Chapter TEN: A Morning of Office (2)

Monsieur Petion produced a sealed packet, which he delivered; and this seemed to remind General Vincent that he had one too. Toussaint was unable to refrain from tearing open first one, and then the other, in the intense hope of receiving some acknowledgment, some greeting from the "brother in destiny and in glory," who was the idol of his loyal heart. There was no word from Bonaparte among the first papers; and it was scarcely possible that there should be in the other packet; yet he could not keep his eye from it. Other eyes were watching from behind the jalousies. He cast a glance, a half smile that way; the consequence of which was that Aimee, forgetting the time, the deputation, the officers, the whole crowd, sprang into the room, and received the letter from Isaac, which was the only thing in all that room that she saw. She disappeared in another moment, followed, however, by General Vincent.

The father's smile died away from the face of Toussaint, and his brow darkened, as he caught at a glance the contents of the proclamations contained in Petion's packet. A glance was enough. Before the eyes of the company had returned from the window, whither they had followed the apparition of Aimee, he had folded up the papers. His secretary's hand was ready to receive them: but Toussaint put them into his bosom.

"Those proclamations," said Hedouville, rising from the sofa, and standing by Toussaint's side, "you will immediately publish. You will immediately exhibit on your colours the words imposed, `Brave blacks, remember that the French people alone recognise your freedom, and the legality of your rights!'"

As the commissary spoke these, words aloud, he looked round upon the assembled blacks, who, in their turn, all fixed their eyes upon their chief. Toussaint merely replied that he would give his best attention to all communications from the government of France.

"In order," said Hedouville, as if in explanation of a friend's purposes, "in order to yield implicit obedience to its commands." Then resuming his seat, he observed to Toussaint, "I believe General Michel desires some little explanation of certain circumstances attending his landing at Cap."

"I do," said General Michel, resuming his solemn air. "You are aware that General Vincent and I were arrested on landing?"

"I am aware of it. It was by my instant command that you were set free."

"By whose command, or by what error, then, were we arrested?"

"I hoped that full satisfaction had been afforded you by Monsieur Raymond, the Governor of Cap Francais. Did he not explain to you that it was by an impulse of the irritated blacks--an impulse of which they repent, and to which they will not again yield, proceeding from anger for which there is but too much cause? As you, however, are not to be made responsible for the faults of your government towards us, the offending parties have been amply punished."

"I," said Hedouville, from the sofa behind, "I am held responsible for the faults of our government towards you. What are they?"

"We will discuss them at Cap," replied Toussaint. "There you will be surrounded by troops of your own colour; and you will feel more at liberty to open your whole mind to me than, it grieves me to perceive, you are when surrounded by blacks. When you know the blacks better, you will become aware that the highest security is found in fully trusting them."

"What is it that you suppose we fear from the blacks?"

"When we are at Cap, I will ask you what it was that you feared, Monsieur Hedouville, when you chose to land at Saint Domingo, instead of at Cap--when you showed your mistrust of your fellow-citizens by selecting the Spanish city for your point of entrance upon our island. I will then ask you what it is that your government fears, that it commits the interests of the blacks to a new legislature, which understands neither their temper nor their affairs."

"This was, perhaps, the cause of the difficulty we met with at Cap," observed General Michel.

"It is the chief cause. Some jealousy on this account is not to be wondered at; but it has not the less been punished. I would further ask," he continued, turning again to Hedouville, "what the First Consul fears, that--"

"Who ever heard of the First Consul fearing anything?" cried Hedouville, with a smile.

"Hear it now, then."

"In this place?" said Hedouville, looking round. "In public?"

"In this place--among the most loyal of the citizens of France," replied Toussaint, casting a proud look round upon his officers and assembled friends. "If I were about to make complaints of the First Consul, I would close my doors upon you and myself, and speak in whispers. But it is known that I honour him, and hold him to my heart, as a brother in destiny and in glory: though his glory is now at its height, while mine will not be so till my race is redeemed from the consequences of slavery, as well as from slavery itself. Still, we are brothers; and I therefore mourn his fears, shown in the documents that he sends to my soldiers, and shown no less in his sending none to me."

"I bring you from him the confirmation of your dignity," observed General Michel.

