Coffins, Convents, and Calumny: The Twisted Tale of Louisiana's Casket Girls
Local lore says there are vampires in the Old Ursuline Convent, fanged night creatures locked in the attic since the 1700s. Ask any ghost tour guide, and they’ll spin a chilling tale of female bloodsuckers transported here from France among the early colonists. These vampire progenitors arrived clutching peculiar casket-shaped boxes and soon drew suspicion for their thirst for human vitality. To contain their bloodlust, priests sealed the demonic women inside the convent’s third-floor chambers behind blessed nails and padlocks, swearing, “Never to let them roam free lest we all fall prey to their seductive powers!”
But yeah, no…
the "Casket Girls" weren't actually toting around coffins—shocking, I know. These chicks roll up to New Orleans in 1728, clutching jewel chests (aka cassettes). They'd just spent six long, undoubtedly miserable months crammed onto a rocky ship sailing all the way from France.
They were handpicked by the Bishop of Quebec on order of the French King to become wives for the French colonists trying to settle the Louisiana colony. Only the prime specimens were selected - girls of appropriate birthing age and background, ready to get hitched and locked down immediately.
So they haul their cassettes down the plank and set foot into the bustling port town, perhaps feeling equal parts curiosity and nervousness. New Orleans was pretty much the Wild West at this point. Would they be properly welcomed and respected? Or taken advantage of by rogues and scoundrels?
Pale A.F.
The local francophone guys took one look at these paste-faced girls hobbling onto land and immediately started muttering, "Pâle!” Uh yeah, after being cooped below deck for six months to preserve their virtue and marriageability, they were probably paler than powdered wigs.
But the dudes took this as a sign they were vampires. Come on, guys. It’s called sea sickness. Haven’t you ever left the Louisiana swamp before? Anywho, the Ursuline nuns whisk the girls away, keeping them under lock and key in the convent until they can be properly married off.
But things go south real quick. The Frenchmen severely disrespect the Casket Girls, forcing many into unwanted marriages rife with mistreatment. The worst husbands neglect and abuse them; the best case scenario is they’re ignored entirely while the men carouse in the French Quarter brothels.
Others, upon finding themselves utterly alone and pitied in this strange new land, have no choice but to become sex workers themselves, servicing the very same worthless men who were supposed to be their husbands.
The French King is Pissed
Understandably, when word reaches the French King back overseas about the horrible fate of his hand-selected pure virginal brides, he’s pissed. He demands the girls be rounded back up and sent back to France immediately. This Louisana colony business has been an utter disaster.
So the Ursuline nuns collect up the poor Casket Girls and stash their jewel chests (maybe filled with paltry wedding gifts from their scumbag husbands) up on the convent's third floor for safekeeping.
But when the nuns return to collect the chests, cue the dramatic music – they’ve vanished into thin air! The third floor is completely empty. They search every nook and cranny to no avail. Gone. Disappeared without a trace.
This triggers even more frenzied vampire rumors among the colonists. Fearing the worst about their supernatural seductive powers, the nuns spare no expense sealing up the 3rd floor for all eternity, just to be safe. Windows bolted, door barred. Perhaps the Pope even blessed some special nails; who knows! Can never be too careful with vampires.
The Casket Girls are swiftly shipped back across the sea to France
But the rumors and legends linger on for centuries...
Over 200 years later, a couple of paranormal investigators (ghost hunters before it was cool) decide to lurk around the property after getting kicked out for trespassing. They camp out right across the street, hoping to spot some ghoulish action.
As they peer up at the sealed 3rd floor shutters, sleep starts to overtake them. But right before they slip into slumber, they seem to spot the shutters creaking open and slamming closed all on their own...
When the men wake, they have no chance to revel in this discovery. Their bodies are found mutilated right there on the street, throats savagely ripped out, every last drop of blood drained from their veins!
The missing blood seals the deal – the vampiric Casket Girls are still on the loose after all these years. It’s the only logical explanation! Why else would the 3rd-floor windows be flying open and shut?
To this day, guides still love to spook tourists with this tall tale. As they crane their necks and peer up at the convent’s shuttered windows, the guide will raise one threatening finger up towards those wooden slats.
“It’s there, on the 3rd floor behind those shutters, that the Casket Girls still lurk, thirsty for blood,” they’ll warn. “Without the blessed nails to contain them, those vampiric vixens would be roaming Chartres Street as we speak, seducing men to bloody deaths in back alleys!”
