1916, January 4–5: (The Pierre-Paul Revolution: Célestina’s Fake Pearls, German Money, and Léger’s Contempt for the Americans): Although the elite had return…

1916, January 4–5: (The Pierre-Paul Revolution: Célestina’s Fake Pearls, German Money, and Léger’s Contempt for the Americans): Although the elite had returned to authority through the installation of an elite president, they had derived little or no power and none of the pecuniary gain to have been expected from the change. Down in Les Cayes, where rich old Antoine Simon still held sway and Célestina unforgivingly remembered her fake pearls, the feelings of Port-au-Prince found support. During the night of January 4–5, 1916, the darkness of the capital was shattered by a vive fusillade directed against the casernes and the palace, with men dashing about the streets crying “Vivent les Cacos!” Marine sentries returned fire sparingly, killing or wounding five men before the uproar ceased. What had taken place — later dubbed the Pierre-Paul Revolution — was an attentat almost certainly financed by German merchants as well as by Antoine Simon, with Mizaël Codio as general. Pierre-Paul apparently hoped to seize the Palais, upset the regime and the Americans, and install Pauléus Sannon as president. The plot failed entirely — Codio, who the French minister said had been given 30,000 gourdes in expense money and had pocketed most, was eventually caught and locked up. More acute than the Americans, the French minister de la Batie reported the affair thoughtfully, remarking that the amenity and tact of Caperton and Beach in dealing with Haitian sensibilities would be taken for weakness by a people who from top to bottom respected only force. Then, to underscore what he perceived as profound Haitian misreading of the situation, the minister quoted J.-N. Léger’s contemptuous judgment on the Americans: believe me, two or three more outbreaks like this and they will leave — I was minister in Washington for a long time and I know them; they are nothing but capons.