Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/466

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as it is called. But the first map still represents the centre, the heart of the city, the source of its tradition and sentiment. And to the children of the city—or, we should say, the descendants of the children of the first-*born of the city, there has been no change in this "mother" spot, save that of harmonious growth and age;—at least so they think in tender reverence as they saunter through the old thoroughfares with the high-sounding names.

The place d'armes has become Jackson Square; the public market, the French market; the parish church, the Cathedral; the Ursulines Convent, the Archbishopric; the cemetery is now the old St. Louis—beyond Rampart Street, instead of outside the Ramparts, as it used to be called. The vieu carré—as the original city is affectionately called—has suffered its share of the vicissitudes of cities. More than once, tornadoes and fires have swept whole quarters of it bare of dwellings. Epidemics of yellow fever—then as now said to be brought in from Havana—decimated the inhabitants at recurrent intervals; while the river ever and anon rose up and overflowed its banks, producing a steady crop of