French Quarter Coven

""Well, the French Quarter witches are not a lot to be trifled with. You don't suppose they've found a way to kill him once and for all, do you?""

- - Rebekah to Elijah in The Originals

The French Quarter Coven are a group of witches based in New Orleans. They are first seen to convene in The Vampire Diaries episode The Originals.

The Coven is one of several covens residing in New Orleans but it is the only one who lives inside the French Quarter. Other covens of witches live in the other parts of New Orleans and all are submitted to the regency of a powerful witch who acts as the voice of the consecrated dead of New Orleans. The latest Regent was Davina Claire, the last of the Harvest witches, and a former member of the French Quarter Coven, who succeeded Josephine LaRue after her death. However, she lost this position in Out of the Easy when she was shunned.

History
Previously, the coven was known to practice Ancestral Magic, by which they drew power from their consecrated dead ancestors who are buried at Lafayette Cemetery in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Since their ancestors' remains are the source of their power, the coven cannot leave the city, or they would be abandoning their legacy. If a French Quarter witch did leave the city, it would result in the witch being cut off from his or her connection to the ancestral magic. The coven is also one of nine covens present in the city.

The Coven was one of the supernatural forces present in the city when the Original Family arrived to New Orleans from Europe in the 18th century. The growing vampire presence became a recurring problem for the witches. However, in the early days, some witches seemed to have no problem with the Originals and one of them, Céleste Dubois, formed a romantic relationship with Elijah Mikaelson. However, the growing brutality of Elijah's brother, Niklaus Mikaelson, eventually led him to blame the witches for his crimes. This led to a witch hunt in which many witches, including Céleste, were killed.

Tensions between the witches and the growing number of vampires continued throughout the 19th century and eventually came to a head in the early 20th. While many witches from various covens had aligned with Klaus and the Originals, a faction of witches had chosen to oppose them, among them were Noelle Moreau, Mary-Alice Claire and Astrid Malchance. The covens waged war on each other and on themselves, and illness and catastrophes hit the city because of the witches' conflict. Eventually, the rebel witches allied with Klaus's brother, Kol Mikaelson, who taught them a new form of magic called Kemiya which allowed a witch to create a dark object by changing its core element. Kol's plan was to create a golden dagger so that he could use on his brother, just as he had done several times in the past. In the process of learning Kemiya, several dark objects were created by the witches, such as the Devil's Star. However, the dagger's power proved to be too great to change it as easily as the others. Needing a perfect and large paragon diamond, Kol and his witches tried to steal one from the Dowager Fauline. However, Kol's killing of the Dowager and a whole crowd at St. Anne's Church had drawn the attention of his brother. As Kol and his witches searched the Dowager's house, Klaus and Marcel, accompanied by one of their witches, caught Kol and took the diamond. The witch sealed Mary-Alice and Astrid in the house which would then become a prison for witches who had gone mad. Eventually, Kol was staked by his brother again and his witches were apparently defeated.

After the First World War, as Prohibition was being set into motion, the Original brothers came up with a plan to unite the city's supernatural elements to oppose Prohibition. However, the coven had fallen under the control of a dangerous and powerful witch, Papa Tunde. Desiring to find a place for the witches in the Originals' plan and wanting both money and territory for himself, he begun to wage war on the city's other elements, including the humans and the werewolves. He even killed those witches who opposed him. Eventually, Klaus and Elijah decided Papa Tunde needed to die: Klaus killed his sons who acted as a channel for his power before killing him. With Tunde's death, the witches apparently fell in line with the Originals and their plans.

After the Originals were forced to flee the city in 1919 when their father, Mikael, found them, the balance of power in New Orleans begun to change once again as the Mikaelsons' plans to create unity in the face of Prohibition fell through. Eventually, Klaus's protegee, Marcel, returned to the city and, during the 1920s, he waged a guerilla war against the Guerrera werewolves. Marcel's return saw a rise of the vampire population as he gradually rebuilt his community. The werewolves also fought against the vampires but their infighting did not make them a good fighting force. It is unknown who the witches fought for during these troubles but they did form an alliance with the Human Faction in the later years of the 20th century and early years of the 21st.

Eventually, at the beginning of the 21st century, the werewolves had been more or less defeated and Marcel's vampires became the superior force of New Orleans. Although the French Quarter witches opposed this, they did not engage in open warfare against the vampires. The covens were also divided over how to treat the vampires: several covens joined them while others opposed them, and others simply ignored them. In addition, the French Quarter's ancestral power source had been growing more tenuous as their link to the Ancestors and their magic weakened over time. Determined to preserve their power, the coven's Elders decided to perform the Harvest ritual which would see four witches sacrificed and resurrected to strengthen the link with the Ancestors and make their magic even more potent. The four witches would then return more powerful than ever as they would have learnt the secrets of the Ancestors. However, their plans were soon derailed when Sophie Deveraux learnt of their plans: a witch who had renounced her heritage due to the witches' strict rules, she believed that the Harvest was a myth and would only lead to the death of four witches. Among those chosen was Sophie's niece, Monique Deveraux. The three other girls were Abigail, Cassie and Davina Claire.

Sophie tried to stop the Harvest by warning Father Kieran O'Connell, the leader of the Faction, so that he could stop the massacre. An ally of the witches, Kieran was nevertheless repulsed by their plans and tried to stop them, threatening to enter into an alliance with Marcel if they defied him and proceeded with the Harvest. In order to distract Kieran, the Elder Agnes placed a hex on his nephew, Sean O'Connell, which made him loose his mind and eventually made him kill himself and nine seminary students before Kieran's eyes. Distracted by his nephew's madness, Kieran was unable to stop the witches. However, Sophie had also confided in her secret lover, Marcel. After Sean's death, Kieran left New Orleans but also encouraged Marcel to stop the Harvest to save the four sacrifices. As the witches killed the witches, Marcel and his vampires attacked. Three of the girl were already dead by the Elder Bastianna Natale and only Davina still lived. The vampires killed the Elders with the exception of Agnes and saved Davina.

