The Hour and the Man Part 21

"This, however, will I do," said Toussaint. "I will meet you to-morrow, at the great church in Port-au-Prince, and there bind myself before the altar, before the G.o.d who hears me now, on behalf of your people, to be silent on the past, and to employ my vigilance and my toils in rendering happy the Spanish people, now become my fellow-citizens of France."

A profusion of obeisances proved that this was satisfactory. The late governor of the city took from one of his officers the velvet cushion on which were deposited the keys of Saint Domingo, and transferred it to the hands of the Commander-in-chief. At the moment, there was an explosion of cannon from the terrace on which stood the town; the bells rang in all the churches; and bursts of military music spread over the calm bay, with the wreaths of white smoke from the guns. The flamingoes took flight again from the strand; the ships moved in their anchorage; the shouts of the people arose from the town, and those of the soldiery from the square of the great avenue. Their idol, their Ouverture, was now in command of the whole of the most beautiful of the isles of the west.

As soon as he could be heard, Toussaint introduced his brother to the Spaniards. Placing the cushion containing the keys upon the table, and laying his hand upon the keys, he declared his intention of giving to the inhabitants of the city of Saint Domingo a pledge of the merciful and gentle character of the government under which they were henceforth to live, in the person of the new governor, Paul L'Ouverture, who had never been known to remember unkindness from day-to-day. The new governor would depart for the east of the island on the morrow, from the door of the church, at the close of the celebration.

The levee was now over. Spanish, French, and the family and guests of the Commander-in-chief, were to meet at a banquet in the evening.

Meantime, Toussaint and his brother stepped out together upon the northern piazza, and the room was cleared.

"I wish," said Paul, "that you had appointed any one but me to be governor of that city. How should a poor negro fisherman like me govern a city?"

"You speak like a white, Paul. The whites say of me, 'How should a poor negro postillion govern a colony?' You must do as I do--show that a negro can govern."

"But Heaven made you for a ruler."

"Who thought so while I was yet a slave? As for you--I know not what you can do till you have tried; nor do you. I own that you are not the man I should have appointed, if I had had a choice among all kinds of men."

"Then look around for some other."

"There is no other, on the whole, so little unfit as you. Henri must remain in the field while Rigaud is in arms. Jacques--"

"Ay, Dessalines--and he might have a court--such a wife as he would carry."

"Dessalines must not govern a city of whites. He hates the whites. His pa.s.sion of hatred would grow with power; and the Spaniards would be wretched. They are now under my protection. I must give them a governor who cannot hate; and therefore I send you. Your love of our people and of me, my brother, will rouse you to exertion and self-denial. For the rest you shall have able counsellors on the spot.

For your private guidance, I shall be ever at your call. Confide wholly in me, and your appeal shall never be unanswered."

"You shall be governor, then. I will wear the robes, and your head shall do the work. I will amuse the inhabitants with water-parties, and you--"

"No more of this!" said Toussaint, somewhat sternly. "It seems that you are unwilling to do your part of the great duty of our age and our race.

Heaven has appointed you the opportunity of showing that blacks are men--fit to govern as to serve;--and you would rather sleep in the sunshine than listen to the message from the sky. My own brother does what he can to deepen the brand on the forehead of the negro!"

"I am ashamed, brother," said Paul, "I am not like you; but yet I will do what I can. I will go to-morrow, and try whether I can toil as you do. There is one thing I can do which Henri, and Jacques, and even you, cannot;--I can speak Spanish."

"You have discovered one of your qualifications, dear Paul. You will find more. Will you take Moyse with you?"

"Let it be a proof that I can deny myself, that I leave my son with you.

Moyse is pa.s.sionate."

"I know it," said Toussaint.

"He governs both his love and his hatred before you, while with me he indulges them. He must remain with you, in order to command his pa.s.sions. He inherited them from me; and I must thus far help him to master them. You are all-powerful with him. I have no power."

"You mean that Genifrede and I together are all-powerful with him. I believe it is so."

"To you, then, I commit him. Moyse is henceforth your son."

"As Genifrede is your daughter, Paul. If I die before the peace of the island is secured, there are two duties which I a.s.sign to you--to support the spirit of the blacks, and to take my Genifrede for your daughter. The rest of my family love each other, and the world we live in. She loves only Moyse."

"She is henceforth my child. But when will you marry them?"

"When Moyse shall have done some act to distinguish himself--for which he shall not want opportunity. I have a higher duty than that to my family--it is my duty to call out all the powers of every black. Moyse must therefore prove what he can do, before he can marry his love. For him, however, this is an easy condition."

"I doubt not you are right, brother; but it is well for me that the days of my love are past."

"Not so, Paul. The honour of your race must now be your love. For this you must show what you can do."

