Museum
French Legation State Historic Site
French diplomatic residence built of Bastrop pine, raised on stilts like a Louisiana bayou house.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the French Legation State Historic Site in Austin follows the people who built and ran it: carpenters hired by French diplomat Alphonse Dubois de Saligny in eighteen forty-one, his butler and chef, and the nine people the Robertson family later enslaved on the property. It traces an ordinary chore, keeping a neighbor's loose pigs out of the kitchen garden, that spiraled into a real diplomatic incident. You will also hear how the household's enslaved workers connect to the free Black neighborhood that grew up next door after emancipation.
This audio guide was created using AI.