The Harvest however was not a myth as Sophie had believed: as each girl died, she released her power onto the next with the final death supposed to release the full power into the earth. Since Davina still lived, she had the entire power of the four sacrifices. Among her new powers, she could sense when a witch was using magic. Partly to protect her and partly to control the witches, Marcel hid Davina in St. Anne's Church's attic. He then banned the use of magic in New Orleans, using Davina's ability and her new resentment of the witches to kill any witch who broke the rule. Unable to use magic, the witches were forced to submit to Marcel's rule and the vampires finally ruled the city without opposition from either the witches, the werewolves or even the humans.

However, the witches were not happy with this development and both Sophie Deveraux and her sister Jane-Anne were devastated over the loss of Monique. Determined to get their niece and daughter back, they planned to find and kill Davina to complete the Harvest. However, due to their inability to perform magic, they needed allies who could bring down Marcel in their stead.

Season One
When Sophie learns that Hayley Marshall, a werewolf, is pregnant with the child of the Original Vampire Niklaus Mikaelson, the witches plan to use this to their advantage. Realizing that they had the chance to use the Originals to help in their plans, the coven kidnapped Hayley before luring Klaus back to New Orleans. In order to ensure that the Originals would help them, Jane-Anne performed a spell which not only confirmed the pregnancy but also linked Hayley to Sophie. Approached by Elijah Mikaelson, the witches revealed that their plans were to simply overthrow Marcel and that they wanted him to undermine his empire from within. Elijah, determined to help Hayley convinced she was the key to his family's redemption, convinced Klaus to follow the plan. The Originals made an alliance with the witches in order to accomplish their objectives. Although the coven overruled her and followed Sophie's lead, Agnes, the coven's only living Elder, opposed the alliance with the Originals.
 * -|Alliance with the Mikaelsons=

After Rebekah Mikaelson learnt of Davina's existence and discovered that a witch named Katie was engaged in a romantic relationship with Thierry Vanchure, one of Marcel's lieutenants, Klaus and Rebekah made a plan to sow dissent in Marcel's ranks and find Davina by having Katie launch an attack on Marcel and his vampires when they sentenced Thierry to the Garden for killing a vampire (a move orchestrated by Klaus). In the meantime, while Katie's magic acted as a shield, Sophie would cast a locator spell to find Davina. However, Klaus killed Katie before Sophie could complete the spell so as to gain more of Marcel's favour and to ensure the witches did not find Davina. Klaus wanted to ensure that Davina's power would be used by him once he took over New Orleans and that the witches would be forced to submit to him. Meanwhile, while the Originals conducted their plans, Sophie sent a witch named Sabine Laurent to watch over Hayley. While helping Hayley discover her child's sex, Sabine had a vision about the child. Upon returning to the Coven, she revealed to Agnes what she had seen: that the child would bring death to all witches.

Agnes, determined to protect the coven from danger, tried to have the child killed. Under the guise of arranging a medical checkup for Hayley with a friend of hers in the Bayou, she ordered several of her witches to kill Hayley. However, she realized what was happening and he ran away before killing most of them. When both she and Rebekah were neutralized by the witches, those that remained were killed by a wolf trailing Hayley.

After the attempt on Hayley's life, Klaus demanded answers from Sophie Deveraux who finally revealed the truth behind Davina's power and the Harvest. Meanwhile, Elijah made a deal with Davina to allow her to gain control over her powers by using the spells contained in his mother's grimoire. He also nullified the deal between the Originals and the witches because they had not be completely honest with them when they made their agreement. However, Agnes was determined to see the baby killed: her witches captured Sophie who was still magically linked to Hayley, using the link and a dark object called the Needle of Sorrows to induce a miscarriage. Thanks to Davina, the linking was broken and Hayley and the baby were saved. At the same time, Klaus enlisted the help of the Human Faction to apprehend Agnes, using Agnes's murder of Sean to convince Father Kieran to help him. Sophie tried to convince Elijah to prevent Klaus from killing Agnes, as she was the coven's last living Elder and the only one with the power to perform important spells such as the Harvest. Elijah swore that Agnes would not die by Klaus's hand before killing her himself for endangering his family.

With Agnes's death, it appeared that all hopes to complete the Harvest were doomed and that the witches would eventually lose access to the source of power created by the consecration of their Ancestors. However, hope was renewed when Sabine learnt that Davina had escaped from Marcel's control after learning of Agnes's death. While every single vampire in town searched for Davina, the witches also made their move, no longer bound to Marcel's rule of not using magic. While Sabine and a group of witches sought out the last Harvest girl, Sophie called Hayley and revealed that she knew of a way to complete the Harvest and, as the key ingredient, how she could become an Elder. She needed to consecrate the remains of a powerful witch whose power she could then use to connect with their Ancestors. The only witch Sophie had any knowledge of was Céleste Dubois, Elijah's old lover in the 18th century. After her death, Elijah had honoured a promise he had made to her: that he would bury her away from her witches so that she wouldn't be consecrated and could remain in peace. Sophie asked Hayley to tell her where Elijah had buried Céleste so that she could use her power in the Harvest ritual. Hayley complied when Sophie promised that she would lift the curse placed on the Crescent wolves by her ancestor, Brynn Deveraux.
 * -|Completing the Harvest=

Meanwhile, Sabine and her witches cornered Davina and her friend, Camille O'Connell, in St. Anne's Church but Davina proved too powerful: she killed the four witches and incapacitated Sabine before fleeing to the Mikaelson compound to save her friend, Timothy, from Klaus. After she easily defeated Klaus, Elijah and Marcel, she was tricked into drinking poison by a compelled Timothy. However, Elijah and Marcel had predicted Klaus's treachery and made sure that Davina was protected: Marcel coerced Sabine into performing the same protection spell she had cast on herself on Davina so that Klaus would be unable to kill her. Therefore, Davina returned to life although Timothy died from the poison.

