Louis Placide Canonge was born in Louisiana in 1822. Canonge’s father, a distinguished New Orleans lawyer, was originally from Marseille but lived in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti) before coming to Louisiana. Louis Placide Canonge was sent to Paris for his education where he attended the Lycée Louis le Grand. Paris sharpened Canonge’s love for arts and literature, and he returned to Louisiana a sophisticated and elegant man, known for his sharp wit and for being always on the lookout for cultural novelties. Because of his worldly interests, refined opinions, and sophisticated tastes, New Orleans came to regard Canonge as the prototypical Frenchman. Canonge was involved in many literary and journalistic projects, most of them short-lived. A true gentleman, Canonge fought in several duels (for which New Orleans was famous) risking his life to defend his honor or the honor of one of his friends. As the editor of the Courrier louisianais during the Civil War, he was forced into exile for too loudly expressing his distaste for the Yankee occupiers of New Orleans. After the war he created his own newspaper, L'Époque , and, when this venture failed, took a job at L'Abeille de la Nouvelle-Orléans which he held from 1882 until his death. Canonge contributed music and theater reviews to L’Abeille, often signing his articles with his pen name: René. He also found time to teach French. But Canonge’s true love was the theater. He wrote several plays, including Le comte de Carmagnola which debuted in New Orleans in 1852 and later had a run of one hundred performances in Paris. Canonge created two amateur theater clubs and served as the manager of the Orleans Theater in 1860 and of the French Opera House for two consecutive seasons between 1873 and 1875. Léona Queyrouze, with whom Canonge had a regular correspondence, dedicated the poem: "À l'Opéra", to her friend. His life-long friendship and correspondence with Henri Vignaud, an old friend living in Paris, reveals the fragility and insecurity hidden beyond the confident veneer of this influential man . Canonge died in 1893 at the age of seventy-one.
 

See: Edward Larocque Tinker. Les écrits de langue française en Louisiane au XIXème siècle. Essais biographique et bibliographique. (Paris: H. Champion, 1932).

Case 11 Gallery:

Drama. Le Comte de Carmagnola. Louis Placide Canonge. (New Orleans, Courier de la Louisiane, 1856).
[Hill Louisiana Rare PQ 2203 C47 C6]

Photograph. Louis Placide Canonge. in The Crescent City Illustrated, Prospectus. Jewell & Prescott.
[W: 51]

"À l'Opéra". Léona Queyrouze. in Queyrouze (Léona) Papers.
[UU: 71, Box 7A, folder 7: 56]

Manuscript Letter. Louis Placide Canonge to Henri Vignaud, Feb, 12, 1869. in Vignaud papers.
[C: 66, folder 3]