Leclerc gave Pétion the command of the 13th demi-brigade.

One of General Leclerc’s first cares was to create for himself, after the example of Toussaint, an honor guard drawn from the elite of the Boudet division; then, understanding what weight the colonial troops might carry in the present events, already informed, even before leaving France, of the merit of the various officers of the colony, and satisfied above all with the honorable reports that Boudet made to him on Pétion’s conduct during the recent march from Saint-Marc, he gave to the latter, about 15 or 16 ventôse (6 or 7 March), the command of the 13th demi-brigade (1). If this was to repair in part the injustice of the ministry, since Pétion was chief of brigade and adjutant-general as well, it was also to lower the former commander in chief of the army of the South, it was also to make him pass from an elite arm, the artillery, to an inferior arm, the infantry, a change that military men have always regarded as a disgrace.