a skill or a profession to their sons but they trembled in fear of the future for their daughters. To place them with a white man was usually better than marrying them to a man of color, but there were ten available girls for every white bachelor, and without good connections it was difficult to accomplish. The man chose the girl and then treated her as he wished, a very comfortable arrangement for him but risky for her. Usually the union lasted until the hour came at around thirty for him to marry someone of his own class, but there were also cases when the relationship continued for the rest of the man's life, and some in which a man remained a bachelor out of love for a woman of color. Whichever way it was, her luck depended on her protector. Violette's plan consisted of imposing fairness: the girl placee would demand security for herself and her children, since in turn she gave him total devotion and faithfulness. If the young man could not offer guarantees, his father had to do it for him, just as the mother of the girl guaranteed the virtue and good conduct of her daughter.
"W-what will Rosette think of this, madame?" Tete stammered, frightened.
"Her opinion doesn't count. Think about it, woman. This is a long way from prostitution, though some say it is. I can assure you, from personal experience, that protection by a white is indispensable. My life would have been entirely different without Etienne Relais."
"But you married him…" Tete contended.
"That is impossible here. Tell me, Tete, what difference is there between a married white woman and a placee girl of color? Both are kept, subjected, destined to serve a man and give him children."
"But marriage means security and respect," Tete asserted.
"Placage should be the same," said Violette emphatically. "It must be advantageous for both parties, not another notch in his hunting knife for the white. I am going to begin with your daughter, who has neither money nor good family but is pretty and already free, thanks to Pere Antoine. She will be the best placee girl in New Orleans. In a year's time we will present her to society, I just need the right amount of time to prepare her."
"I don't know…" And Tete stopped protesting because she had nothing better for her daughter and she trusted Violette Boisier.
They did not consult with Rosette, but the girl turned out to be more willing than they'd expected; she guessed what they were up to and didn't object because she had her own plan.
During the following weeks, Violette visited, one by one, the mothers of adolescent girls in the highest echelon of color, the matriarchs of the Societe du Cordon Bleu, and explained her idea to them. Those women commanded in their world; many owned businesses, lands, and slaves, who in some cases were their own relatives. Their grandmothers had been emancipated slaves who had children by their masters for whom they received help and prospered. Family relations, though of different races, were the structure that held up the complex edifice of Creole society. The idea of sharing a man with one or several women was not strange to quadroons whose great-grandmothers came from polygamous families in Africa. Their obligation was to provide well-being for their daughters and grandchildren, even if that came by way of the husband of another woman.
Those formidable, doting mothers, five times more numerous than men of the same class, rarely found an appropriate son-in-law; they knew that the best way to care for their daughters was to place them with someone who could protect them, otherwise they were at the mercy of any predator. Physical violence and rape were not crimes if the victim was a woman of color, even if she were free.
Violette explained to the mothers that her idea was to hold an extravagant ball in the best available hall, financed by their donations. Only young whites with a fortune, and those seriously interested in placage, would attend, accompanied by their fathers if necessary, no philandering gallants looking for a careless girl for entertainment without commitment. More than one mother suggested that the men should pay to enter, but in Violette's view that would open the door to undesirables, as happened in the carnival balls, or those in Orleans Hall and the Theatre Francais, where for a modest price anyone could go in as long as they weren't black. This would be a ball as selective as those held by white debutantes. There would be time to look into the background of those who were invited, since no one wanted to hand over her daughter to someone with bad behavior or debts. "For once, the whites will have to accept our conditions," said Violette.