Beauvais sailed secretly for Curaçao on the schooner Argus, in the night of 27 to 28 fructidor, and Birot took command at Jacmel.

It was after such a letter that Beauvais lost his head on receiving that of Roume. Struck down and thunderstruck, so to speak, he forgot that he wore a sword and that his name belonged to history. He thought at once of going to carry his complaints to the executive Directoire. He embarked for Curaçao, on the schooner the Argus, in the night of 27 to 28 fructidor (13 to 14 September) (1), and left to his comrades a letter full of touching farewells and wise counsels. When, at daybreak, this clandestine flight became known, the army called him a coward; but when the brigade chief Birot had taken the supreme command, had had the general alarm beaten, and had given to the troops assembled on the place d’armes a reading of the letter that Beauvais had left, tears flowed from every eye: his faintheartedness was forgotten, and men remembered only the hero of ’91, the man of worth, the citizen devoted to the happiness of all, whose name is written in all hearts and who awaits from the gratitude of his fellow citizens the erection of a column of granite.