"You do so by message. The honour is received through the ear. But that which should plant it down into my heart--the greeting from a brother--is wanting. It cannot be that the First of the Whites has not time, has not attention, for the First of the Blacks. It is that he fears--not for himself, but for our country: he fears our ambition, our revenge. He shall experience, however, that we are loyal--from myself, his brother, to the mountain child who startles the vulture from the rocks with his shouts of Bonaparte the Great. To engage our loyalty before many witnesses," he continued, once more looking round upon the assemblage, "I send this message through you, in return for that which I have received. Tell the First Consul that, in the absence of interference with the existing laws of the colony, I guarantee, under my personal responsibility, the submission to order, and the devotion to France, of my black brethren. Mark the condition, gentlemen, which you will pronounce reasonable. Mark the condition, and you will find happy results. You will soon see whether I pledge in vain my own responsibility and your hopes."

Even while he spoke, in all the fervour of unquestionable sincerity, of his devotion to France, his French hearers fell that he was virtually a monarch. The First of the Blacks was not only supreme in this palace, and throughout the colony; he had entered upon an immortal reign over all lands trodden by the children of Africa. To the contracted gaze of the diplomatists present, all might not be visible--the coming ages when the now prophetic name of L'Ouverture should have become a bright fact in the history of man, and should be breathed in thanksgiving under the palm-tree, sung in exultation in the cities of Africa, and embalmed in the liberties of the Isles of the West:--such a sovereignty as this was too vast and too distant for the conceptions of Michel and Hedouville to embrace; but they were impressed with a sense of his power, with a feeling of the majesty of his influence; and the reverential emotions which they would fain have shaken off, and which they were afterwards ashamed of, were at the present moment enhanced by sounds which reached them from the avenue. There was military music, the firing of salutes, the murmur of a multitude of voices, and the tramp of horses and of men.

Toussaint courteously invited the commissaries to witness the presentation to him, for the interests of France, of the keys of the cities of the island, late in the possession of Spain, and now ceded to France by the treaty of Bale. The commissaries could not refuse, and took their stand on one side of the First of the Blacks, while Paul L'Ouverture assumed the place of honour on the other hand.

The apartment was completely filled by the heads of the procession--the late Governor of the city of Saint Domingo, his officers, the magistracy of the city, and the heads of the clergy.

Among these last was a face which Toussaint recognised with strong emotion. The look which he cast upon Laxabon, the gesture of greeting which he offered, caused Don Alonzo Dovaro to turn round to discover whose presence there could be more imposing to the Commander-in-chief than his own. The flushed countenance of the priest marked him out as the man.

Don Alonzo Dovaro ordered the keys to be brought, and addressed himself in Spanish to Toussaint. Toussaint did not understand Spanish, and knew that the Spaniard, could speak French. The Spaniard, however, chose to deliver up a Spanish city in no other language than that of his nation. Father Laxabon stepped forward eagerly, with an offer to be interpreter. It was an opportunity he was too thankful to embrace--a most favourable means of surmounting the awkwardness of renewed intercourse with one, by whom their last conversation could not be supposed to be forgotten.

"This is well--this fulfilment of the treaty of Bale," said Toussaint. "But it would have been better if the fulfilment had been more prompt. The time for excuses and apologies is past. I merely say, as sincerity requires, that the most speedy fulfilment of treaties is ever the most honourable; and that I am guiltless of such injury as may have arisen from calling off ten thousand blacks from the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and commerce, to march them to the gates of Saint Domingo. You, the authorities of the city, compelled me to lead them there, in enforcement of the claims of France. If warlike thoughts have sprung up in those ten thousand minds, the responsibility is not mine. I wish that nothing but peace should be in the hearts of men of all races. Have you wishes to express, in the name of the citizens? Show me how I can gratify them."

"Don Alonzo Dovaro explains," said the interpreter, "that it will be acceptable to the Spanish inhabitants that you take the customary oath, in the name of the Holy Trinity, respecting the government of their whole region."

"It is indeed a holy duty. What is the purport of the oath?"

"In the name of the Holy Trinity, to govern wisely and well."

"Has there lived a Christian man who would take that oath?"

"Every governor of the Spanish colony in this island, from Diego, the brother of Columbus, to this day."

"What is human wisdom," said Toussaint, "that a man should swear that he will be always wise? What is human virtue, that he should pledge his salvation on governing well? I dare not take the oath."

The Spaniards showed that they understood French by the looks they cast upon each other, before Laxabon could complete his version.

