Put yourself in their shoes. In 1720 France was just coming out of a long war that had left the nation on the edge of bankruptcy. People were starving to death and plagues were sweeping the country. The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. Pierre & Marie Mayeux were newlyweds who left behind everything in order to build a new life in French Louisiana. Little did they know the difficult and terrifying path that lay before them. 1729 is their story, and the story of hundreds like them who came to a new world with new hope, only to have it dashed and broken time after time. This is the tale of their journey across the Atlantic, enduring a year in plague-ridden Biloxi, making their way 600 miles up the Mississippi River, surviving one of the worst massacres in American history, living in the newly founded swamp village of New Orleans, and finally raising a family in South Louisiana. Today there are a million living descendants of Pierre and Marie Mayeux. But there almost were none.