1811, June 2: (The Coronation Banquet and the Royal Cabinet): As the bells pealed and the cannon of the forts roared in salute, King Henry I rode in his stat…

1811, June 2: (The Coronation Banquet and the Royal Cabinet): As the bells pealed and the cannon of the forts roared in salute, King Henry I rode in his state coach over newly repaved streets back to the former presidential and now royal palace for a state banquet. When the captain of H.M.S. Reindeer, representing Britain at the coronation, pledged the new king’s health, Henry replied with a monarchic toast to “Our dear Brother, George III, whose life may the Supreme Arbiter preserve to oppose invincibly the designs of Napoleon and ever serve as Haiti’s constant friend.” The ceremonies were also attended by representatives from the north of Santo Domingo — the commandants of Santiago and La Vega and others representing the Spanish blacks whom Christophe had been carefully cultivating since 1807. (12) Henry announced the members of his royal cabinet: his old friend Vernet (Prince des Gonaïves) as Minister of Finance and Interior; Paul Romain (Prince de Limbé) as Minister of War; Julien Prévost (Comte de Limonade), Henry’s mulâtre secretary, as Foreign Minister; and Chevalier Alexis Dupuy — once secretary to Dessalines and, more memorably, first lover of Choute Lachenais, mistress of both Pétion and Boyer — as Royal Interpreter for a master who could not read and could only just manage to sign “Henry,” yet spoke both French and English. A few days later, work had already commenced on a new and magnificent royal palace to be called “Sans Souci,” located at Milot, where the mountain road surged upward along the dense green slopes of Bonnet-à-l’Évêque to La Ferrière.