The next day brought a bad surprise however: Davina started inexplicably throwing up dirt and her magic begun to shake the entire French Quarter. Sophie, who had recovered Céleste's bones, realized that the power of the four Harvest witches within Davina was starting to tear her apart. Since the four elements had been bound to the Harvest ritual and each witch represented an element, each element would be influenced by Davina's hemorrhaging magic: the earth would shake, the winds would blow hard enough to tear the roof off of a building, violent storms and floods would wreak havoc in the Quarter, and fire would eventually burn the entire city to the ground. The only way to prevent this from happening and to possibly save Davina's life was to complete the Harvest. The Mikaelsons eventually came to accept this possibility and plans were made for Davina to be sacrificed.

However, several problems emerge: the first was when Sophie discovered that there was no magic left in Céleste's bones, preventing them from using her magic to complete the Harvest. However, Elijah overcame the proposal by offering up another witch, one far more powerful than Céleste had ever been: Esther, the mother of the Originals. After she attempted to kill them, Klaus had carried her body in a coffin with them. The Originals eventually decided that consecrating their mother was the only option and made plans for her burial: as a witch needed to remain on land owned by her descendants to be consecrated, the Originals turned over the property of their plantation to Hayley, who owned the land as a caretaker for her unborn daughter, Esther's descendant. Father Kieran buried Esther on the plantation land and the Originals became conduits for Esther's power. As such, they could channel their mother's power to Sophie, allowing her to perform the ritual.

But this was without counting on Marcel: fearful for Davina's life, he took her from the compound and hid her in the docks. As the weather grew worse, Rebekah, with help from Thierry Vanchure, found Marcel and convinced him that Davina's only chance was with the Harvest. Marcel brought Davina to the cemetery and the fourth Harvest girl willing sacrificed her to the Harvest: Sophie killed Davina, thus finally completing the Harvest and the power was apparently released back into the earth, ending the storm. However, despite the completion of the Harvest, the four Harvest girls did not return and all assumed the Harvest had failed. However, Rebekah suspected foul play as such power could not simply disappear.

Rebekah's suspicion proved true: Sabine had secretly hijacked the power and redirected it to resurrect other witches: Papa Tunde, Bastianna Natale and Genevieve. She kept the last part of the power for herself, becoming the most powerful witch in New Orleans as a result. When the three resurrected witches assembled before Sabine, she revealed that she was in fact Céleste Dubois, who had successfully escaped death in the 18th century by jumping into another body and she had remained alive, in hiding, for centuries in this manner. Now, she planned to use the Harvest magic and the three witches (all of whom would have a grudge against the Originals or the New Orleans vampires to help her in her quest).

Since Davina had been sacrificed and was currently dead/in limbo, Marcel had no way of monitoring and restricting the use of magic in the Quarter, and the witches took advantage of this by beginning to rebuild their coven and establish the New Orleans witches as a force to be reckoned with.
 * -|The rise of the NOLA witches=

heir first order of business was punishing Father Kieran for his part in interfering with the Harvest, which Bastianna accomplished by hexing him with the same hex that caused his nephew Sean to lose his mind and commit mass murder-suicide. Then, the newly-resurrected Papa Tunde began using his sacrificial magic to desiccate vampires with his touch, killing them and absorbing their magic to make him even stronger. He was able to use this method on Rebekah as well, although it did not kill her; instead, it just desiccated her and allowed her to become a limitless source of power for Papa Tunde, which he intended to use to take down Klaus, in revenge for him killing him and his sons in 1919. Unfortunately for him, Klaus was able to overpower him once Papa Tunde's connection to Rebekah's power was broken by Elijah and Hayley, and Papa Tunde fled to avoid death at his hands once again. Instead, he went to the Garden, where he sacrificed the dozens of vampires entombed there who had broken Marcel's rules. All of the magical power that Papa Tunde had harvested from the many vampires he killed was channeled into his bone blade, which he gave to Céleste to sacrifice him as the "final offering" in their plan. Once he was killed, his power was also channeled into the blade, creating a weapon that would cause untold pain and torment to anyone stabbed with it, even an Original.

Meanwhile, after Papa Tunde's death, the power that kept him alive returned to the witch it had originally belonged to: Monique Deveraux. Monique's resurrection was seen as a miracle by the witches but Monique's aunt, Sophie, did not want her niece to live in New Orleans now that war was declared between the witches and the vampires. However, during her death, Monique had been trained by the Ancestors and she was now fanatically devoted to the witches. She killed her aunt for no longer having faith in their Ancestors before consecrating her power to fuel the community.

The next phase of Céleste's plan was to punish Elijah for always choosing Klaus and his family over everyone else, including herself—in 1821, Klaus told the authorities that the witches were sacrificing humans to fuel their magic, which resulted in Céleste being killed. While Céleste's death hurt Elijah deeply, she did not truly die, and instead began using her dark magic to inhabit the bodies of various female witches in the New Orleans coven over the centuries, including Clara Summerlin, Annie La Fleur, Sabine Laurent, and Brynne Deveraux. While still in Sabine's body, Céleste orchestrated the capture of Klaus (who was stabbed with Papa Tunde's blade by Sophie) and Rebekah (who was viciously attacked by werewolves on the full moon) to torture them in an effort to hurt Elijah. She sent Monique to cast a Devinette spell on Elijah, which tattooed the names of every female witch that Céleste had possessed since her first death in a riddle that Elijah needed to solve to save his siblings. He eventually figured out, with Marcel's help, that Rebekah and Klaus were being held at the Fleur-de-Lis Sanitorium, where Genevieve enacted her part of the plan. Genevieve sought to get revenge on Rebekah for pretending to be her friend and killing her in 1919, and did so by linking Rebekah's memories to Klaus's mind. By doing so, Klaus was finally informed that it was Rebekah and Marcel who had summoned Mikael to New Orleans, in hopes that Mikael would chase Klaus out of town and leave Rebekah and Marcel to live happily ever after. Klaus became so enraged by this revelation that he attempted to stab Rebekah with Papa Tunde's blade, which was eventually turned onto himself by Elijah to protect her.

