Part 5

Le Clerc now made overtures to Christophe; he intimated to him that as the mother country would, no doubt, confirm the liberty of the blacks, nothing was needed to close the war but to seize Toussaint, which, together, they might do. Christophe rejected the perfidy. He replied:—“Show us the laws which guarantee our liberty. How could we believe the Consul’s words, amid such demonstrations of war? Excuse the fears and alarms of a people which has suffered so much in Slavery—give it grounds of confidence if you wish to end the calamities of St. Domingo.”[61] An interview followed, and, relying on the protestations and oaths of Le Clerc, Christophe went over to the French—Dessalines followed him. The bad news spread fast. Toussaint stood alone: his indignation and his courage were roused. Every means were now put in action to move Toussaint; he replied:—“I am powerful enough to burn and ravage, and can sell my life dearly.” Le Clerc sent envoys—he said:—“I swear before the face of the Supreme Being to respect the liberty of the people of St. Domingo.” Toussaint listened—he wished for peace if he could have Freedom—he replied:—“I accept everything which is favorable for the people and the army; for myself I wish to live in retirement.”

Le Clerc now wished to meet Toussaint: he, wishing to beget confidence with confidence, comes down from the mountains to Cap, and is received everywhere with acclamations and tears. Four hundred horsemen came with him, and with drawn sabers sat in the court-yard while the interview continued. Le Clerc received Toussaint with honors—he had found him quite another than a “Chief of Banditti,” as he had once written to Napoleon. He now treated him with marked distinction. He lauded the good faith and magnanimity of Napoleon; spoke of the happiness now about to dawn on the island, and asked his coöperation. Toussaint spoke with regret of the strange fact, that he should have been forced to take up arms against France. He said:—“Had _explanation_ preceded your arrival, or after arrival had you waited to explain to me your _pacific_ mission, you would have served equally well France and St. Domingo.” Le Clerc replied:—“Let us forget the past—all shall be repaired.” He asked:—“Where would you have got arms to carry on the war?” Toussaint replied:—“I would have taken yours.” He could not have said better if he had been a white man or a Roman.

Le Clerc renewed his oaths solemnly and in the presence of a large body of people, blacks and whites. Toussaint could then do no more: he retired to his estate at Ennery, determined to await the event.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] Letter of Christophe, BEARD’S _Life_, p. 205. RAINSFORD, p. 312.

XVIII.

Twelve years have passed since at the door of his slave home Toussaint stood with his wife and his small children, and, as the fires reddened the sky, with prophetic fear said, “the slaves have risen!” Three score years are upon the head of the “old negro,” and once more he is to enjoy the repose of home and the satisfaction of his family. He has seen great things in those twelve years—he is to see more. To his present affairs he gives himself with interest; his coffee and orange groves flourish under his eye, briars and cactus thickets vanish, the rich juices of nature are turned to delights. In his district he is the one upon whom all eyes rest, to whom all come for counsel and assistance—everywhere he is equal to the demand, and he is visited by strangers and by natives—for he is _the_ man of St. Domingo. Does he fear nothing? If he is too wise not to fear evil would proceed from pride, he is also too wise to urge pride into evil by distrust and reproaches. That he has small faith in the wisdom of the planters, who had so signally shown that they had none, or in the ultimate honor of the French, it is easy to believe. He knew that neither the French nor the planters would rule the island for the good of the blacks, and therefore that their rule must be short. But he had the oaths of Le Clerc, and he is the man to wait the proof.

But did Le Clerc fear nothing? He feared everything. The French soon got into straits—their provisions failed them—their white officers would not be ranked by the black officers who retained their commissions—the black troops must be fed, or they must be disbanded to prowl the country and indulge in plunder, perhaps in worse. Le Clerc determined to disarm them, but they were wary and suspicious, for they yet feared slavery more than death. Le Clerc was perplexed. The heat increased, and the scourge of the foreigner came among them; it came silently but surely, this consuming fever of the Tropics—none could see it, feel it, touch it, smell it—it was impalpable but it was deadly. The weak went down before the yellow pestilence, and the strong were as grasshoppers. Then the French cursed the day that Napoleon sent them to St. Domingo—but they could not escape, they were doomed to die—and to die ingloriously. They rotted like sheep; five hundred a day were carted away, thrown into holes or into the sea, the living among them. Despair and dismay produced riot and revelry—drunkenness and songs were the companions of death. Through all the death, Pauline, “the Venus Victrix,” kept her court and her beauty. One after another of her courtiers or lovers was struck down; others came and she was not dismayed. Meanwhile the blacks were at home in St. Domingo, and were proof against the pestilence. Toussaint had foreseen that this must come, and only hoped to maintain the liberty of the island till the fever should destroy the armies or drive them away. Now is his hour for vengeance; but he does not raise his standard—he yet waits.

