Aquin. Lafleur learns of the insurrection and sends Vancol and Fossé

Wagnac charged Captain Rousseau of the 17th and the citizen Glaisil to go to Aquin, to Colonel Vancol, and hasten his adherence to the revolution. Vancol had left Aquin with orders from General Lafleur to fight the insurgents. On reaching Saint-Louis he had entrusted the troops under his command to Battalion Commander Fossé and had pressed on toward Les Cayes. Rousseau and Glaisil met him on the Bergeaud plantation and went back with him to Wagnac. Vancol, one of the most influential officers of the South, had already won over the troops of Aquin, who were following close behind him.

Wagnac assembled the garrison of Les Cayes on the parade ground and told the soldiers that this insurrection did not spring from ambition; that the tyranny of Dessalines alone had given birth to it. After setting out for them that they had never been paid since Dessalines was raised to the dignity of Emperor, he added that the Emperor covered numerous mistresses, in every town of the country, with gold and precious stones. Well then, from now on you will be paid, he cried; tomorrow you will receive all that is owed you. It is General Christophe who is today at the head of the government; he will not squander the money that belongs to you by lavishing it on his women and his favorites. Long live General Christophe! The troops repeated the cry, and added: Long live Wagnac! Long live Papalier! Wagnac put forward the name of Christophe because he had been initiated as early as 1805 into the conspiracy of Geffrard.

The same day, 10 October, the 17th, on the march from Aquin toward Les Cayes, declared for the movement. When General Guillaume Lafleur, commander of the arrondissement of Aquin, had learned of the insurrection on 9 October from the letter Papalier had addressed to him, he had put all the troops under arms and, while forwarding Papalier’s letter to Dessalines, had written to him that he was about to march against the insurgents. We have just seen that he had sent Colonel Vancol and Battalion Commander Fossé against the insurgents with the elite companies of the 17th, and that Vancol had already entered Les Cayes to join Wagnac.