Louis Broussard

The combination of an extended stay in southern France, an even longer extended stay in Arcadia and then Quebec with his uncle, and the rest of his life in Louisiana has left Louis Broussard with a hodgepodge of dialects and customs picked up from both gentlemanly and entrepreneurial travels througout the frontier. Not to mention a respectable handle of the Spanish and English languages. Half gentleman and half voyageur, it isn't clear whether he feels more at home in New Orleans or out in the frontier. As it happens, the husband of Claire Broussard--he'd picked the girl up on a trading mission near the Hudson Bay, wasn't quite sure if she was métis or if her folks just didn't like her, 'cause they seemed awful eager to shake her off their leg--doesn't mind the great outdoors all that much, so long as the danger isn't anything more than a beaver needing flaying. He's run from his fair count of natives in the north and the south, and you wouldn't know it but for the occasional eye roll Claire gives him.

Louis Broussard puts the "frontier gentleman" in, well, "frontier gentleman". He's the genteel sort, always respectful towards women and he's had his share of convoluted honorbound duels to the death. Well, so he claims. He can be a bit of a, well, pussy at times: he's far more comfortable dealing with the sort of men he's lived and dealt with than rightfully angry natives or wrongfully angry undead. At times it seems he's a bit too gentle for the life of trapping, but at least he's fairly good at it--though not good enough at it that he could have made a living off it, had his family not been filthy rich. His gentleness is right by his wife, though: he treats her fairly nicely, puts up with her mischief, and has defended her in more than a few verbal altercations. He doesn't seem to care all that much about what she thinks, though, preferring to pat her on the head and smile.

Louis is a pretty good shot, and can hunt and trap maybe not to save his life but to feed himself or make himself a bit of pocket money for an extended period of time. He speaks French, Spanish, and a tiny bit of English.

A born and bred gentleman Creole. Born to Arcadian--French Canadian--parents with a little Spanish mixed in somewhere along the line, the family was already established when Napoleon went and sold the whole damn area. His parents were the fairly rich type, the sort of southern aristocracy you can only find around New Orleans. Now, that city he wasn't quite as tied to--but Louis always did love the plantation back home. He spent some time traveling in Paris with family, a little more time in Port Royal and then Montreal with yet more family (an uncle, to be precise), and took his time trompsing about the countryside making a little pocket money off trapping and trading in the cold, wild wilderness. It was enough to make his genteel family more than a little upset.

When he'd finally returned, he'd become something of a frontier gentleman, and even bought into the French trappers' trend of taking on a sweet little native wife. Oh, his family hadn't taken kindly to that. He'd just visited the plantation with her and was wandering around trying to figure out a way to trap beavers all the way down here in Louisiana when the scourge hit. The two were certainly well equipped to flee, and survive--they'd even brought Louis' rifle.