The true sportsman gives his bird the wing. The true knight strikes not his unarmed enemy. The true man rests upon honor. The assassin strikes in the dark—the dastard deals in treachery—the base man knows not honor. The one was the black Toussaint—the other the white Napoleon!

Le Clerc believed the blacks must take advantage of his weakness; why should they not? If they rose, would not Toussaint be compelled to lead them? Might he not, even then, be plotting to do so? He suspected this, and he waited not for proof. He filled the district of Ennery with troops, which only excited the blacks. Toussaint sent a remonstrance for them. “This was exactly what was wanted,” said one who knew Le Clerc’s plans. General Brunet (7th June) wrote to Toussaint, inviting him to his house, to arrange the matter, saying:—“You will not find there all the pleasures I could wish, to welcome you, but you will find nothing but the frankness of an honorable man who desires only your happiness and that of the Colony.”[62] Toussaint at once agreed to meet him at the house Georges (10th June), on the road between Cap and Gonaïves.

With a few attendants Toussaint goes. The day is fine—Brunet and his companions charming. They confer as to the troops, they go over the maps; Toussaint is himself again; he knows the country thoroughly and the wants of the inhabitants—is ready and proud to do what is in his power to suit their wants, and the requirements of the General. The shades of evening draw on—Brunet leaves the room. Colonel Ferrari enters it with twenty men, with swords drawn. He says: “The Captain General has given me orders to arrest you; your guards are overpowered; if you resist, you are a dead man: give me your sword!”[63]

The deed was done!

’Twas a wicked one in the annals of dynasties and despotisms. No earthquake yawned, no thunderbolt came down—yet the deed was not forgotten nor unexpiated. Toussaint was hurried aboard the frigate Hero, shut up from his family, who were also prisoners, and sent from the home and the island he knew and loved so well.

He stands in his manacles on the deck of the ship, and as she slowly parts from the island, he says: “They have in me struck down but the trunk of the tree; the roots are many and deep, they will shoot up again!”[64]

These were his last words! But he might in his destruction have thus recorded his accusation, before the throne of God, and in the face of men:—

1. I charge—That you white man, with no orders from God, stole the black man from Africa and subjected him to labor, to tyranny, and to the lash—for _your_ ends, not for _his_ benefit.

2. I charge—That for centuries you made a beast of him, and when he turned in desperation and rent you, you wondered that he was a beast.

3. I charge—That you have ever denied him all chance for improvement, all chance to be a MAN.

4. I charge—That when I, Toussaint Louverture, “with a commission from Heaven,” triumphantly vindicated his manhood and mine, you ruthlessly trampled him and me down again into degradation and ruin.

5. I charge—That the misery, the blood and the “horror” of St. Domingo lie at your door, white man, for you sinned knowingly and willfully.

6. I charge—That you, white man—not God!—are the father and defender of Slavery, that you disgraced your Bible, corrupted your State, and depraved your soul to sustain and continue this great wrong towards me, and to entail unknown misery upon your children and the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] Brunet was what is called a gentleman, and had been baptized.

[63] LACROIX, v. ii., p. 203.

[64] The French have charged that, at that time, Toussaint was deep in plots for their destruction. If he had been, he would not thus have been trapped. This fact answers them.

XIX.

A few words more, and the life is told. The deed of treachery vibrated through the island. Charles Bellair and Sanssouci at once seized their arms and headed the risings, but these were not universal. The negroes were astounded; they wanted leaders:—Christophe and Dessalines were yet loyal to the French, but the insurrection spread surely and certainly, and other leaders appeared; treachery produced fear—fear cruelty—cruelty revenge—revenge horror!—The ravages of the fever were now excelled by the ravages of the war—Charles Bellair and his heroic wife were betrayed and shot by black troops, forced to the deed. Maurepas, one of the first to join the French, was suspected, seized:—epaulettes were spiked to his shoulders; he was mocked, his wife and children were tortured and thrown to the sharks before his eyes—death was the end of all.

