December 20, 1803, was the date of the transfer to the United States. The American Commission met the French Commission in the Sala Capitular of the Hotel de Ville, or City Hall, as the French called the Cabildo. Governor Claiborne received the keys of the city, and the tricolor on the flagstaff gave way to the Stars and Stripes. A vast company of citizens watched the ceremonies, listened to the addresses, and looked at the American troops in the square, as well as at the French soldiers who were to have no further power in the province. Grace King, in "New Orleans, the Place and the People," tells what followed: "When, twenty-one days before, the French flag was flung to the breeze, for its last brief reign in Louisiana, a band of fifty old soldiers formed themselves into a guard of honor, which was to act as a kind of death watch to their national colors. They stood now at the foot of the staff and received in their arms the Tricolor as it descended, and while the Americans were rending the air with their shouts, they marched silently away, their sergeant bearing it at their head. All uncovered before it; the American troops, as they passed, presented arms to it. It was carried to the government house, and left in the hands of Laussat." During the years since that momentous transfer the Cabildo has continued to be the centre of historical interest in New Orleans. In 1825 Lafayette was quartered here. In 1901 President McKinley was received in the building. In 1903 the Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase was observed in the Sala Capitular, which had been for many years the meeting place of the State Supreme Court. The great hall is almost as it was when the Cabildo of Don Almonaster met there. Since 1910 the Cabildo, in common with the Presbytere, the old Civil District Court, a building of nearly the same age and appearance, located on the other side of the Cathedral, has been the Louisiana State Museum. The curios are shown in a large hall on the ground floor. Among these is the flag used by General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans. From this hall of relics a door leads to a courtyard, which is lined by tiers of gloomy cells. Stocks and other reminders of the old Spanish days are in evidence. The old Place d'Armes is now called Jackson Square. On either side are the Pontalba buildings, which were erected by the daughter of Don Andres Almonaster y Roxas, who inherited millions from her generous father. On the spot where the Stars and Stripes were raised in 1803 is the statue to General Jackson, the victor of the battle of New Orleans, to which the same public-spirited woman was a large contributor. The tomb of Don Andres is shown in the Cathedral he gave to the people, by the side of the Cabildo which he built for the city he loved. LXXIX THE ALAMO, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS "THERMOPYLAE HAD HER MESSENGER OF DEFEAT: THE ALAMO HAD NONE"