The heartbreakingly beautiful French Quarter - or Vieux Carré (old square) - is where New Orleans started in 1718. Today, battered and bohemian, decaying and vibrant, it's the spiritual core of the city, its fanciful cast-iron balconies, hidden courtyards and time-stained stucco buildings exerting a haunting fascination that has long caught the imagination of artists and writers. Though most of the buildings of the French city burned in two devestating fires in 1788 and 1794, the culture of the Vieux Carré remained predominantly French-Creole right up to the Civil War, and today, though it has more of the feel of a seductive Caribbean port than a European city, it makes much of its Gallic heritage, from the French street names and real-estate signs stamped "fait accompli" (sold), to the beignets and café au lait served at the Café du Monde.

Taken from ~ The Rough Guide to New Orleans

Also known as the Vieux Carré, it is the oldest part of the city of New Orleans. First settled by the French, it followed the plan of a late medieval town, with streets forming a grid around a large public square. The French Quarter extends from Jackson Square to Rampart Street and from Canal to Esplanade. Several events from The Vampire Chronicles occur in or around the French Quarter.

Lestat, Louis and Claudia live in a town house on the Rue Royale. It burns in a fire, but Lestat and Louis later reclaim it. Lestat also keeps a penthouse apartment on Dumaine and Decatur, near the French Market. He visits his dog, Mojo, there.

Near Jackson Square, Claudia plots Lestat's destruction and Lestat meets Raglan James. They discuss James's proposal in the Café du Monde.

Dora Flynn tapes her televangelism program in a French Quarter studio on Chartres Street, and it is here that Lestat grabs her and transports her to Manhattan.

Lestat first sees Roger in a French Quarter bar.

Gallier House
~ Emma Barnard ©2000

Louis and Lestat live there with Claudia for sixty-five years in a second-story flat until Claudia's actions - her attack on Lestat - result in a fire that drives them out. Just prior to the fire, Louis had signed the town house over to Lestat in preparation for his leaving New Orleans. Over a century later, this documented transaction is helpful to Jesse's investigation for the Talamasca about the vampire's existence.

Jesse locates information that the house is currently operated by a rental agency, which receives payment from a Parisian attorney. She rents the home so that she can explore it thoroughly. There she discovers the old wallpaper and the mural described in Louis's confession.

Jesse also finds a door that opens a secret compartment; inside it she discovers one of Claudia's dolls and a diary containing several entries written by Claudia.

In BT, Lestat returns to this town house with his dog, Mojo. He hires craftspeople to restore it to its original condition, and refurbishes it in a French style. He wants the present to eclipse the past. He realises that his living there again may aid readers of The Vampire Chronicles in locating him, but that amuses, rather than worries, him. He also knows that Louis has noticed the renovation, and, when it is finished, he asks Louis to move in with him. After Lestat returns from making David a vampire in Barbados, he finds Louis there. To his surprise, David is also there, and David urges Lestat to join them on a trip to Rio.

After Lestat first meets with Dora, he goes to the town house to find safety from his brief yet startling encounter with Memnoch. However, Memnoch is there at the town house - no place is safe from the Devil - and he implores Lestat to listen to what he wants. They struggle, but then Lestat agrees to hear Memnoch's plea.

Lestat agrees to accompany Memnoch to Heaven and Hell. After his ordeal, he returns to New Orleans, to St. Elizabeth's, his new home. Louis invites him to return to the town house and even takes Wynken's books there, but Lestat prefers his castle.

The Gallier House in New Orleans is open to the public.

It was for the brown-haired man who had loved Gretchen in Georgetown. It was for the sad lost blue-eyed demon I had been before I became that man. It was for the mortal boy of centuries ago who went off to Paris with his mother's jewels in his pocket, and only the clothes on his back. It was for the wicked impulsive creature who had held the dying Claudia in his arms.

It was for all those beings, and for the devil who stood here now, because he loved candles, and he loved the making of light from light. Because there was no God in whom he believed, and no saints, and no Queen of Heaven."

The Tale of the Body Thief ~ Anne Rice

St. Louis Cathedral

A massive Catholic church that lies near the Chartres Street entrance to Jackson Square, it is located in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It was named for the French king Louis IX, who led two crusades. The cathedral that now stands in this spot is actually the third one to be built there; a hurricane destroyed the first one in 1723, and a fire burned down the second in 1788.

St. Louis Cathedral
~ Emma Barnard ©2000
www.saintlouiscathedral.org

Louis wanders into this church one night in a fit of shame and guilt over being a vampire. It is where his brother Paul's funeral ceremony was held, and Louis thinks about that as he watches people going to confession. He feels especially empowered when the religious artifacts fail to have the effect on him described in vampire legend and lore, and he even experiences a vision of himself trampling the sacred host. When he realises that he is the only supernatural being in the church, he feels lonely. A priest comes over to Louis and invites him to confess, but when Louis claims responsibility for thousands of murders over the past seventy years, the priest believes that Louis is taunting him. Becoming resigned to his evil nature, Louis kills the priest.

When Lestat comes to see Louis after his ordeal in the desert, he meets Louis at night in this church. And when Lestat regains his vampire body from the body thief, he again visits the church. This time he is angered at Louis's refusal to help him reclaim his immortal body, and he wonders if his temper will cause him to destroy Louis. When Louis arrives, they talk. Lestat swallows his anger, first inviting Louis to live with him, then denouncing him for his disloyalty. When Lestat leaves the church, he lights a candle in memory of his former self.

"His tomb. I realised I was looking at his name engraved on the marble
in a great slanting old-fashioned script.

Louis de Pointe du Lac
1766-1794

He rested against the tomb behind him, another one of those little temples,
like his own, with a peristyle roof.

'I only wanted to see it again,' he said. He reached out and touched the writing with his finger."

The Queen of the Damned ~ Anne Rice

St. Louis Cemetery

Established in the 1740's on the 400 block of Basin Street outside the French Quarter, it was the first cemetery in New Orleans.

Louis brother, Paul, was buried in this cemetery, and Louis's tomb was erected here after it was believed that he perished in the fire at Pointe du Lac. The dates marked on Louis's stone are 1766 to 1794, although technically he "died" in 1791, when he became a vampire. After they recover from Akasha's death, Louis and Lestat wander here together.

St. Louis Cemetery also plays a part in the first draft of IV, the ending of which was later changed for the published version. It is in St. Louis Cemetery that Armand shows Louis how to find Those Who Want to Die, rather than taking victims at random. People who wander in cemeteries are often deeply grieved and do not want to continue with their own lives. Louis describes a scene between Armand and such a victim that takes place in the cemetery.

"I was sitting in the Café du Monde as the sun came up, thinking, how shall I get into my rooftop rooms? This little problem was preventing me from losing my mind. Was that the key to mortal survival?"

The Tale of the Body Thief ~ Anne Rice

Café du Monde

A French Quarter resturant at 800 Decatur Street in New Orleans, famous for serving beignets and café au lait. Here Lestat ponders his situation after Marius and Louis reject him for becoming mortal.

The Vampire Companion ~ Katherine Ramsland

Madame John's Legacy ~ Emma Barnard ©2000

Madame John's Legacy

Just off Royal at 628 Dumaine Street. It was one of the locations used in the filming of Interview with the Vampire. The building is a museum and open to the public.