possibilities of light and of color in the equatorial world. And he
who has once known them must continue forever enchanted,--must feel,
after departure from them, like an exile from Paradise. The poetry of
the tropics is born of such regret. Romance and song are essentially
imaginative; and that which surpasses and satiates imagination does
not directly stimulate their production: it is only as an exile that
the creole becomes a poet, when he remembers the charm of his country
without the pains of its daily life. There is no more touching
incident, perhaps, in literary history, than the fate of Léonard, the
poet of Guadeloupe. His youth had been mostly spent abroad in struggles
to obtain the means of returning to his native island. Succeeding
after intense strain, he returned to find himself only a victim of
the revolution of 1789,--threatened with death if he persisted in
remaining. His friends hurried him on board a vessel; but, although he
had been already wounded and pursued by an assassin, he could not nerve
himself to go. Again and again he left the ship, and only with the
greatest difficulty could he be persuaded at last to remain on board.
But nostalgia had brought him to the condition of a dying man before
his arrival in France. At Nantes he tried to reëmbark, hoping at least
to die in his beloved island; but he expired before the ship could sail.
Tropical nature is indeed an enchantress; but she does more than
bewitch, she transforms body and soul. She satisfies the senses,
and numbs the aspirations; she lulls the higher faculties to sleep
while gratifying, as nowhere else, the physical wants of life. It has
been often said that human happiness has a certain fixed measure in
all conditions of existence: the quality may vary, the capacity for
each individual remains the same. Such a belief would seem to have
its confirmation in the conditions of tropical society. The pleasures
of intellectual life become almost impossible in a climate where
the least mental effort provokes drowsiness, and the middle of each
day is devoted to sleep; nor can the dazzling spectacle of tropical
vegetation under tropical skies wholly compensate the enervating
effect of an atmosphere hot and heavy as the air of a Turkish bath.
Social existence, so circumstanced, becomes of necessity both indolent
and provincial; and the enchantment of the tropics should prove
irresistible only to strangers able and willing to dream life away,
and to abandon all gifts of civilization so hardly earned by Northern
struggle. And one must know this, to guess how far from enviable is
the life of white women even in the English tropics, where there is at
least an effort to maintain the social customs of the mother country.
But in the old Latin colonies of the Pacific and the West Indies,
woman's life has always been narrowed by formal customs which no
American or English girl could well resign herself to endure.
II
Time seems to have moved very slowly in the old French colonies. In
the streets of Martinique or Réunion or Marie-Galante or Guadeloupe,
one almost seems to live in the seventeenth century,--so little
have architecture or customs been modified in two or three hundred
years. The great changes effected by the abolition of slavery are not
immediately discernible to a stranger; the free blacks and people
of color, forming the mass of the population, still cling to the
simple and bright attire of other days, and seem to hold almost the
same relation to white colonial life as hired servants that they
formerly held as slaves. Emancipation, republicanism, and education
have not yet abolished the old manners, nor greatly modified the
creole speech. Could Josephine arise from the dust of her rest to
revisit her Martinique birthplace, she would find so little changed
at Trois-Islets, that except for the saucier manner of the younger
negroes, she could scarcely surmise the new republican conditions. And
the modern life of the creole woman, though less luxurious than in the
previous century of colonial prosperity, varies otherwise little from
that of her great-greatgrandmother.
Her birth is announced with antique formality in the colonial papers,
and duly registered in the _Archives de la Marine_. She is christened
in the twilight of some colonial baptistery, where silhouettes of
palm-heads quiver behind stained-glass windows; and receives those
half-dozen names--names of angels, or saints, alternated with names
of ancestors--by which every white creole child is ushered into the
world. Then some comely black or brown woman, dazzlingly robed in
bright colors, and covered with barbaric jewelry, carries her on a
silken cushion from house to house that all of family kin may kiss her.