They had paced the northern piazza while conversing. They now turned into the eastern, where they came upon the lovers, who were standing half shrouded by creeping plants--Moyse's arm round Genifrede's waist, and Genifrede's head resting on her lover's shoulder. The poor girl was sobbing violently, while Moyse was declaring that he would marry her, with or without consent, and carry her with him, if he was henceforth to live in the east of the island.

"Patience, foolish boy!" cried his father. "You go not with me. I commit you to my brother. You will stay with him, and yield him the duty of a son--a better duty than we heard you planning just now."

"As soon as you prove yourself worthy, you shall be my son indeed," said Toussaint. "I have heard your plans of marriage. You shall hear mine.

I will give you opportunities of distinguishing yourself, in the services of the city and of the field. After the first act which proves you worthy of responsibility, I will give you Genifrede. As a free man, can you desire more?"

"I am satisfied--I am grateful," said Moyse. "I believe I spoke some hasty words just now; but we supposed I was to be sent among the whites--and I had so lately returned from the south--and Genifrede was so wretched!"

Genifrede threw herself on her father's bosom, with broken words of love and grat.i.tude. It was the first time she had ever voluntarily approached so near him; and she presently drew back, and glanced in his face with timid awe.

"My Genifrede! My child!" cried Toussaint, in a rapture of pleasure at this loosening of the heart. He drew her towards him, folded his arms about her, kissed the tears from her cheek, and hushed her sobs, saying, in a low voice which touched her very soul--

"He can do great deeds, Genifrede. He is yours, my child; but we shall all be proud of him."

She looked up once more, with a countenance so radiant, that Toussaint carried into all the toils and observance of the day the light heart of a happy father.

Note 1. I have to acknowledge that injustice is done in this work to the character of General Vincent. The writer of historical fiction is under that serious liability, in seizing on a few actual incidents, concerning a subordinate personage, that he makes himself responsible for justice to the whole character of the individual whose name he introduces into his story. Under this liability I have been unjust to Vincent, as Scott was to Edward Christian, in "Peveril of the Peak," and Campbell to Brandt, in "Gertrude of Wyoming." Like them, I am anxious to make reparation on the first opportunity. It is true that in my Appendix I avowed that Vincent was among those of my personages whose name alone I adopted, without knowing his character; but such an explanation in an appendix does not counteract the impression already made by the work. Finding this, I had thoughts of changing the name in the present edition; but I feared the character being still identified with Vincent, from its being fact that it was Vincent who accompanied Toussaint's sons to Paris, and returned with the deputation, as I have represented; I think it best, therefore, to say here that, from all I can learn, General Vincent was an honourable and useful man, and that the delineation of character under that name in my book is purely fict.i.tious. The following extract from Clarkson's pamphlet on Negro Improvement will show in what estimation General Vincent is held by one whose testimony is of the highest value:--

"The next witness to whom I shall appeal is the estimable General Vincent, who now lives at Paris, though at an advanced age. He was a Colonel, and afterwards a General of Brigade of Artillery in Saint Domingo. He was detained there during the time both of Santhonax and Toussaint. He was also a proprietor of estates in the island. He was the man who planned the renovation of its agriculture after the abolition of slavery, and one of the great instruments in bringing it to the perfection mentioned by La Croix. In the year 1801 he was called upon by Toussaint to repair to Paris, to lay before the Directory the new Const.i.tution, which had been agreed on in Saint Domingo. He obeyed the summons. It happened that he arrived in France just at the moment of the Peace of Amiens. Here he found, to his inexpressible surprise and grief, that Bonaparte was preparing an immense armament, under Leclerc, to restore slavery in Saint Domingo. He remonstrated against the expedition: he told him to his face that though the army destined for this purpose was composed of the brilliant conquerors of Europe, they could do nothing in the Antilles. He stated, as another argument against the expedition, that it was totally unnecessary, and, therefore, criminal; for that everything was going on well in Saint Domingo; the proprietors in peaceable possession of their estates, cultivation making rapid progress, the Blacks industrious, and beyond example happy."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

L'ETOILE AND ITS PEOPLE.

One radiant day of the succeeding spring, a party was seen in the plain of Cul-de-Sac, moving with such a train as showed that one of the princ.i.p.al families of the island was travelling. Rigaud and his forces were so safely engaged in the south, that the plain was considered secure from their incursions. Port-au-Prince, surrounded on three sides by hills, was now becoming so hot, that such of its inhabitants as had estates in the country were glad to retire to them, as soon as the roads were declared safe; and among these were the family of the Commander-in-Chief, who, with tutors, visitors, and attendants, formed the group seen in the Cul-de-Sac this day. They were removing to their estate of Pongaudin, on the sh.o.r.es of the bay of Gonaves, a little to the north of the junction of the Artibonite with the sea; but instead of travelling straight and fast, they intended to make a three days'

journey of what might have been accomplished in less than two--partly for the sake of the pleasure of the excursion, and partly to introduce their friends from Europe to some of the beauties of the most beautiful island in the world.

