Cruciform Reliquary of Delphine LaLaurie

This early 19th-century religious cross, once owned by Marie Delphine LaLaurie, is one of the most extraordinary and emotionally charged pieces in my personal collection. It embodies the haunting duality of devotion and cruelty, offering a rare glimpse into the complex psyche of one of New Orleans' most infamous figures.
LaLaurie, a celebrated socialite in public and a perpetrator of horrific abuse in private, maintained a façade of Catholic piety. This cross, preserved from her personal effects, reflects the rituals of faith she outwardly embraced while concealing a life of torment and secrecy. It stands as a symbol of moral ambiguity, where sacred tradition intersects with historical atrocity.
For me, this artifact is not merely a devotional object-it is a portal into the psychological and cultural shadows of antebellum America. It challenges the viewer to confront the tension between appearance and truth, between elegance and horror. Its presence in my collection is a constant reminder of the depths history can hold, and the stories that sacred objects can silently carry. 
I did not seek it. It found me. In a dusty room in Leipzig, among shelves crowded with forgotten objects, time seemed suspended. The air was dense, as though each molecule held a secret. And there, resting on a rough wooden shelf, lay a darkened cross - its edges worn, its arms flamed, and a reliquary cavity embedded at its crown. Within it, a bone fragment: Saint Benedict of Nursia, patriarch of Western monasticism, guardian of spiritual discipline and the battle against evil.
The red surrounding it was not paint, but sacred wax, poured in distant epochs - perhaps during a private rite, perhaps by trembling hands. When I touched it, I did not feel wood, but the weight of history. Not the chill of matter, but the warmth of presence.
The cross once dwelled in the bedroom of Delphine LaLaurie, in New Orleans. It was not hidden: it stood upon a pedestal of black marble beside her bed, a sentinel of her nights. Delphine, a woman of contrasts and abysses, gathered before it each evening, whispering words in ecclesiastical Latin. She did not seek forgiveness, but power. The Benedictine fragment, according to tradition, protected against malefic forces.
Yet in that room, where pain was architecture, the cross did not radiate, it absorbed.
In 1834, when the mob rose and fire revealed the horror, Delphine fled to France with Pauline and Jean Pierre.
Among the few possessions she carried, the cross was wrapped in a linen handkerchief embroidered with her initials. In Paris, she placed it each night upon the windowsill, facing west, as though longing to return to New Orleans.
Upon her death in 1849, Pauline inherited it. But the burden was too great. In 1852, she sold it to Monsieur Armand Delacourt, a collector in Chartres, who displayed it in his private library beside medieval manuscripts and Byzantine icons.
In 1942, during the Nazi occupation, Delacourt's collection was seized by the Ahnenerbe, the SS's esoteric institute. The cross was catalogued as a non-Christian spiritual artifact and transported to Germany, stored in a ritual depot near Weimar. The document attests its authenticity.
Doktor Lazarus Archaeologist, Historian, Collector, Independent Curator