Origins: Louis was a French nobleman who moved with his family to New Orleans before the French Revolution. As he was just a child, he grew up an American plantation lord. He had a brother and a sister. After his father's death, he became head of the family and a responsible young man of 24. Trouble started when his brother Paul began to believe that the Virgin Mary had appeared to him and he was, therefore, a saint. Paul begged Louis to sell the plantation and take the family back to France, where he wanted to fight the satanic revolutionaries. Louis, of course, thought Paul was crazy and they had a terrible argument. Storming out of Louis' room with range, Paul slipped on the stairs and broke his neck, dying at the age of 17. Louis was devastated and blamed himself. He started to neglect his plantation and indulge in a life of drunken gambling. "I was twenty-four and life seemed finished. I couldn't bear the pain of the loss. I longed for a release from it. I wanted to lose everything. My wealth, my estate, my sanity."—from the film script of Interview with the Vampire. The Dark Gift: Lestat first saw Louis in a tavern, falling instantly in love with this beautiful picture of misery. In the book, Lestat even tells Louis that "his yearning for death summoned him (Lestat), but could have come in any other form." Louis, however, thought that Lestat only made him a vampire because of his fortune. They lived together in New Orleans for long years in luxury, fighting, loving each other, and accumulating hard feelings. Louis always thought Lestat was inconsequent and superficial, but he never knew the secrets Lestat held. Delicate, Louis refused to kill humans and feasted on the blood of chickens, rats and other small animals. But that did not put an end to his thirst. After a few nasty episodes, it seemed that Louis would leave Lestat. But he found an orphan child in a neighbourhood killed by the plague. Crying alone, the little girl was too sweet for him to bear, so he drank her blood. Lestat found him with her on his arms and they made Claudia a child vampire. To Louis, Claudia was the reason to go on living. For her, was a tender father, a teacher and, later on, a lover. She was the love of his life and haunted him forever. It was under her influence that he helped attack Lestat one night. They fled from New Orleans and sailed to Europe, searching for other blood drinkers, trying to "learn what Lestat had never taught them." Life without Lestat: Eventually they found other vampires, but little did they know of the tragedy that would follow. The Parisian coven locked Claudia in a dungeon with an opening for the sun. She was a pile of ashes by the time Louis got there, the next night. He destroyed the coven and killed most vampires in revenge, declining Armand's offer of love and companionship. But this did not ease his pain and regret. Louis traveled around the world for centuries until he discovered that Lestat was still alive in New Orleans. He found him, but they did not stay together until Lestat's rising as a rock star, in the 1980s. Most of the harsh comments Louis made about Lestat in Interview are later denied by his actions in the following tales: The Queen of the Damned, The Tale of the Body Thief and Memnoch the Devil. Armand describes Louis as "perhaps the weakest vampire yet walking in the great world"—from the book The Vampire Armand. Lestat says of him: "a contemplative creature, compassionate and always the gentleman. Louis was always the sum of his flaws, the most beguilingly human fiend I have ever known."—from the book The Vampire Lestat. After Lestat's adventures we discover Louis in New Orleans again, with brother-in-blood David Talbot. It's then that he falls in love for the second time in his life. Again, it's a woman, Merrick Mayfair, bastard daughter and descendant of the Mayfair witch family.