That night, Hayley snuck up on Céleste and knocked her out before bringing her back to the bayou and forcing her to undo the curse she cast on the Crescent wolves while she was inhabiting Brynne Deveraux. Céleste showed uncharacteristic kindness by helping Hayley by making a potion to undo the curse, and took pleasure in taunting Elijah about how Hayley leaving him and Klaus, and living with the wolves would be the best thing that happened to her. Knowing that her cover was fully blown, Céleste slit Sabine's throat so she could die and Céleste could jump into another body. However, Elijah had predicted her treachery and he had made an alliance with Monique Deveraux, who was convinced that Sabine would eventually kill herself to release her Harvest magic back into the earth so the witches could thrive. However, overhearing her conversation with Elijah, Monique learnt the truth: that Céleste had no intention to help the witches and that she would flee with the Harvest magic, leaving the New Orleans witches powerless. Using a spell from Esther's grimoire that Elijah had given her, she forced Céleste's essence to return to her own bones, returning her to her original body. As such, when Céleste awoke, Elijah killed her despite her protests, ending her threat and allowing her magic to return to the earth.

Meanwhile, Rebekah and Marcel planned to leave New Orleans to flee from Klaus's rage but Marcel would not leave Davina behind. They also needed her help to cast a cloaking spell on themselves to prevent Klaus from finding them. To bring Davina back, they planned to kill the remaining resurrected witches: with Thierry's help, they ambushed Genevieve and Bastianne. Marcel killed Bastianna but Genevieve escaped. The death of both Céleste and Bastianna resurrected two more Harvest girls: Davina and Abigail. Meanwhile however, Céleste's plan for the Originals came to fruition: all trapped in the cemetery together by a boundary spell and Klaus intending to kill Rebekah for her treachery. Marcel tried to get Rebekah out by asking for Genevieve's help: the witch agreed in exchange for an end to the vampires' attacks on the witches and a guarantee that they would leave their territory alone. She also demanded that Davina be returned to them which would allow her to be trained as a Harvest girl. Marcel agreed and Genevieve lift the spell from the cemetery. By that time, Klaus and Rebekah had come to terms: Rebekah would leave New Orleans and not return and Klaus would let her. This foiled Céleste's plans of revenge but the witches had emerged stronger than ever while the vampires were weak and in chaos.

With nearly all of the Harvest girls resurrected, Genevieve took advantage of the chaos left in Céleste's wake and named herself the new leader of the coven, despite the fact that Genevieve being alive meant that Cassie could not be resurrected. She began teaching Monique, Davina, and Abigail how to seriously use their magic. Meanwhile, the Originals reclaimed their home from Marcel and banished him for his part in bringing Mikael to town in 1919. The remaining vampires from Marcel's army saw their privileges revoked by Elijah. However, they reformed under Diego's leadership and became determined to reclaim their home. They waged war on the witches for supremacy in New Orleans. The Human Faction tried to keep the peace by using their police forces to stop both sides but this did little other than add to the conflict. Meanwhile, in the Bayou, Hayley had successfully broken the curse on the Crescent wolves, many of whom wanted to intervene to reclaim their lost city.
 * -|War in New Orleans=

A few months after the events in the cemetery, Elijah called a summit between the witches and the vampires on neutral ground: St. Anne's Church. Under the supervision of a degrading Father Kieran, the two sides were expected to debate the issues they cared about but the talks rapidly disintegrated into a shouting match over the mere issue of boundaries. Elijah tried to restore order but Hayley arrived and declared that there could be no peace that excluded the werewolves. This caused the breakdown of the talks and both factions walked away. However, under advice from Klaus, Elijah instead decided to reopen negotiations by inviting all parties (including the werewolves) at a party in the compound. The Human Faction, reorganised under the leadership of Francesca Correa, managed to settle some of the dispute between the factions, including giving the witches a hike in benefits from the town's tourism industry. During the party, a confrontation between Diego and Oliver threatened to make tensions turn into an all out conflict. However, a last minute plea from Hayley, who told all assembled that if they didn't try to fight for peace then there would be none, brought the confrontation to an end and a peace treaty was agreed to and signed by all the factions, including Genevieve.

Taking advantage of the new peace in the city, Genevieve managed to convince Elijah to allow the witches to celebrate La Fête de Bénédictions, a traditional feast day in which the community gives the witches gifts in exchange for blessings. Genevieve intended to use the feast as a way to introduce the Harvest girls into society. The day of the party, Monique, Davina, and Abigail were in the cemetery, doing a spell to commune with the ancestors, when the Ancestors took control of Monique and gave the three a message: Genevieve was to be killed, so that Cassie would be resurrected and the witch community could finally have full access to the power of the Harvest ritual. When Genevieve was informed of the ancestors' message, she insisted that she had every intention of sacrificing herself for the benefit of the coven. However, since she was enjoying being alive again, she tried to buy herself more time by claiming that she wanted to steal Esther's Grimoires from the Mikaelson compound]], because she was a powerful witch whose spells could empower the coven even more. Despite Monique's disapproval, the coven was satisfied and allowed her to stay alive to fulfill this offer, and Genevieve planned to send a witch into the Mikaelson compound during the feast to steal it, while the Mikaelsons were all away from the house. Unfortunately for her, Klaus suspected that she would try to do this, and caught the witch before he could take the spell book.

At the feast, Monique confessed to Genevieve that she believed Davina to be unworthy of the honor of being a Harvest girl, because Monique didn't think Davina had sacrificed enough for the witches' cause. The two decided to teach Davina a lesson by not allowing any of the community members to give Davina any offerings. Upset, Davina met up with her best friend Josh, and was about to leave when she was intercepted by Klaus. Klaus felt bad for how the witches were treating Davina, and, wanting to earn her favor, gave her a gift to show his appreciation for her. When she opened it, she found a Lapis Lazuli stone and the daylight ring spell from Esther's grimoire, which she used to make Josh a daylight ring. The party was completely ruined shortly afterward, when Marcel, who was exiled from the Quarter and not keen to follow the peace treaty, sent a group of compelled tribal drummers into the feast, where they all slit their wrists and baited the vampires in attendance to feed on them to death. Dozens of party attendees were killed, and the tensions between factions grew even more intense. The coven met with Genevieve afterward to voice their displeasure with her failure to obtain Esther's grimoire. Monique insisted that she needed to be sacrificed, because Marcel's attack further proved that they needed the full power of the Harvest to fight against the vampires. Right before Monique was about to kill her, the ancestors took control of her once more, and stated that they would allow Genevieve to keep her life, on one condition: the ancestors wanted another offering in her place, one that they chose themselves - Hayley and Klaus' baby, who had not yet been born. Though Genevieve was not happy about the fact that she was ordered to kill a baby, she was desperate to stay alive, and agreed to the ancestors' terms.

