Roume proclaimed at the Cap the levy in mass of the population against Rigaud.

Roume alone could attempt to extinguish the fire that was beginning to kindle. As representative of France, he could order the parties, following the counsels of Kerverseau, to lay down their arms and to remit cognizance of the situation to the Executive Directory, declaring enemies of the human race those who should attempt to revive the hatreds of caste. Such an attempt would have honored his memory. But he was a colonist; and although he had married a *mulâtresse*, although he had had a daughter by her, he was perhaps not sorry to see the preponderant influence of the formerly free decline. He was therefore seen, after coming to an understanding with Toussaint, to proclaim at the Cap, on 15 messidor (5 July), the levy in mass of the population against Rigaud. His manifesto breathes on every page the most shameful partiality. Imitating the style of Robespierre, of whom he was the friend and admirer, he begins with an invocation to the people. After setting out, in his manner and in Toussaint’s, the causes of the rupture, after treating as a rag the act by which Hédouville had released Rigaud from the authority of Toussaint, after calling down the thunderbolt upon the department of the South, he ends by offering Rigaud pardon, if he would acknowledge his fatal error in a public writing addressed to himself and to the general in chief. One cannot help recognizing that if the bombastic style of this curious document belongs to Roume, the whole substance of it was inspired by Toussaint.