One day Gabriel returned home from his latest European trip, tired and ill. He went directly to bed. The next morning everyone realized was a serious illness, the dreaded yellow fever. He had contacted the disease in New Orleans on his way home. People there were dying in the streets from the terrible plague.

For days the young man lay on his bed. He was attended by a physician, and his Mama and Papa stayed by his side night and day. But it did no good. Gabriel died at the age of 27, and with him died the heart of Valcour Aime and his wife, Josephine.

Two days after Gabriel's death, Valcour wrote in his diary, "Let him who wishes continue. My time is finished."

From that day on, things went steadily downhill for the Aime family. Valcour lost interest in the sugar business and let others run it for him. Josephine and two of his daughters died a year later. He moved out of the plantation house and into a small cottage on the plantation grounds. He started spending all his time in the tiny church near his home.

Weeds overtook the lavish gardens; the animals in the zoo ran wild and were eventually killed by predatory beasts in the nearby woods. With no one to take an interest in them, the rare and exotic flowers withered.

When Valcour finally died, he left a curious will. He decreed that his estate could not be divided until four years after his death; by including this provision, he hoped to keep it intact. But that was not to be. Debts arose quickly and the family borrowed heavily to cover them. Finally, the Aime family had to leave the estate altogether. There was no money to keep it going.

The house remained empty. People broke in to look at it; some stile the furnishings left behind. Eventually, the place acquired a reputation. Some said they saw lights flickering in the upstairs room where Gabriel died, as if a ghostly vigil were being held by his bedside. Others saw the white-faced Valcour and his Josephine wandering the galleries, looking for their boy. Then the locals started to avoid the old plantation house, especially at night.

One night in 1920 the house burned down. No one knew what started the blaze, but Valcour Aime's home was no more.

The Greeks called it hubris, the sin of pride. Valcour definitely had it, and perhaps as if to punish him, Nature seemed determined to wipe out every trace of Valcour Aime's occupation of his particular portion of the earth. Weeds and vegetation grew up, covering everything, even the fort and the grotto. Soon a passerby could not imagine that a home had ever stood there, much less one of the magnificence of Valcour Aime's.

But, in a way, Monsieur Aime had the last word with Mother Nature. He was buried in the cemetery of the old St. James church where he had spent his last years of his life, kneeling and praying for the souls of his departed loved ones.

The river kept eating away at its banks every year, until finally the old church had to be dismantled and moved to safety. The graves were moved, as well. When the family opened Valcour's tomb, they were amazed at what they saw there. Some time after he was buried, one of his servants had placed a box near his tomb, a box containing the seeds from some of his exotic plants. Perhaps he thought Monsieur Valcour would like to have them for company. At any rate, when the tomb was opened, there, inside the sunless vault, they saw that one of the seeds had made its way underneath the ground, and a tall, green stalk grew in the dust beside the casket of Valcour Aime.