Ooooo, scary stuff. I’ll give you a moment to let those graphic visions dance through your head. Paints quite an image, doesn’t it? But sorry to disappoint — as with most tourist traps, the truth is never quite as gruesome.
As any ghost tour connoisseur knows, a good chunk of the script is creatively embellished. The shutters themselves aren’t even original. Just your standard issue hurricane proofing was added recently. And the archivist would be happy to confirm there’s nothing spooky at all stored up there these days. More like boxes of moldy records and convent artifacts.
So, where did this thriller of a tale come from?
Why has the Casket Girl vampire legend prevailed for so long if it’s false?
Well, tales of feasting on human blood already followed the medieval prince Vlad the Impaler, who famously staked his victims’ heads around his castle walls to ward off enemies. So, people were primed to believe such horror stories.
But that’s in Romania - how did Vlad’s vampirism get pinned on these unfortunate French women?
As it turns out, they weren’t the only boatload of women paraded into port for wife duties. And pretty much every shipment sparked nasty rumors...
This all started up in Canada. You see, back in 1663, the colony of New France (modern Quebec) was also seriously lacking when it came to XX chromosome representation.
Guys were getting restless. Reports of soldiers “chasing Indian mistresses” through the woods reached the Intendant Jean Talon, who petitioned the King to ship over some fine French ladies to quell the temptation.
Louis XIV agreed, recruiting hundreds of prime marriageable 12-25-year-olds over the next decade. These gals were dubbed the “King’s Daughters” or Filles du Roi.
To get picked, they needed a letter from their priest attesting to their virtue, faith, and hardworking spirit. This was to ensure they would make good wives and model citizens. In other words, no hussies allowed!
Still, rumors started circulating almost immediately that these were “women of middling virtue” - i.e., prostitutes or fallen women looking for a fresh start. Um, no. Out of over 800 shipped over, only ONE woman was ever actually charged with prostitution.
That was Catherine Guichelin, who turned to it only out of desperation after her worthless husband abandoned her and their kids. Besides this poor soul, the program was pretty successful on the whole.
Yet the unfair rumors persisted
And it seems this became sort of a trend... The next group of French female immigrants came ashore in Mobile, Alabama, in 1704. This was the brainchild of French-Canadian explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne.
Like his counterpart up north, Bienville had also noticed, shall we say - “compromising” situations arising from the lack of European women around. The French settlers he’d sent to colonize the Gulf Coast were apparently getting a little too friendly with the Native tribes if you catch my drift.
So once again - petition the King for reinforcements! Bienville insisted these gals must be especially pure, pious, and ready for marriage. Can’t have any trollops mucking up their Catholic mission work with the indigenous peoples!
Twenty-three utter virgins between 14-19 were rounded up, rigorously vetted by priests, then shipped overseas in the care of nuns, along with four priests to serve as escorts/chaperones.
An alleged letter from King Louis himself told Bienville, “Each of these girls was raised in virtue and piety and know how to work, which will render them useful...for this, there being no point in sending other than of virtue known and without reproach."
Yet despite this carefully screened selection process, doubts remained about the ladies’ true characters and intents.
The clincher came in 1721 when Bienville tried tapping the King’spipeline yet again to stock his newest venture – the fledgling city of New Orleans.
You see, the men assembled here were a truly unsavory bunch. The King’s rejects - criminals, wanderers, good-for-nothings. Reports of inappropriate relations were already flowing in.
These scoundrels were apparently “the scum of France” with only debauchery and vice on their minds. Certainly not husband material!
Bienville figured perhaps if some proper French wives were inserted into the mix, it would instill domestic values, stabilizing the wild outpost.
So once again, he beseeched the crown: send over unsullied, humble, hardworking women to transform these blackguards into upstanding family men!
Perhaps the King was tiring of such requests. Or he’d simply run out of convent volunteers. This time, he dug way deeper into the barrel, rounding up women straight from the sketchy House of Correction - essentially vagrant prostitutes pulled from the streets into a religious rehabilitation program.
Whoops! Not exactly the wholesome French farm girls Bienville was envisioning.
Needless to say, plopping 80 resistance sex workers into a rollicking port town teeming with womanizing ruffians did not have the civilizing effect intended. Shocking, I know!