Always through the recollections of her childhood there will smile
back to her the memory of that kind swart face,--the face of her black
nurse, of her _da_. It is the _da_ who bathes her, feeds her, dresses
her, lulls her to sleep with song: doubtless for a time she believes
the dark woman her mother. It is the _da_ who first takes her out
into the beautiful world of the tropics,--shows her the mighty azure
circle of the sea, and the coming and going of the ships, and the peaks
with their circling clouds, and the whispering gold of cane-fields,
and the palms, and the jewel-feathered humming birds. It is the black
nurse who first teaches her to kiss,--to utter the words _'Manman,'
'Da,' 'Papoute,'_ to express her infant thoughts in the softest
cooing speech uttered by human lips,--the creole tongue. It is the
_da_ also who first thrills her child-fancy into blossom with stories
of the impossible, and who stimulates her musical sense by teaching
her strange songs,--melodies borne with slavery into the Indies from
Senegal or the Coast of Gold.
Growing older, the little one is gradually separated from her _da_, is
taught to speak French, to submit to many formal restraints, is finally
sent,--while still a mere child,--to some convent school. She leaves
it only on arriving at womanhood. Perhaps during those years she sees
her parents every regular visiting day, and during the brief Christmas
vacations; but she is practically separated otherwise from them as much
as if imprisoned,--though they may be living only a few streets away.
If they are very rich, she may be sent away to France. In the latter
event she may acquire accomplishments superior to those imparted in
any colonial convent; but the education mother respects is very simple
and old-fashioned: the chief result aimed at in the training of girls
being moral and religious rather than secular. The _pensionnaires_ of
the colonial convents wear a very plain uniform,--a straightfalling
dress of sombre color, belted at the waist, and a broad straw hat. The
different classes are distinguished by long narrow ribbons crossed over
breast and back and tied round the waist below, the ends being left to
stream down at one side. One class wears blue ribbons; another pink;
another white. Altogether the uniform is ugly; it gives an aspect of
clumsiness which is quite foreign to the creole race. Nothing could
seem more uninteresting than a procession of convent girls on their way
to church, escorted by nuns. But this is only the chrysalis stage of
creole girl-life: the beautiful butterfly will be revealed when that
sombre uniform is abandoned forever.
At seventeen or eighteen the creole girl returns home, with a large
package of class prizes,--mostly publications of Mame & Cie,--showy
volumes of a semi-religious character,--with a few books of travel,
perhaps, added, which have been carefully perused and recommended
as safe reading by some ecclesiastical censor. A private party is
given in her honor; and she makes her _début_ into creole society.
Her life, thereafter, however, would not, by American girls at all
events, be thought enviable. She rarely leaves home, except to pay a
visit to some relatives, or to go to church under the escort of some
member of the family, or some old lady chosen to accompany her. She
is scarcely ever seen upon the streets. The pleasures of shopping are
denied her. Whatever she needs is purchased for her by male relatives,
or by her hired maid,--who selects at the store such merchandise as
may be desired, and carries a stock of samples to the house, in a
tray balanced upon her head. There the decision is made, the chosen
articles retained, and the remainder carried back to the merchant,
who in due time sends in his bill. There are no evening parties or
visitings; the active life of the colony ends with sundown; all
retire between eight and nine o'clock, and rise with dawn. Except
during the brief theatrical season, and on the annual occasion of a
carnival ball given by select society, there are no evening amusements.
The discipline of the convent has prepared the young girl for this
secluded existence; but were it not for the intense heat of the
climate, she would probably suffer, in spite of such preparation, from
the monotony of her life. Happily for her, she remains as innocent
of other conditions of society as she is ignorant of all evil; and
the tenderness of her mother or other relatives does all that can be
done to render her existence happy. Still, she sometimes regrets her
convent-days,--the liberty of play-hours in the open court, with its
palms and _sabliers_: she likes to revisit the nuns occasionally,
to get a glimpse of the pupils amusing themselves as she used to
do,--secretly wishes, perhaps, that she were a child again. But she has
yet no idea how often she will wish that wish before they robe her all
in black, and put her away to sleep forever somewhere in the colonial
cemetery, under the tall palms.
