Les Cayes. Named seat of the electoral assembly of the South.

These two generals, wishing to draw ever closer the ties between the provinces they commanded and the Metropole, asked the governor, on the advice they had received from Pinchinat, for authority to convene primary assemblies to name deputies to the National Convention; for until then the West and the South had not been represented in France. In addressing themselves to Laveaux, and to the ordonnateur Perroud, they were complying with the law of 5 Thermidor. Laveaux did not grant their request: it would have given the old freedmen, with whom he was at enmity, spokesmen in Europe who were too direct. He contented himself with authorizing Rigaud and Bauvais to send commissioners to France to ask the Convention itself to convene the primary assemblies in Saint-Domingue. On 8 February 1796 (19 Pluviôse) the two generals wrote to him again and renewed their request very forcefully. The governor and the commissaire ordonnateur found themselves obliged to issue, on 18 February 1796 (29 Pluviôse), an ordinance that provided: 1. the convening of the primary assemblies in the parishes or cantons of the departments of the West and the South for 1 Germinal, Year 4 (21 March 1796); 2. the designation of the town of Léogane as the seat of the electoral assembly of the West, and of the town of Les Cayes as that of the electoral assembly of the South; 3. the number of deputies to be elected fixed at three for each department.