Black Dwarfs

In the portraits of the ladies who belonged to that dissolute court managed by Louis XIV of France, there often appears the dark and ambiguous figure of a black dwarf. In an article published by the Messenger, famed Negro periodical, one J. A. Rogers offers a by no means unlikely explanation of the pictorial presence of these creatures.

It is a fact that an African potentate presented Queen Maria Theresa, the consort of Louis, with a Negro dwarf. So fond of the monstrous little character did the Queen become, that her ladies too acquired dwarfs. Soon it became a fashion. The affection which these ladies lavished upon their horrible pets was touching and delightful. Maria Theresa, indeed, would often invite her dwarf to sit on her lap.

Mr. Rogers says that the Queen of France gave birth to a female pickaninny and that courtiers agreed that the grimaces of her dwarf must have frightened her into what would otherwise have been a most dubious production. The black girl was baptized Louise Marie, and sent to a convent where she stayed until her death. French records of the period speak of a "black nun."

Mr. Rogers' conclusion: "The Black Nun* might have been a mystery in those days but in this hardboiled age we are inclined to be a bit more sceptical."

* The Duc de Saint-Simon mentions this tale in his Memoirs.