Slavery had been reëstablished in Guadaloupe. A shipload of refractories was brought to St. Domingo and sold; and Le Clerc had published an order, directing the proprietors to resume their authority over their slaves.[65] These things produced their proper results: Petion left the French, Clervaux followed, then Christophe, then Dessalines.

In the night of Nov. 1, 1802, died General Le Clerc, in fever and agony; regrets could not deliver his soul. Rochambeau succeeded to the command of a debauched and demoralized army, and an exasperated colony. He believed only in fear and terror[66]—and he tried them, with due consequences. What were they?—Desperation. Before the end of the year 1803[67] he was forced to eat the blood-hounds which had been brought from Cuba to hunt the blacks, and he and his fragments of troops were driven into the sea to become the prey of English cruisers.

On the 22d of Nov., 1803, Christophe, Dessalines and Clervaux proclaimed the independence of St. Domingo, and restored its name of Hayti.

French dominion and negro slavery were ended in the beautiful island, though the fear of them distracted it till 1820. General Buonaparte could not reëstablish it, and General Pierce, formerly of New Hampshire, now of Washington and hereafter of Alabama, will probably fail.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] RAINSFORD, p. 303.

[66] Sixteen of Toussaint’s generals were chained by the neck to the rocks of a desert island, and left there to die. Men were chained to the stones of the court-yard—blood-hounds tore their limbs asunder, and devoured their quivering flesh. The crowd looked on from the galleries with admiring horror.—BEARD, pp. 257, 258. _Qu. Rev._, No. 42.

[67] RAINSFORD, pp. 339, 428.

XX.

On the 13th of August, a close carriage rolls rapidly away from Brest—rapidly through France, guarded only by a few dragoons. Few knew whom it contained, few remarked upon it; for such things were common enough in Napoleon’s day, as they were before and have been since. The Castle of Joux, in the high rocks which border Switzerland, receives the prisoner. Alone with his servant, he passes the weary days in inaction,—with crushed hopes, with lacerated affections. He sees his wife, his children, no more—no more the sunny hights of St. Domingo—no more the luxuriant valleys of Ennery. He knows he is doomed; yet his soul is too strong for despair. His letters to Napoleon are manly and simple; they meet with no reply but a visit from Caffarelli, to discover where he had buried his gold![68] Ten long months drag themselves away—the cold winds of the mountains pierce the sensitive body of the prisoner—the trickling water on the walls of his dungeon is turned to ice[69]—the single servant is taken away.[70] For three days the governor of the castle is absent, and none see the prisoner. When he returns, cold, hunger, and disappointment have done their work. The kind angel, Death, has carried the soul through the prison bars.

The Hero of the Blacks is no more. Toussaint is dead![71]

The first of the whites stands alone! A few short years, and Waterloo came, and then the unscrupulous victor of a hundred fights fretted out his diseased life, and cursed his angry gods, on the lonely rock of St. Helena.

The first of the blacks died at Joux; the first of the whites at St. Helena. Judge between them.

The following is Wordsworth’s sonnet, written during the disappearance of Louverture.

“Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men! Whether the whistling rustic tend his plough Within thy hearing, or thy head be now Pillow’d in some deep dungeon’s earless den: Oh, miserable Chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet, die not; do thou Wear rather, in thy bonds, a cheerful brow. Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee: _air_, _earth_ and _skies_. There’s not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.”

FOOTNOTES:

[68] LACROIX, v. ii., p. 208.

[69] IBID., v. ii., p. 204.

[70] RAINSFORD, p. 324.

[71] _Biogr. Universelle._ RAINSFORD says that he died at Besançon. p. 323.

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 16 Changed: unbidden, struck the Marsellaise to: unbidden, struck the Marseillaise

pg 16 Changed: killed by his postillon to: killed by his postillion

pg 66 Changed: Toussant reads it. to: Toussaint reads it.

pg 67 Changed: now all his confusion and misery to: now all is confusion and misery

pg 70 Changed: in the mouutain of Verettes to: in the mountain of Verettes

Table of Contents was created by the transcriber.