Port-de-Paix. Rébecca enters with the 9th and then burns the town

Captain Alain, who had not followed the officers, had gone back to his house. His wife, who had heard the soldiers repeating everywhere that they did not wish to kill anyone, urged him not to leave. He followed this advice. When day began to break, the soldiers of the 3rd battalion of the 9th assembled on the parade ground, dragged the four-pounder onto the wharf, and prevented any vessel from getting under sail. To their great astonishment they saw Alain seated before his door; they said to him: “You have trusted us; very well! we give you the command of the place!” Alain answered that he accepted. They added that the money found in the treasury had been carried off by a few among them who were enjoying it alone, and they urged him to make every kind of search on the spot to recover some gourdes that Rébecca would need. In a few hours Alain collected 1,200 gourdes. It is worth remarking that not one of the noncommissioned officers and soldiers of the 9th had thought of taking rank. Rébecca, a simple grenadier, held the supreme command; the companies and battalions were commanded by the noncommissioned officers, who kept their insignia.

While Alain strove to restore a little order in the place, the soldiers of the two first battalions of the 9th, who had withdrawn to the Trois-Pavillons with Rébecca at their head, spread through the surrounding countryside and stirred the populations to revolt. As early as the 12th of May, part of the 14th demi-brigade had also risen at Le Gros-Morne. General Magny, who commanded at Les Gonaïves, had hastened to ask for help from Brigade Chief Monyobare, commandant of Plaisance. Monyobare had gathered all the national guards of his district, had moved to Pilate, near the boundary of the parish of Le Gros-Morne, and had set up a cordon of troops there to keep the revolt from entering the parish entrusted to him. The soldiers of the 9th invaded Le Borgne and made its whole population leave and carried it off with them, after forcing its commandant, Jean-Pierre Azard, to flee by the Côtes-de-Fer. Le Limbé too would have revolted had its commandant, Michel Auguste, not hastened to take the most vigorous measures to keep it quiet. * **

Rébecca, for his part, had made his arrangements to return to Port-de-Paix as soon as he received Pourcely’s answer. After gathering his troops scattered about the neighborhood, he came down from the Trois-Pavillons on the 19th at eight in the morning, at the head of the soldiers of the two first battalions, who carried laurels, with flags unfurled and drums and band in front. When he reached the square of Port-de-Paix, wearing his grenadier’s uniform, his woolen epaulets, his cartridge box and his musket, he had the demi-brigade drawn up in line of battle and advanced to meet Captain Alain, who, wearing his decorations, stood at the office of the place. Alain saluted him with the title of colonel. Rébecca answered him: “I am not a colonel; if you will, call me comrade.” He commended the soldiers of the 3rd battalion for having given Alain the command of the place, fraternized with him and promised to forget the past. Before the revolt, Alain, in his capacity as adjudant de place, had many times punished Rébecca’s misconduct with the greatest severity. *

Rébecca called a young soldier named Sainte Blême and dictated to him a proclamation informing the inhabitants of Port-de-Paix that they were now free, masters of disposing of their property as they pleased and of going wherever they wished.

Meanwhile the soldiers had broken ranks and scattered through the town, some to plunder, others to see their kinsfolk. A moment later Captain Jules Derré, whom Pourcely had sent to Christophe to announce the occupation of the Trois Pavillons, arrived in the middle of the parade ground. Many soldiers wanted to massacre him. But Alain checked their fury with these words: “Jules Derré is a soldier; if General Pourcely had sent you to Le Cap, you would have done your duty as he did; why do you wish to murder him?” His voice was heeded. He asked Jules Derré where he had left Christophe. The courier answered that it was at the Ravine Pourrie, five leagues from Port-de-Paix. This news at once ran through the whole town. Rébecca came back at a gallop to the parade ground, still in his grenadier’s uniform, and had the general alarm beaten. But he could gather only about twenty men, the rest being given over to plunder. Then, to stop this disorder and compel the soldiers and the inhabitants to abandon the town, he set fire to it. In a few hours Port-de-Paix became one vast blaze. The women, the children and the old, loaded with bundles of clothing and accompanied by the soldiers who were their kin, took the road to the mountain. Rébecca had the thousand gourdes deposited at the office of the place carried off, entrusted the three flags of the 9th to the twenty grenadiers, no more, whom he had been able to gather, and led them into the road to the Trois Pavillons, after having put in safety his mother, the citizeness Élisabeth, and his wife, Suzanne Leroux.