multilingual. French and Spanish were used in his family home and in correspondence with cousins in Europe, while he used English in letters with his wife. In Congress, he conducted business in English, although during the debate over the election of a speaker for the 36th Congress, Bouligny responded to a quip from Emerson Etheridge, who had said he called "every man my friend who wears an honest face, speaks the English language, swears by the Holy Bible, and does not spell Constitution with a 'K,'" by asking if he was excluded from the remarks "because I do not speak the English language." Bouligny arrived in Washington as a bachelor, but on May 1, 1860, he married Mary Elizabeth Parker, the daughter of Washington merchant George Parker. The wedding was considered "perhaps the most brilliant wedding that has ever taken place in the Federal metropolis." The event was attended by President James Buchanan, several cabinet secretaries, and numerous members of Congress. Years later, the wedding was misidentified as where Buchanan learned of South Carolina's secession; however, that did not happen until December 1860. The couple had two daughters, Corrine and Felicie. Felicie's daughter, Odette Le Fontenay, was an opera singer in the 20th century. In 1867, as part of settling a long-standing property dispute, the 39th Congress passed an act, awarding one-sixth of the land granted to Jean Antoine Bernard D'Autrive in 1765 to Bouligny's widow, Mary Elizabeth, and their two daughters in recognition of his loyalty to the Union. As the land was already deeded to others, however, the Bouligny heirs were entitled to claim of public lands elsewhere in the country at a price of $1.25 per acre. The following year, the 40th Congress passed a joint resolution suspending the act. When Mary Elizabeth, now married to George Levey, sought to claim the promised land in 1888, her petition was rejected by the Department of the Interior, a decision that was a year later affirmed by the Supreme Court. During the 1876 presidential election, the Democratic Party noted that Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes's only speech before the House as a member of Congress was in support of revoking the act. See also List of Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States Congress References External links 1824 births 1864 deaths Members of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana Know-Nothing members of the United States House