Genevieve's plan was to continue to get close to the Mikaelsons, and Klaus in particular, so that she could keep an eye on Hayley and take her when she had the opportunity. However, Monique was not satisfied by Genevieve's efforts, and decided to take matters into her own hands by following Hayley, and using a puppet to represent her in a spell to kill her (and, by proxy, the baby). The next day, Hayley had developed a cough, and eventually began coughing up blood and collapsing at Father Kieran's funeral. Genevieve was there when she collapsed, and followed Klaus and Elijah to the Mikaelson compound, with Hayley in their arms. Elijah was hesitant to allow her to help, but Klaus argued that Genevieve was a nurse, which eventually convinced him to allow her to try to heal her. While Genevieve performed a spell to reveal what was wrong with Hayley, Hayley's spirit was sent to the Other Side, where she encountered Mikael and was forced to fight him off. Genevieve's spell eventually gave her a vision that informed her that Monique had cast a spell on her, and was finally able to reverse the spell, saving both Hayley and the baby's life. When Genevieve returned home, she found Monique and yelled at her for interfering in her plan. Monique argued that she was just trying to fulfill the ancestors' orders, but Genevieve pointed out that since the baby is part-witch, the ancestors need her to consecrate her remains so that her magic can fuel the coven's power, which means that the baby has to be born before she can die. After Monique stormed off, Genevieve returned to Lafayette Cemetery and begged the ancestors not to make her a monster by forcing her to kill an innocent baby. In response, the ancestors used their power to cause Genevieve to start bleeding from the eyes and nose before they telekinetically threw her against several tombs. Scared and in pain, Genevieve finally agreed to do what they wanted, and they let her live to complete her obligation.

Klaus and Elijah got Genevieve to agree to make the moonlight rings for Hayley and the Crescent wolves, so they would no longer be forced to turn every full moon, and would be able to use all of their powers at all times. Genevieve used three different spells from Esther's grimoire to make the moonlight rings, and used Klaus' blood as an energy source to control the wolves' transformation. Unbeknownst to them, Genevieve had also made a deal with Francesca Correa, who had provided the Mikaelsons with the stones after Marcel destroyed the ones they had before. The terms of Genevieve and Francesca's agreement were as follows: Genevieve would give Francesca the enchanted stones, once they were created, instead of giving them to the Crescents, and in return, Francesca would allow Genevieve to take Hayley captive until the baby was born and kill the baby. Once in possession of the stones, Francesca revealed to Hayley that she and her many brothers were actually untriggered Guerrera werewolves, a bloodline that was thought to have been completely eradicated by Marcel back in the 1920s. She and her brothers had been pretending to be humans until they had the means to control their transformation, and once they each had a moonlight stone, they all killed their human bodyguards, which triggered their werewolf genes. Since Genevieve had used Klaus' blood as a power source (unbeknownst to Klaus), the werewolves who had moonlight stones were drawing on Klaus' strength to control their transformations, which weakened him so much that he was unable to retaliate against the Correa/Guerrera werewolves or the witches until the full moon was over.

The witches took Hayley, who fought back so hard that she unintentionally caused a placental abruption, which sent Hayley into labor early. Unable to make it to the cemetery, they instead took her to St. Anne's Church, where Genevieve assisted Hayley through labor and helped her deliver Hayley and Klaus' baby girl. Klaus heard Hayley's pained cries and found her at the church, but Klaus' weakened state, combined with Abigail and Monique's intense magical power from the Harvest, left him unable to fight back as they pinned him to a wall, forcing him to watch helplessly as his first child was born. Hayley begged Genevieve to allow her to hold her baby, so Genevieve handed the baby over. Hayley was in awe at her child, and looked up at Klaus with affection, just as Monique pulled her head back and slit Hayley's throat. Klaus was devastated, and could only watch as Hayley bled out and died right in front of him. Genevieve took the baby back from Hayley and left with the girls, and once they were gone, Klaus was finally released from the spell.

The baby was taken to the cemetery, where they planned to sacrifice her just as the full moon set in the morning sky. When Genevieve left to prepare, Monique confessed to Abigail that she didn't think it was fair that their friend and fellow Harvest girl, Cassie, had to stay dead just because Genevieve's friend brought her back instead. The two agreed that they hope she would be unable to bring herself to kill the baby, so Monique and Abigail would be allowed to kill Genevieve and Cassie would finally be resurrected. Klaus and Elijah began searching the cemetery, knowing that the sacrifice would have to be done there, but quickly realized that the witches had cast a powerful illusion spell that caused Klaus and Elijah to wander around in circles. While they were continuing to search, Hayley awoke at the church in transition, after being killed while her baby's hybrid blood was still in her system. She eventually found Klaus and Elijah in the cemetery, both of whom were both relieved and scared at Hayley being in transition, knowing that she would need the baby's blood to complete the transition. Because Hayley needed the baby's blood, she had a supernatural sense that allowed Hayley to feel where she was, and the three used that ability to finally find the altar where Genevieve, Monique, and Abigail were about to sacrifice the baby.

Once the witches saw the three approaching them, Monique and Abigail linked hands and used their combined magic to prevent them from coming any closer. They informed the vampire and hybrids that they weren't just facing the power of three witches, but that of every single witch who had died in the history of New Orleans and was buried on New Orleans soil. Elijah, Klaus, and Hayley split up in an effort to stop them from sacrificing their child, and Klaus was able to break their connection to their ancestors' magic by throwing a pike at Abigail, impaling her and killing her on impact. Hayley was violently fighting Genevieve, with little success, while Monique quickly grabbed the knife and prepared to sacrifice the child herself. Before she was able to do so, Marcel arrived out of nowhere and killed Monique with the Devil's Star, breaking his cardinal rule about hurting children in order to save Klaus and Hayley's baby.