Madame L'Ouverture had had presents of European carriages, in which she did not object to take airings in the towns and their neighbourhood; but nowhere else were the roads in a state to bear such heavy vehicles. In the sandy bridle-paths they would have sunk half their depth; in the green tracks they would have been caught in thickets of brambles and low boughs; while many swamps occurred which could be crossed only by single horses, accustomed to pick their way in uncertain ground. The ladies of the colony, therefore, continued, as in all time past, to take their journeys on horseback, each attended by some one--a servant, if there were neither father, brother, nor lover--to hold the umbrella over her during rain, or the more oppressive hours of sunshine.

The family of L'Ouverture had left the palace early, and were bound, for an estate in the middle of the plain, where they intended to rest, either till evening, or till the next morning, as inclination might determine. As their train, first of horses, and then of mules, pa.s.sed along, now under avenues of lofty palms, which const.i.tuted a deep, moist shade in the midst of the glare of the morning--now across fields of sward, kept green by the wells which were made to overflow them; and now through swamps where the fragrant flowering reeds reached up to the flanks of the horses, and courted the hands of the riders, the inhabitants of the region watched their progress, and gave them every variety of kindly greeting. The mother who was sitting at work under the tamarind-tree called her children down from its topmost branches to do honour to the travellers. Many a half-naked negro in the rice-grounds slipped from the wet plank on which, while gazing, he forgot his footing, and laughed his welcome from out of the mud and slime. The white planters who were taking their morning ride over their estates, bent to the saddle-bow, the large straw hat in hand, and would not cover their heads from the hot sun till the ladies had pa.s.sed.

These planters' wives and daughters, seated at the shaded windows, or in the piazzas of their houses, rose and curtsied deep to the ladies L'Ouverture. Many a little black head rose dripping from the clear waters, gleaming among the reeds, where negro children love to watch the gigantic dragon-flies of the tropics creeping from their sheaths, and to catch them as soon as they spread their gauzy wings, and exhibit their gem-like bodies to the sunlight. Many a group of cultivators in the cane-grounds grasped their arms, on hearing the approach of numbers-- taught thus by habitual danger--but swung back the gun across the shoulder, or tucked the pistol again into the belt, at sight of the ladies; and then ran to the road-side to remove any fancied obstruction in the path; or, if they could do no more, to smile a welcome. It was observable that, in every case, there was an eager glance, in the first place, of search for L'Ouverture himself; but when it was seen that he was not there, there was still all the joy that could be shown where he was not.

The whole country was full of song. As Monsieur Loisir, the architect from Paris, said to Genifrede, it appeared as if vegetation itself went on to music. The servants of their own party sang in the rear; Moyse and Denis, and sometimes Denis' sisters, sang as they rode; and if there was not song already on the track, it came from behind every flowering hedge--from the crown of the cocoa-nut tree--from the window of the cottage. The sweet wild note of the mocking-bird was awakened in its turn; and from the depths of the tangled woods, where it might defy the human eye and hand, it sent forth its strain, shrill as the thrush, more various than the nightingale, and sweeter than the canary. But for the bird, the Spanish painter, Azua, would have supposed that all this music was the method of reception of the family by the peasantry; but, on expressing his surprise to Aimee, she answered that song was as natural to Saint Domingo, when freed, as the light of sun or stars, when there were no clouds in the sky. The heart of the negro was, she said, as naturally charged with music as his native air with fragrance. If you dam up his mountain-streams, you have, instead of fragrance, poison and pestilence; and if you chain up the negro's life in slavery, you have, for music, wailing and curses. Give both free course, and you have an atmosphere of spicy odours, and a universal spirit of song.

"This last," said Azua, "is as one long, but varied, ode in honour of your father. Men of some countries would watch him as a magician, after seeing the wonders he has wrought. Who, looking over this wide level, on which plenty seems to have emptied her horn, would believe how lately and how thoroughly it was ravaged by war?"

"There seems to be magic in all that is made," said Aimee; "so that all are magicians who have learned to draw it forth. Monsieur Loisir was showing us yesterday how the lightning may now be brought down from the thunder-cloud, and carried into the earth at some given spot. Our servants, who have yearly seen the thunderbolt fire the cottage or the mill, tremble, and call the lightning-rods magic. My father is a magician of the same sort, except that he deals with a deeper and higher magic."

"That which lies in men's hearts--in human pa.s.sions."