1957, February 7 – April 2: (Franck Sylvain’s Fifty-Two Days: Duvalier Stoned at Jacmel, 10,000 Piquets Invade Jérémie, and the Bomb Factory That Ended the P…

1957, February 7 – April 2: (Franck Sylvain’s Fifty-Two Days: Duvalier Stoned at Jacmel, 10,000 Piquets Invade Jérémie, and the Bomb Factory That Ended the Presidency): Days of aimless riot, uncertainty, and intense jockeying followed as adepts of constitutional divination debated who should succeed Pierre-Louis. General Cantave finally got the candidates together at army headquarters — Déjoie boycotted — and secured an agreement to throw the choice to the National Assembly. The vote on February 7 went to a forty-six-year-old fervent Catholic lawyer and journalist from Grand-Goâve, Franck Sylvain, who was also a supporter of Dr. Duvalier — he lasted fifty-two days. Electoral disorders seethed and behind such turbulence old scores were settled: riots and shooting erupted at Jacmel, where Duvalier was stoned — an occurrence the cité fière et vaillante would later regret — at Cayes, Jérémie, Léogâne, Gonaïves, and Port-au-Prince. In early March, on the rumor that Fignolé had been arrested, the proletariat stormed the Champ de Mars, attacking the police station and the palace itself; thrown back by police, the mob surged through the downtown smashing, looting, and stoning out street lights. Sylvain tacked uncertainly — banning political broadcasts, announcing elections for April 28, dissolving the legislature on March 29, ordering sequestration of Jumelle’s property — while yet another strike was called for April 1. Quite unexpectedly, on April 2 an astounded capital learned that following the discovery of the Martissant bomb factory, with fatal consequences for two police officers, President Sylvain had resigned and was under house arrest on charges that he had known about the bombs and, worse still, had prior knowledge of a plot to assassinate the principal candidates in their homes. One candidate apparently not on the bombers’ list was Dr. Duvalier — hardly surprising, because the four persons directly implicated were his close supporters, a fact the mild-mannered doctor blandly denied.