Portail Saint-Joseph. Hérard Dumesle rides toward it before being brought back.

For several weeks Hérard Dumesle had given himself up so wholly to pleasures in his mansion on the rue Pavée, keeping a seraglio in its very spacious courtyard, planted with trees and flowers, that he knew nothing of the conspiracy being hatched and was far from thinking that its explosion was imminent. He arrived on the square at ten o’clock, mounted on a fine black horse, accompanied by two field officers and a single orderly. He told the citizens present that the President of the Republic was asking for reinforcements and that a battalion was to be formed and sent to Azua. An officer of the national guard named Léandre, who was in the conspiracy, answered him that the town of Port-au-Prince had sacrificed enough, that it had already sent twelve hundred men to the Eastern Part, and that it could not send yet another battalion. While these words were being exchanged, the citizens Sauveur Faubert and Blanfort Juda took aim at Hérard Dumesle, but their weapons were knocked up by those who stood beside them. At the same moment the inner circle of the conspirators, who were with Guerrier at the National Palace, sent one of their confederates to the principal leaders of the national guard to forbid them, by order of general Guerrier, to kill Hérard Dumesle. As Léandre’s language grew more and more seditious, Hérard Dumesle turned to his orderly and said to him: “Dragoons, charge!” At the same moment one of his epaulettes fell off, and the hilarity was general. He turned his horse and made for the Portail Saint-Joseph, saying that he was going to Azua to join the President. Some horsemen dashed after him and brought him back to the place Pétion. Bellanton and Paul Cupidon said to him: “General, let us go to the Palace; do not argue with national guards who understand nothing of military affairs.” They left the square discontented, for nothing had been accomplished, and remained with Hérard Dumesle, although they were against him.