"This, however, will I do," said Toussaint. "I will meet you to-morrow, at the great church in Port-au-Prince, and there bind myself before the altar, before the God who hears me now, on behalf of your people, to be silent on the past, and to employ my vigilance and my toils in rendering happy the Spanish people, now become my fellow-citizens of France."

A profusion of obeisances proved that this was satisfactory. The late governor of the city took from one of his officers the velvet cushion on which were deposited the keys of Saint Domingo, and transferred it to the hands of the Commander-in-chief. At the moment, there was an explosion of cannon from the terrace on which stood the town; the bells rang in all the churches; and bursts of military music spread over the calm bay, with the wreaths of white smoke from the guns. The flamingoes took flight again from the strand; the ships moved in their anchorage; the shouts of the people arose from the town, and those of the soldiery from the square of the great avenue. Their idol, their Ouverture, was now in command of the whole of the most beautiful of the isles of the west.

As soon as he could be heard, Toussaint introduced his brother to the Spaniards. Placing the cushion containing the keys upon the table, and laying his hand upon the keys, he declared his intention of giving to the inhabitants of the city of Saint Domingo a pledge of the merciful and gentle character of the government under which they were henceforth to live, in the person of the new governor, Paul L'Ouverture, who had never been known to remember unkindness from day-to-day. The new governor would depart for the east of the island on the morrow, from the door of the church, at the close of the celebration.

The levee was now over. Spanish, French, and the family and guests of the Commander-in-chief, were to meet at a banquet in the evening. Meantime, Toussaint and his brother stepped out together upon the northern piazza, and the room was cleared.

"I wish," said Paul, "that you had appointed any one but me to be governor of that city. How should a poor negro fisherman like me govern a city?"

"You speak like a white, Paul. The whites say of me, `How should a poor negro postillion govern a colony?' You must do as I do--show that a negro can govern."

"But Heaven made you for a ruler."

"Who thought so while I was yet a slave? As for you--I know not what you can do till you have tried; nor do you. I own that you are not the man I should have appointed, if I had had a choice among all kinds of men."

"Then look around for some other."

"There is no other, on the whole, so little unfit as you. Henri must remain in the field while Rigaud is in arms. Jacques--"

"Ay, Dessalines--and he might have a court--such a wife as he would carry."

"Dessalines must not govern a city of whites. He hates the whites. His passion of hatred would grow with power; and the Spaniards would be wretched. They are now under my protection. I must give them a governor who cannot hate; and therefore I send you. Your love of our people and of me, my brother, will rouse you to exertion and self-denial. For the rest you shall have able counsellors on the spot. For your private guidance, I shall be ever at your call. Confide wholly in me, and your appeal shall never be unanswered."

"You shall be governor, then. I will wear the robes, and your head shall do the work. I will amuse the inhabitants with water-parties, and you--"

"No more of this!" said Toussaint, somewhat sternly. "It seems that you are unwilling to do your part of the great duty of our age and our race. Heaven has appointed you the opportunity of showing that blacks are men--fit to govern as to serve;--and you would rather sleep in the sunshine than listen to the message from the sky. My own brother does what he can to deepen the brand on the forehead of the negro!"

"I am ashamed, brother," said Paul, "I am not like you; but yet I will do what I can. I will go to-morrow, and try whether I can toil as you do. There is one thing I can do which Henri, and Jacques, and even you, cannot;--I can speak Spanish."

"You have discovered one of your qualifications, dear Paul. You will find more. Will you take Moyse with you?"

"Let it be a proof that I can deny myself, that I leave my son with you. Moyse is passionate."

"I know it," said Toussaint.

"He governs both his love and his hatred before you, while with me he indulges them. He must remain with you, in order to command his passions. He inherited them from me; and I must thus far help him to master them. You are all-powerful with him. I have no power."

"You mean that Genifrede and I together are all-powerful with him. I believe it is so."

"To you, then, I commit him. Moyse is henceforth your son."

"As Genifrede is your daughter, Paul. If I die before the peace of the island is secured, there are two duties which I assign to you--to support the spirit of the blacks, and to take my Genifrede for your daughter. The rest of my family love each other, and the world we live in. She loves only Moyse."

"She is henceforth my child. But when will you marry them?"

