the last book I ever read (Herbert Asbury's The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld, excerpt nine)

from The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld by Herbert Asbury:

Marie Laveau was a free mulatto, and was born in New Orleans about 1796. On August 4, 1819, when she was in her early twenties, she was married to Jacques Paris, also a mulatto, the ceremony being performed by Pere Antoine. Paris died in 1826, and a year or so afterwards Marie Laveau went to live with a mulatto named Christophe Glapion – there is no record of their marriage. She had a daughter in February 1827 – whether by Paris or by Glapion is unknown – who was named Marie and who subsequently married a man named Legendre. In her youth Marie Laveau was renowned among the free people of color for her beauty, and especially for the symmetry of her figure. By profession she was a hairdresser, and as such gained admittance to the homes of fashionable white ladies, where she learned many secrets which she never hesitated to use to her own advantage. As a lucrative side-line she acted as procuress for white gentlemen, furnishing quadroon and octoroon girls for their pleasure, and also served as go-between and letter-carrier in clandestine love-affairs among her white clients. She became a member of the Voodoo cult about the time her husband died, and usurped Sanite Dede’s place as Queen half a dozen years later. Sanite Dede was then an old woman.

For several years after she became queen of the Voodoos, Marie Laveau spent much of her time in a flimsy shanty on Lake Pontchartrain, which was sometimes used for meetings of the cult. One day while she was there a hurricane passed over New Orleans and the lake, and the shanty was torn from its foundations and hurled into the water. Marie Laveau sought safety on the roof, but when several of her followers tried to rescue her, she discouraged their efforts, crying out that the Voodoo god wanted her to die in the lake. She was finally induced to accept assistance, however, and according to the tale which was freely spread among the Negroes, the moment Marie Laveau reached the shore the fury of the storm abated and the lake became as smooth as the surface of a mirror.