With both Monique and Abigail dead, Hayley and Elijah were easily able to chain Genevieve up in a tomb and question her on why she did what she did. Genevieve revealed that the witches had been given no choice and that the edict condemning the child had come from the Ancestors' new leader: Esther. After she was consecrated in New Orleans soil, Esther had managed to take control of the witches and had engineered the attempts to have her granddaughter killed. She had also decreed that she would not live and that the child's power would be consecrated for the coven to use. Upon this revelation, the Ancestors use their magic to start killing Genevieve but Hayley kills her first, both out of revenge and out of mercy. Realizing that the witches would never let their daughter live, Klaus and Hayley, with Elijah's help, fake the girl's (named Hope) death and send her away from New Orleans with her aunt, Rebekah. Meanwhile, Klaus, Elijah and Hayley will remain in New Orleans and eliminate their enemies, including the witches.

Meanwhile, as Genevieve and Monique had been planning for the death of Hope Mikaelson, Davina Claire had been communing with the dead; as the Other Side was collapsing, the barrier between the two planes grew thinner than ever. Trying to contact her dead friend Tim, Davina was unexpectedly contacted by the spirit of Mikael. Desperate to escape the Other Side before it fell apart, Mikael tried to convince Davina to bring him back so that she could get revenge on Klaus for Tim's death. Eventually, Davina agreed to bring him back from the dead after Klaus threatened the life of her friend Josh. Using a dark object and the power of a rare occurrence (the birth of Hope as a miracle baby), Mikaal was resurrected by Davina's spell. However, before he could kill Klaus and Hope, Davina revealed that she had bound him to the dark object she had used to bring him back, forcing him to obey Davina. She took him to St. Anne's Church's church where she locked him in the attic where she herself had been locked up for eight months.

The deaths of two Harvest girls as well as that of the last remaining Elder once again left the coven in a weakened state with no leadership. However, with Genevieve's death, the last Harvest girl Cassie is resurrected. However, secretly, she is being possessed by the spirit of Esther who also uses her powers to resurrect one of her sons, Finn, in the body of a male witch. As the last Harvest girl and the leader of the Ancestors, Esther takes full control of the witches of New Orleans.

Season Two
After Esther took control of the coven with help from her sons, Finn and Kol (whom she had also brought back in the body of a male witch named Kaleb Westphall), she continued the alliance that Genevieve had started with the Guerreras, using her witches to craft moonlight rings. These rings were awarded to all werewolves who pledged their allegiance to the Guerreras, such as the Crescents under Oliver's leadership. The French Quarter was declared a vampire-free zone and any vampire found in the Quarter was killed. The only vampires who remained in New Orleans were Klaus, Elijah and Hayley who remained locked up in their compound. Meanwhile, Francesca and her brothers sought about expanding their business in all of New Orleans. It is unknown if the witches benefited from these deals.
 * -|Alliance with the Werewolves=

However, despite attempts from the coven to get her back, Davina told them she was done with them and returned to high school. She also poured all her efforts into finding a way to unlink Josh and Marcel from Klaus's sireline so that she could unleash Mikael on him.

Four months after the Guerreras took control of New Orleans, Cassie was summoned to meet Francesca when Davina used her magic to stop a group of werewolves from killing a vampire named Joe Dalton who had been living in the Quarter as a spy for Marcel. Although Cassie claimed that the coven no longer controlled Davina, Francesca told her that she needed to make the rules apply to her. Esther later noted to Finn that Klaus and Elijah had planned their revenge perfectly: Francesca was unraveling and she was bound to lose control eventually.

After the Mikaelsons and Marcel succeeded in bringing down the Guerreras, killing Francesca and her brothers, Esther moved swiftly to take control of the werewolves. Now leaderless, they accepted to follow the witches' command on the condition that they receive moonlight rings. Esther placed the werewolves under the command of her son, Finn. Although most werewolves agreed to join Esther and Finn, several humans from the Faction opposed the new leadership and made their discontent clear to Finn.

With the werewolves under her control and the vampires exiled, Esther moved quickly to move her pieces into place. She instructed Kol to get close to Davina in order to discover what secret weapon she was hiding in St. Anne's Church. Meanwhile, Finn was to get close to Camille O'Connell and have her reveal all her secrets to him. Secretly, Esther and Finn were planning to use Camille as a vessel for Rebekah's spirit. Esther poured all her resources into finding her daughter but was unable to find her. She was also unable to find the White Oak Stake which she needed to destroy her children's vampire bodies when she was done with them. After her confrontation with Klaus, her son recognized that his mother had returned from the dead.
 * -|Family Reunion=

Knowing that Esther was a master at body-jumping, Elijah used a witch who supported Marcel and had left the Coven, Lenore, to cast a spell to brand Esther in any body she was to inhabit. Meanwhile, Esther and Finn met Elijah and Klaus during dinner and told them that she planned to put their spirits in witch bodies where they could begin a new life. However, during dinner, she used her magic to jump into Lenore's body.

Planning to make her sons' lives a living hell until they begged her to put them into another body, Esther ordered Finn to have his werewolves attack Marcel and his vampires, revoking their privileges in New Orleans. However, Finn's plan to have the werewolf children who still hadn't activated their curse kill his enemies in the Faction to have more soldiers turned several werewolves against him. Oliver, who was already spying on the witches for the Mikaelsons, was joined by a prominent werewolf named Aiden, whose brother was one of the concerned children. Aiden and Oliver asked for Hayley's help and she, in turn, asked Elijah and Marcel for help. That night, Elijah and Oliver held off Finn's werewolves while Hayley, Aiden, Josh and Marcel took the children to safety. However, Esther had predicted their move and both she and Finn used their magic to subdue Elijah and Oliver. Holding Elijah prisoner, Esther planned to "purify" him before putting his spirit in another body. Over the next few days, Esther lifted a spell she had once placed on Elijah about his most ghastly deed: the murder of his first love, Tatia, when he first turned into a vampire.