New Orleans colony remained as debauched and dysfunctional as ever. The only difference being now fights and competition broke out over the new ladies.
chaos and controversy sparked judgments against young female immigrants
Once seen as meek, blushing brides, their reputations soon shifted to heartless temptresses. Gold diggers and seductresses deliberately deployed to distract and drain the helpless colonists of virtue, money, and sanity!
Perhaps it was this unfortunate precedent that jaded the perspective on the next ship full of French women for colonial marriage brokering.
When the Casket Girls disembarked in New Orleans three years later, the colonists were already primed to interpret these women as deceitful, morally bankrupt succubi cast out from France.
Voila! A fresh young harvest of wickedness and vampirism was delivered straight to their door. At least according to their increasingly wild imaginations...
In reality, unlike previous shipments of suspect French women, historical records show that the Casket Girls were specially chosen for their outstanding character.
The Bishop of Quebec personally selected educated Catholics from only the best backgrounds to become proper French wives and contribute to the community.
Yet public perception and gossip had already been deeply tainted by past experiences receiving so-called “brides” of questionable morals.
The label stuck, and their reputation never managed to shake the assumption that they, too, must be fallen women hiding a secret, sinister mission. No matter how outstanding the ladies turned out to be!
So, while we can’t say for certain how the ridiculous vampire legend came to be specifically, the bad rap the Casket Girls acquired unfairly was certainly primed by nearly 60 years of suspicious female immigration programs gone awry!
The Casket Girls, Anne Rice, and the Missing Cassettes
Another oft-cited turning point in cementing the scary myth was Anne Rice's blockbuster horror novels set in old New Orleans. Fans immediately began fantasizing that the Casket Girls MUST have been Rice’s inspiration!
Perhaps they transported ancient European bloodsucking nobles overseas in their cassettes, unleashing demons to feed on the unsuspecting colonial population!! Ooooh!
Creative. I like it. Way more exciting than the humdrum reality. But sorry to joust your imagination - the contents of those cassettes never held anything more sinister than an average woman’s worldly goods.
So, for those dying to know what ACTUALLY happened to their belongings that caused all the ruckus, here’s the true tea:
After King Louis demanded the Casket Girls be returned to France, the Ursuline nuns rounded up their precious cassettes and stashed them for safekeeping up on the 3rd floor of their Chartres Street convent while prepping their passage home.
Standard protocol; nothing odd there. EXCEPT —when the nuns returned for the goods the next day... Every single cassette had somehow vanished without a trace!
Every chamber on that floor was swept thoroughly, yet its contents had disappeared into thin air. Poof! Now, THAT is peculiar; no getting around it!
Understandably, this disappearance would have raised eyebrows. But in reality, the chests likely just got misplaced somewhere deep in the convent's labyrinth of rooms and cloisters. Not exactly supernatural.
But in the minds of colonists already predisposed to presume witchcraft and sorcery from any new female arrival, this odd incident sealed the verdict - the Casket Girls MUST be cunning, bloodsucking demons!
Why else would their worldly belongings mysteriously evaporate after being locked away?
Clearly, they were using diabolical magic to throw off suspicion before making their escape into the night, seeking blood and souls! Case closed cue dramatic organ music
So even though the missing contents alone were weird, the hunger-crazed vampire narrative was pure fabrication.
Yet truth seldom gets in the way of a salacious legend. The colonists quickly spread fabulous reports of the "white vampires" terrorizing their streets at twilight, never to be seen in sunlight.
Rumors evolved into accepted facts. And so birthed the myth of Les Femmes a la Cassette - New Orleans' vampire progenitor.
300 years later
Naturally, over 300 years later, those myths have only grown taller, especially with Anne Rice's dismissal iconizing the mysterious Casket Girls amongst modern vampire lore lovers.
Hence, the dramatic embellishments around ghostly sightings in the Old Ursuline attic to this day. But I think the truth has enough flair to still be fascinating; no suckers are required!
In the end, those young French women WERE pioneers - not of vampirism, but early society. Culture and families quite literally descended from their graft and grit in establishing homes in the New World.
Their critical partnerships with fellow colonists ended up breathing life into New Orleans, not stealing it. Hardly the work of vampires!
Yet myths die hard. And tourists would certainly rather hear blood and gore over history and genealogy!
So as long as visitors keep flocking to the French Quarter with goosebumps aching for some spine-tingling action, the Casket Girls will undoubtedly live on - as the naughty, man-eating monsters we WISH populated our perfect depraved paradise called New Orleans!
Where to find the convent:
1100 Chartres St, New Orleans, LA 70116
