The decree known as the law of 4 April restored equal rights to the freedmen and provided for a new commission and troops.

Already the sad news of the Sainte-Cécile had reached France; the cause of this great disaster was attributed, rightly, to the revocation of the decree of 15 May. The Legislative Assembly, which had replaced the Constituent Assembly, again agitated the colonial question. Tarbé, in the session of 2 March, delivered a long report on the misfortunes of Saint-Domingue. He cast on the white caste all the odium and the responsibility for them. Garau de Coulon, in that session, enlightened the assembly on the origin of all our troubles. The peroration of his speech deserves to be reported: “Let us declare,” said he, “that this decree (that of 24 September, which placed the fate of the freedmen at the mercy of the colonial assemblies) is an attack on the sovereignty of the nation; we are in no way subject to it, either as citizens or as deputies; we must detest it as men.” The assembly accordingly reversed itself on the decree that the maneuvers of Barnave had won from it by surprise. The decree of 4 April restored that of 15 May; it was a tardy homage that the mother country rendered to the principle of the rights of man, the more so as its vacillations had already caused almost irreparable evils. The new decree, known by the name of law of 4 April, carried the appointment of a new commission, the dispatch of troops, of some funds and of several generals.