Meanwhile, Kol had discovered that Davina had resurrected Mikael and was using him as a weapon to kill Klaus when she could unlink her friends. However, Esther's abusive attitude towards him led him to withhold this information from her and he instead begun to make plans of his own, plans that included Davina. When Klaus confronted Davina for her resurrection of Mikael, Kol was forced to destroy the dark object] binding him to her so that he could confront Klaus. Kol later ruined Davina's unlinking spell because Esther needed Klaus connected to his bloodline and she discovered his true identity when she channeled him. Together, they were able to drain the power of the White Oak Stake long enough to prevent Mikael from killing Klaus. However, despite losing Mikael, Davina still planned to have her revenge on Klaus and Kol, having similar plans, decided to help her.

Meanwhile, Klaus confronted Esther once again to demand Elijah's return. During this time, Esther revealed the truth to Klaus about his true father, the werewolf Ansel. She also told him that she had planned to place him in the body of a werewolf instead of a witch's. Telling him where he could find Elijah, he discovered his father there instead: Esther had pulled him from the Other Side before it disintegrated and left him in the Bayou with the wolves who had refused to take the moonlight rings. Convinced it was trick from his mother, Klaus refused to have anything to do with him. As he was releasing his brother, Esther approached her son again and he once again refused her offer. When she frustratingly asked why he refused her, Klaus attacked her and, resisting her repulsion spell, told her that she declared war when she tried to kill his daughter and then attacked his family. He then swore to do everything in his power to defeat her after causing her as much pain as possible.

Meanwhile, Oliver's treachery was punished by a death sentence. However, Hayley was not going to let him die and, needing help, sought out the wolves of the Bayou who had refused the witches. There, she discovered Ansel and Jackson, the former Alpha of the Crescent wolves. Exiled after refusing Francesca Guerrera's offer of a moonlight ring in exchange for his allegiance, Jackson had spent months with Ansel who had taught him the 'old ways' of the wolves. Although Jackson refused to help her, Ansel refused to let another wolf died and helped her break Oliver out of the City of the Dead. Discovered during their escape attempt, Ansel held off the wolves while Hayley and Oliver escaped. Encountering the Crescents led by Aiden, they were convinced by Oliver that they were not meant to bow down to the witches and they let them go. Although Hayley got him back to Jackson, the witches had placed a spell on him which killed him at midnight. Oliver died in Jackson's arms as he tried to convince him to reclaim his Alpha status.
 * -|Dissent among the Werewolves=

As a result of these actions, dissent was mounting among the wolves loyal to the witches. Using this dissent to her advantage, Hayley and Aiden made plans to target what Esther loved most: her children, Finn and Kol. During a date with Camille, Finn saw a werewolf (secretly Hayley) attack and kidnap her. Furious, he ordered Aiden to find out who they were and to leave his wolves out of it. Aiden claimed some of Oliver's followers were trying to get revenge for his death but Finn saw through the charade and attacked the werewolf. He almost killed Hayley before Jackson arrived and incapacitated Finn with arrows. Camille then restrained him shackles that prevent a witch from doing magic. Finn was delivered to the Mikaelsons as a gift by Hayley and the werewolves.

With several wolves openly speaking out against the witches, Hayley became desperate to find a way to free her people from they control. In addition to fearing retaliation, several wolves were unwilling to lose their rings which gave them control over their shift and made them the superiors of the vampires. Jackson eventually revealed to Hayley that he had discovered an ancient ritual from Ansel: the unification ceremony. An ancient ritual used by wolves to join the different forces of their packs together supernaturally, it involved the marriage of the Alphas of the different packs. As such, if Hayley (as the Labonair Alpha) married Jackson, the wolves of his pack would inherit her hybrid powers, including the ability to turn at will. They would no longer require the rings and the witches would no longer be able to control them. During a meeting of several werewolves called by Jackson, Hayley announced hers and Jackson's intention to marry and create a large and powerful pack of werewolves who wouldn't need moonlight rings. Aiden and several other wolves agreed to join this pack.

However, half of the wolves in New Orleans refused to relinquish their rings and remained loyal to the witches.

In addition to capturing Finn, the Mikaelsons also got their hands on Kol. Klaus and Elijah planned to convince their brothers to join them in their fight against Esther. In the meantime, Esther was finally able to locate Rebekah, despite the cloaking spell she had used to conceal herself and Hope. Evading Esther, she reunited with Elijah and they went to their safe house in Arkansas where Klaus and Hayley joined them, finally reuniting with their daughter. Kol agreed to join his siblings in their fight against Esther while Finn remained stubbornly loyal to his mother. Klaus had him imprisoned in his old coffin as a result.
 * -|Esther's Downfall=

With Finn and Kol missing, Esther no longer had anyone to assist her in her tasks. Also, she knew that she would no longer be able to convince Klaus to join her side. She turned to Mikael, who had heard of Ansel's resurrection and was making his way through Esther's werewolves to find and kill him. In exchange for Mikael helping her with her plans, she would allow him to kill Klaus. In the meantime, Esther had prepared Camille as a vessel for when she found Rebekah. Desperate to save Camille and stop Esther, Kol and Davina planned to intercept her spell, turn it away from Camille towards another body and block Esther's ability to jump bodies. Rebekah willingly gave herself up and agreed to Esther's plan to stop her at the same time.

Kol returned with the White Oak Stake to solidify his cover but, as she prepared for the ritual, Esther revealed that she planned to destroy Rebekah's body when the spell was done to destroy her bloodline. Klaus arrived and, as the spell begun, he killed Esther, who claimed she had already prepared another body to jump into. Davina was successful in blocking Esther's spell and Camille was saved while Rebekah's spirit was sent to another body which had been prepared for her by Kol. However, in the meantime, Mikael had broken into the compound and broken Finn out of his prison.

