1888, August 4–10: (The Fall of Salomon: Séïde Télémaque’s Revolt and the End of an Era): On August 4, 1888, Séïde Télémaque, commandant at the Cap, declared…

1888, August 4–10: (The Fall of Salomon: Séïde Télémaque’s Revolt and the End of an Era): On August 4, 1888, Séïde Télémaque, commandant at the Cap, declared open revolt — the North responded to a man, and within twenty-four hours Télémaque was on the road to Gonaïves at the head of an army. By Thursday, Salomon could see the game was up and sadly told Thompson he would resign, but events moved faster. On the morning of August 10, just after nine, a Port-au-Prince gentleman dashed into the American legation crying for Thompson to go to the palace and save the old man’s life — the first rattle of musketry could be heard as Hérard Laforest, town commandant, and most of the capital garrison had joined the revolution. Thompson pushed his way on foot to the palace, where Salomon was making distraught preparations to try to get aboard H.M.S. Canada, exclaiming what a misfortune that the United States did not have a ship there. At the French legation, Boisrond-Canal materialized like an impresario from Frères, while Laforest intimated he could control his men for an hour and a half exactly but not two hours. The three ministers — British, French, and American — joined by the Spanish consul, went to the palace, and Thompson reported descending with the president leaning on his arm, Lafontant the private secretary rushing up crying not to desert him, Mme Salomon placed in the first carriage, the French minister riding ahead, and an enormous mob following yelling against Salomon and for the revolution. Captain Beaumont of Canada coldly announced he had no accommodations for the deposed president and sent him, minus baggage, to the immobilized hulk of a broken-down British merchantman S.S. Alps, where the Salomons were held incommunicado. A note from Salomon asked after their little daughter Ida, for medicine, and for a change of linen — they still had nothing but the perspiration-soaked clothes they had embarked in — and then, almost to himself, the old president was heard to murmur that if power held charms for others, it no longer had for him. The Salomons eventually made their way to Paris, where on October 19, 1888, the old man — born in 1815 and near seventy-four — died and was buried in Passy Cemetery.