 ouble back to Royal Street from here and turn right. On the near right corner at 902 Royal Street are the: - Miltenberger Houses. These three beautiful red-bricked three-and-a-half-story townhouses, built in 1838, are surrounded by ornate grillwork galleries. They were built by the widow Marie Miltenberger for her three sons, Gustave, Aristide, and Alphonse. Each of the mansions has been changed or renovated over the years, and in 1858 the original iron railings were replaced with the more ornate ironwork that you see today. In the rear are spacious courtyards enclosed by high brick walls.
A little further down on the left side of the street at 915 Royal is the:
 Cornstalk Hotel, with its famous fence of morning glories and cornstalks. It was shipped from Philadelphia around 1850 by Dr Joseph Biamenti as a present to his wife, a native Midwesterner who missed the rural scenery of Iowa, where she grew up. The original house burned (the fence survived the fire) and was replaced with the current Victorian mansion, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Keep walking until you get to St Philip Street, turn left, and continue on to the corner of St Philip and Bourbon. On the opposite left corner is: Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop.
This picturesque little brick-between-post cottage was built in 1772, and at one time was used by Jean Lafitte and his brothers as a front for their illegal trade in slaves and other contraband. Although slave smuggling was outlawed in 1807, slavery was still legal, and the Lafittes took full advantage by capturing slaves from foreign ships and transporting them up through the swamps of Barataria south of the city. No records have ever been found proving that this was indeed Lafitte's Shop, but the myth survives nonetheless. In the late 1940s the bar was one of the city's first to attract a gay following, but today it serves a non-gay, tourist/neighborhood clientele. Turn right at this intersection and continue down Bourbon Street until you come to Ursulines Street. Take another right here and then a left at Royal. On the right at 1132 Royal is the:
 Gallier House. The notable architect James Gallier Jr, who designed many local buildings, including the French Opera House, built this fine home for himself in 1857. The house was accurately restored to its appearance of the 1860's, and today is one of the most carefully preserved historic houses in the French Quarter. A Paris green, rose-patterned cast-iron gallery covers the front of the house, and the brick and stucco facade is scored and painted in the typical early American fashion to look like concrete blocks. The house, richly furnished in the style of the 1857-68 period with some 6,000 period artifacts, the restored servants quarters, and the lovely grounds are all open for tours. Continuing to the end of the block, the next house of interest is the:
- LaLaurie House, or as tour guides and many locals call it, "The Haunted House", at 1140 Royal. After Delphine Macarty de Lopez Blanque married her third husband Dr Louis LaLaurie, the couple moved into the newly-completed residence in 1832. They threw many lavish parties soon after and quickly became the toast of New Orleans society. One night in 1834, a fire broke out, and when the neighbors broke into a locked room on the upper floor, they discovered Madame LaLaurie's grisly secret. Seven slaves had been found chained, starved, and tortured, and after word spread, a mob gathered in front of the house. The LaLauries escaped however, and fled to France. It was later discovered that other slaves had committed suicide, one in particular a young girl who fell to her death from a balcony trying to escape Madame LaLaurie's tortures.
People today still say that they hear the screams and cries of these anguished souls. Turn left from this point, walk up Governor Nicholls Street, and stop at number 721. This is the:
- Latrobe House, or Thierry House. Designed by the young Henry Latrobe when he was only 19, the house was built in 1814, and is believed to be the earliest example of Greek revival architecture in the city. Its construction sparked a huge interest in the Greek revival style, and many plantations and mansions throughout Louisiana were built using that popular style. Turn around and walk back toward Royal Street, and continue until you get to Chartres Street. Turn right and walk to the house at 1113, on the right. This is the:
 Beauregard-Keyes House.
This handsome "raised cottage" with its Doric columns and twin outside stairways, was built in 1826 by auctioneer Joseph Le Carpentier. The Confederate general and native New Orleanian Pierre Gustav Toutaint Beauregard lived here with his family from 1865 to 1867, and in 1944 the author Frances Parkinson Keyes bought the house. During the 26 years she lived here, she wrote many of her novels about the region, among these Madame Castel's Lodger and Dinner at Antoine's. The house is open for tours. cross the street from the Beauregard-Keyes House is the oldest structure in the Mississippi River Valley, the: Old Ursuline Convent, built in 1749. This large sturdy 3-story structure is also the only surviving example of French colonial architecture
from the original French Quarter, that is, the French Quarter that existed before the fires of 1788 and 1794. It was built by Claude Joseph Villars Debreuil for the Ursuline Order of Nuns, who arrived here in 1727, and began the first schools and orphanages in this part of the New World. After the city cut Chartres Street through the convent's grounds, the Ursulines built a new convent and school roughly 2 miles downriver from here. The entrance portico was added in the 1890s, and the building today houses Catholic archives dating back to 1718. St Mary's Church, adjoining the convent, was added in 1845.
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