However, Esther had been outplayed by Rebekah. Knowing Esther needed to be stopped and knowing she needed magic to switch bodies, Rebekah had covertly fed her some of her blood in the wine they had shared. Esther awoke in transition with Klaus and a bloodbag at her side. As her son explained what they had done, Klaus told her that she now had a choice: refuse to feed and remain dead or feed and become the thing she hated most in the world. He then sealed Esther in the tomb, magic-less and craving to feed from the blood bag above all else. Where she then completed the transition.

Although Esther had been defeated by the Mikaelsons, Finn had been broken out of his prison by Mikael and was hellbent on getting revenge for his mother. Knowing he needed a great power source and that the power provided by the Ancestors was limited (possibly because, like Klaus said in They All Asked For You, the Ancestors didn't like Finn probably because he was a witch possessing another witch), Finn used Mikael as a sacrificial power source which granted him an unlimited battery of magic. Taking his mother's place as the leader of the witches, Finn went to the Mikaelson compound to make his brothers tell him where they left Esther. When Klaus and Kol refused to tell him, Finn placed a boundary spell on the compound, one so powerful that not even Davina and Kol were able to destroy it. Unfortunately for the Mikaelsons, Finn had taken advantage of a parley between Marcel and his vampires and the leaders of the werewolves who had renounced their allegiance to the witches. With both sides imprisoned inside the compound, Finn believed that the tensions between them would eventually cause them to kill one another. Not wanting to wait, Finn cast a spell to make the vampires feel an intense hunger which would make it more difficult to resist attacking the werewolves.
 * -|Finn's Rampage=

Kol and Davina planned to use a destruction spell on the compound to temporarily neutralize the effects of the spell and allow at least the werewolves to escape (as the spell would also neutralize the magic in the daylight rings). However, they needed effects from the Lycée to accomplish the spell. To allow Davina time to get the needed objects, Klaus agreed to tell Finn where he had left their mother. When Finn found Esther, she had completed the transition and turned into a vampire. This led a furious Finn to channel her as a sacrificial source as well, considering her a hypocrite for having failed to resist the very thing she had hated so much.

Leaders

 * Papa Tunde †
 * Bastianna Natale †
 * Agnes †
 * Céleste Dubois †
 * Genevieve †
 * Esther †
 * Finn Mikaelson † (Formerly)

Members
*† indicates deceased
 * Elders
 * Agnes †
 * Bastianna Natale †
 * Céleste Dubois †
 * Genevieve †
 * Sophie Deveraux †
 * Harvest Girls
 * Abigail †
 * Cassie † (Left)
 * Davina Claire (Left)
 * Monique Deveraux †
 * Jessica
 * Amy
 * Steph
 * One Unnamed Harvest Girl
 * Clara Summerlin †
 * Jane-Anne Deveraux †
 * Kaleb Westphall †
 * Katie †
 * Mrs. Claire †
 * Papa Tunde †
 * Sabine Laurent †
 * Nicolette Moreau †
 * Nathalie Moreau † (Left)
 * Unnamed Members

Former Members

 * Davina Claire (Shunned)
 * Cassie † (Kindred)
 * Annie La Fleur † (Shunned)
 * Kol Mikaelson
 * Noelle Moreau
 * Nathalie Moreau † (Left)

Trivia

 * The French Quarter Coven is the largest coven seen so far, with dozens of members of various ages and from various families and bloodlines.
 * There appear to be different factions within the coven, each with their own differing views and agendas, as evidenced by Sophie and several other witches believing that the Harvest was nothing more than a legend, such as Noah's Ark.
 * Witches who were broken by magic are sent to the Dowager Fauline Cottage it strongly implies that the coven doesn't want to deal with them.
 * According to Céleste Dubois, possessing Sabine Laurent, Elders are the only witches in their coven who can complete certain spells, including the the Harvest, which they needed to access the additional power their ancestors could provide. When Agnes died, they were sure that they would not be able to complete the Harvest, until Sophie learned that there was another way—whichever witch could consecrate the remains of the most powerful witch would be bestowed the powers of an Elder. When Sophie consecrated the remains of Esther, a powerful dark witch, she became an Elder of the coven.
 * Davina defected from the coven after the first attempt at the Harvest. She then returned to the coven before Moon Over Bourbon Street, but then left for good before the events of Rebirth.
 * Esther is now a New Orleans witch, since her remains were buried and consecrated on New Orleans soil, and her powers were absorbed by Esther's only living offspring (Hayley and Klaus' unborn daughter) and channeled by Sophie to give herself the powers of an Elder.
 * Hope Mikaelson is now also a part of the New Orleans witch community.
 * The consequences of not completing the Harvest corresponded with the four stages elements used in performing the Harvest. The first element is earth, which is also the first and weakest stage, by manifesting in two ways: first, the remaining Harvest girl (Davina) began throwing up dirt, and second, the city began experiencing powerful earthquakes. The next element is air, which is stronger, by manifesting as extremely strong gusts of winds that can become as destructive as a tornado. The third element is water, which is even stronger still, by manifesting as a torrential downpour of rain that can flood the entire city. The remaining witch also begins to throw up water. The final and most powerful element is fire, which manifests as flames that begin near the remaining witch, and that eventually begin to consume anything around it, unless it is stopped by the completion of the Harvest ritual.
 * It was revealed that Céleste Dubois, while in Brynne Deveraux's body, was the witch responsible for cursing the Crescent werewolves. Brynne is a member of the Deveraux Family, and it was mentioned by Sophie that it was her bloodline that originally cursed the Crescent wolves. It is possible that Sophie had no idea that Céleste was inhabiting her relative's body, nor did she know that Céleste had been possessing Sabine, as well.
 * Genevieve named herself as leader of the coven after the deaths of Céleste, Bastianna, and Papa Tunde, and told Marcel that it was because she felt that the witches of this coven lacked direction. She also voiced displeasure to her coven about how, when she was dead, she was forced to watch as witches slowly gave up all of their power to the vampires, and insisted that their coven needed to empower themselves to give their community the power to choose their own fate.
 * There was a group of these witches called the Voodoo Queens whom the human faction fought many years ago.