Verrettes. Sabès and Gimont rode off by its road

The sentries posted at the edges of the camp stood motionless at their posts. The soldiers, who all scorned death, sat on broad stones around their few arms, stacked in piles, and waited impatiently for the signal to depart and to rush into new dangers. Senior officers, Gabart, Fontaine, Vernet, Pourcely, Placide Louverture and a crowd of others, holding under their arms sabers that shone with a bright luster, paced silently back and forth around the principal tent, from which their attentive eyes never turned. In that pavilion, standing near a table, was Toussaint Louverture: lean, short of stature, with mobile features, lively eyes and animated gestures. A rich sword hung at his side from a belt of gilded velvet set with precious stones. He was dictating to his secretary letters in which he seemed to take the keenest interest. It was 29 March (8 Germinal). When he had finished his correspondence, he said to one of his aides-de-camp: Bring me Brigade Chief Sabès and Ship’s Lieutenant Gimont. These two officers, as we have related, had been taken prisoner at Port-Républicain by Lamartinière. Dragged from morne to morne, exposed to all the fury of the Indigenous, a thousand times they had been on the point of being slaughtered. But Toussaint’s order that they alone be spared had always turned aside the saber raised to strike them. They were brought into the tent by Adjudant-General Fontaine. Citizens, Toussaint said to them, you are no longer prisoners; you will be escorted by trustworthy guides as far as Port-Républicain, and you will deliver these dispatches to General Boudet. Toussaint was informing the French government of the vain efforts he had made to keep the colony from becoming a vast desolation. At the same time he was sending Bonaparte a private letter in answer to the one Bonaparte had addressed to him. “You have never suffered any ill-treatment among us, citizens; you have witnessed our humanity toward many prisoners. France, whom the First Consul has misled with regard to us, will one day do us justice; of that we are certain. She will hold General Leclerc responsible for all these disasters, which he could have spared the colony by using toward me the forms of courtesy he owed to a French general, his equal, whose arms have vanquished the English and the Spaniards and preserved the whole colony for the mother country.” Brigade Chief Sabès answered him: “General, we have suffered much, and we have witnessed many atrocities. Had you not refused to recognize the lawful authority of the captain-general, we should not today have to deplore all the calamities that afflict us.” Toussaint, concealing as far as it lay in his power the indignation this bold reply had stirred in his heart, answered sharply: “You misjudge the nobility of my soul, citizen; I love my country too much to sacrifice its happiness to my ambition. General Leclerc presented himself in the colony, I will not say as a governor lawfully sent by his nation, but as an enemy. He summoned me to hand over authority to him, as though I were a rebel placed by circumstances at the head of the colony’s affairs, as though I had declared myself independent of France, whom I cherish. I have made war only on the captain-general. Was I not a French governor, proclaimed by the Central Assembly? Had I not earlier received from the Civil Commission the title of general-in-chief of the colony? Was that title not confirmed to me by the First Consul? Was I to submit to the caprices of Bonaparte, surrounded by vile and cruel colonists, my personal enemies? Iron and fire would not now be covering the mornes and the plains with blood and ruins had General Leclerc given me notice of his arrival before opening hostilities. I would have yielded authority to him, and the war would not have broken out in all its fury. Was it not my duty to defend French territory when foreign flags appeared to violate it? * For what precedents could have led me to think that it was a French army landing with a new French governor? Had the First Consul announced to me the sailing of the expedition? Could I not take the captain-general himself for a rebel fleeing his country and coming, of his own accord, to take possession of the colony? You, Lieutenant Gimont: if the captain of a corvette, sailing on the high seas, were suddenly fired upon by a ship of his own nation summoning him to strike his colors, what would he do, this captain? He would defend himself, as he would against a pirate. The captain-general has used none of the proceedings he owed to a French governor, his equal, and all the blood that has been shed will fall back upon his head. You may withdraw, citizens.”

The two Frenchmen had not observed Toussaint Louverture’s indignation without uneasiness. They hastily made ready to leave, set off at the full speed of their horses along the road to Les Verrettes, and felt their lives safe only when they were beyond the insurgent country.