"When Moyse shall have done some act to distinguish himself--for which he shall not want opportunity. I have a higher duty than that to my family--it is my duty to call out all the powers of every black. Moyse must therefore prove what he can do, before he can marry his love. For him, however, this is an easy condition."

"I doubt not you are right, brother; but it is well for me that the days of my love are past."

"Not so, Paul. The honour of your race must now be your love. For this you must show what you can do."

They had paced the northern piazza while conversing. They now turned into the eastern, where they came upon the lovers, who were standing half shrouded by creeping plants--Moyse's arm round Genifrede's waist, and Genifrede's head resting on her lover's shoulder. The poor girl was sobbing violently, while Moyse was declaring that he would marry her, with or without consent, and carry her with him, if he was henceforth to live in the east of the island.

"Patience, foolish boy!" cried his father. "You go not with me. I commit you to my brother. You will stay with him, and yield him the duty of a son--a better duty than we heard you planning just now."

"As soon as you prove yourself worthy, you shall be my son indeed," said Toussaint. "I have heard your plans of marriage. You shall hear mine. I will give you opportunities of distinguishing yourself, in the services of the city and of the field. After the first act which proves you worthy of responsibility, I will give you Genifrede. As a free man, can you desire more?"

"I am satisfied--I am grateful," said Moyse. "I believe I spoke some hasty words just now; but we supposed I was to be sent among the whites--and I had so lately returned from the south--and Genifrede was so wretched!"

Genifrede threw herself on her father's bosom, with broken words of love and gratitude. It was the first time she had ever voluntarily approached so near him; and she presently drew back, and glanced in his face with timid awe.

"My Genifrede! My child!" cried Toussaint, in a rapture of pleasure at this loosening of the heart. He drew her towards him, folded his arms about her, kissed the tears from her cheek, and hushed her sobs, saying, in a low voice which touched her very soul--

"He can do great deeds, Genifrede. He is yours, my child; but we shall all be proud of him."

She looked up once more, with a countenance so radiant, that Toussaint carried into all the toils and observance of the day the light heart of a happy father.

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Note 1. I have to acknowledge that injustice is done in this work to the character of General Vincent. The writer of historical fiction is under that serious liability, in seizing on a few actual incidents, concerning a subordinate personage, that he makes himself responsible for justice to the whole character of the individual whose name he introduces into his story. Under this liability I have been unjust to Vincent, as Scott was to Edward Christian, in "Peveril of the Peak," and Campbell to Brandt, in "Gertrude of Wyoming." Like them, I am anxious to make reparation on the first opportunity. It is true that in my Appendix I avowed that Vincent was among those of my personages whose name alone I adopted, without knowing his character; but such an explanation in an appendix does not counteract the impression already made by the work. Finding this, I had thoughts of changing the name in the present edition; but I feared the character being still identified with Vincent, from its being fact that it was Vincent who accompanied Toussaint's sons to Paris, and returned with the deputation, as I have represented; I think it best, therefore, to say here that, from all I can learn, General Vincent was an honourable and useful man, and that the delineation of character under that name in my book is purely fictitious. The following extract from Clarkson's pamphlet on Negro Improvement will show in what estimation General Vincent is held by one whose testimony is of the highest value:--

"The next witness to whom I shall appeal is the estimable General Vincent, who now lives at Paris, though at an advanced age. He was a Colonel, and afterwards a General of Brigade of Artillery in Saint Domingo. He was detained there during the time both of Santhonax and Toussaint. He was also a proprietor of estates in the island. He was the man who planned the renovation of its agriculture after the abolition of slavery, and one of the great instruments in bringing it to the perfection mentioned by La Croix. In the year 1801 he was called upon by Toussaint to repair to Paris, to lay before the Directory the new Constitution, which had been agreed on in Saint Domingo. He obeyed the summons. It happened that he arrived in France just at the moment of the Peace of Amiens. Here he found, to his inexpressible surprise and grief, that Bonaparte was preparing an immense armament, under Leclerc, to restore slavery in Saint Domingo. He remonstrated against the expedition: he told him to his face that though the army destined for this purpose was composed of the brilliant conquerors of Europe, they could do nothing in the Antilles. He stated, as another argument against the expedition, that it was totally unnecessary, and, therefore, criminal; for that everything was going on well in Saint Domingo; the proprietors in peaceable possession of their estates, cultivation making rapid progress, the Blacks industrious, and beyond example happy."