Social elegance and pleasure reached its standard height under the administration of the Marquis de Vaudreuil--“le grand Marquis,” as he was called. His entertainments, banquets, balls, theatrical performances, his manners, dress, conversation, his etiquette, civil and military, furnished the code which, in a way, still governs social practice in the city. When, in 1763, France, by the Treaty of Paris, signed away all her possessions east of the Mississippi to England, she yet retained her grasp on the jugular vein of the North American continent by reserving the Island of Orleans, as it was denominated--that is, the mouth of the Mississippi. And now the city, by right and title the sole French metropolis of North America, made so rapid and so great a stride forward in wealth, population, and commercial activity, that even its easy-going, pleasure-loving citizens began to feel the exhilarating reality of the possibilities of their geographical and political situation in the country; of their importance, not alone to France, but to the American continent. But the awakening of the people to the consciousness of their political virility was no better than an awakening by the hand of an executioner. [Illustration: THE JACKSON MONUMENT.] On a bright day in October, 1764, the men of the city were called together in the _place d’armes_, to listen to the royal edict that transferred them, their families, and property; in short, all the territory and subjects yet possessed by France in America, to Spain. The consternation of the people, their indignation and excitement, their public meetings, address to the King, their repudiation of Spanish authority and Spanish government, the bloody punishment by O’Reilly, executing six and imprisoning in Havana five of the conspirators, as he called them, and, finally, the forcing of the colony under the domination of Spain--all of this can but be enumerated here, but it forms a chapter in the history of New Orleans, the omission of which can be justified only by necessity. The city became Spanish in language, law, manner, dress,--in all externals, but its heart remained firmly French, as after events proved. It is ever acknowledged, however, in the history of the city, that the Spanish rule was a wise and just one; and, as is well said by all chroniclers, the Spanish found the city a city of wooden one-story houses, and left it a city of brick mansions.