Louis Placide Canonge

Life & Legacy

Louis Placide Canonge (June 29, 1822 - January 22, 1893) was a Louisiana Creole journalist, politician, playwright, actor, librettist, and lyricist. His most celebrated play, Le Comte De Carmagnola, appeared in Paris for one hundred nights. He regularly contributed to New Orleans newspapers some included: L’Abeille, Louisiana Lorgnette, Le Propagateur Catholique, Le Courrier De La Louisiane, La Presse and many more. Canonge is known for participating in two infamous duels involving theater. Canonge translated Nojoque A Serious Question For A Continent into a French version entitled Nojoque Une Grave Question Pour Un Continent. The book violently features the use of the word negro and subjugates their community; it was written by Hinton Rowan Helper. Canonge uses the translation to voice his discontent with reconstruction and the status of the negro; in contrast, he wrote lyrics for Francois-Michel-Samuel Snaer a Creole of color, and a favorable eulogy for Louis Charles Roudanez a Creole of color who founded the nation's first daily Black newspaper, which was also bilingual.
Canonge was born in New Orleans to Judge Jean François Canonge and a Creole woman named Amelie Mercier who passed as white. From a young age, he traveled to Paris, where he studied at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, the same institution his cousin Alfred Mercier attended around the same period. At the age of seventeen, he produced his first play, Le Maudit Passport, ou Les Infortunes d'une Drogue and continued to write and produce nine plays in New Orleans between 1840 and 1852. During that period, he was also listed as a Whig in the Louisiana House of Representatives. Throughout his life, he participated in local politics and held various positions such as court clerk and Louisiana Legislator, but he also directed theatrical troops. He taught French at the University of Louisiana and was a prominent lawyer. He was briefly the director of the Théâtre d'Orléans right before the American Civil War and was exiled when Union forces took New Orleans. During that period, he wrote several songs. By the 1870s, he tried to direct the French Opera House but failed due to the demand for segregation. In his later life, he took a position as a legislator in 1888, a position he held for four years. The French Government Office of Public Instruction awarded Canonge Officer d'Academie and Officer de L'instruction Publique.