All about her young life glimmer conventional bars: she is a caged
bird, vaguely desiring liberty, without a suspicion of what perils
liberty might bring. Her pleasures, her ideas, her emotions are still
those of a child,--even on the day when her mother, kissing her,
first whispers to her some news that makes her flush to her hair. She
has been spoken for! A gentleman, whom she scarcely knows even as
a visitor, has demanded her hand. Could she love him? She does not
know; she is willing to do whatever her mother deems best. They meet
thereafter more frequently,--but always as before in the _salon_,
in the presence of the family: there is no wooing; there are no
private walks and talks; there is, in short, no romance in creole
courtship;--everything is arranged and determined by the heads of
both families. Her betrothal is circulated as a piece of private news
throughout society; but no printed mention of it is ever made. Finally
the notary is called, and the marriage contract drawn up, after a
strictly business manner; she has rarely anything to do with these
preliminaries, but the future husband, if a man of the world, will
be careful to read the contract very attentively, and to discuss its
provisions, point by point. It is, in fact, a decided weakness to omit
these formal considerations of the financial side of marriage. More
than one proud or sensitive man has had reason late in life to regret
the impulse of trust or affection which caused him to sign his marriage
contract without examining it. But the _fiancée_ had nothing to do with
this: she is content to leave her parents to make every possible effort
to secure her material happiness.
Marriage opens to her a larger sphere of life. She can go out freely,
visit friends, entertain relatives at her home, and--in these more
recent years--even occasionally enter stores. But such comparative
freedom has its disadvantages. It involves a round of social duties
more or less wearisome,--visits during the heated hours of the day, and
the wearing of black close-fitting Parisian dresses in an atmosphere
and under a sun more difficult to endure than any summer conditions of
the temperate zone. Probably she feels relieved when at a later day the
cares of her household and children enable her to excuse herself from
taking further part in active social life; and thereafter she rarely
leaves home, except to go to church.
III
For more than two centuries such has been the monotonous,
half-cloistered existence of creole women in the French colonies.
Such a life might have been Josephine's had she wedded a merchant or
planter of Martinique, instead of a soldier. In the past century and
before it, slavery and wealth made the existence of the creole woman
more luxurious: there were more social pleasures for her also,--more
parties, receptions, amusements,--especially in the capital, Fort
Royal, where the Governor held a veritable court. Furthermore, the
flower of creole society passed much of its time at Paris, and
exercised some influence in the _Métropole_. But in the colony
proper, the creole girl has no free joyous girlhood, no prospect of
larger liberty save through marriage, and no romance of love. Yet,
notwithstanding these apparent disadvantages, the _demoiselles_ of the
last century were famed throughout the world for their charm of manner
and singular beauty.
Climate and other tropical conditions had quite transformed the
colonial race within a few generations, changing not only complexion
and temperament, but the very shape of the skeleton,--lengthening
the limbs, making delicate the extremities, deepening the orbits to
protect the eye from the immense light. The creole became more lithe
and refined of aspect than the European parent,--taller but more
slender,--more supple, though less strong; and that grace which is the
particular characteristic of Latin blood would seem to have obtained
its utmost possible physical expression in the women of Martinique. The
colony was justly proud of them; their reputation abroad had become
romantic; and legends of their witchery were being circulated the world
over. So much was their influence feared that the home government
passed a special law forbidding any of its colonial officials to marry
creoles, lest the discharge of diplomatic duties should be directed by
some charming woman's will, rather than by the will of the sovereign.
Yet, in a few years more, a creole woman was to share the throne of
the first Napoleon, and sway the destinies of Europe by her gentle
counsel,--that Josephine de la Pagerie, of Trois-Islets, whose memory
lives in the beautiful marble statue erected in the _Savane_ of
Fort-de-France, by the citizens of the colony.
IV
There is another Martinique memory, which one cannot pass over in
speaking of the creole beauties of former days. Robert, a tiny village
on the southeast coast, has a legend which once gave it quite as much
distinction as Trois-Islets. Robert, or at least one of its suburbs,
claimed to be the birthplace of another lovely creole, who became,
it was alleged, no less a personage than the Sultana-Validé of Selim
III. More than one historian seems to have given credit to this story,
M. Sidney Daney, in his 'Histoire de la Martinique,' even published
her portrait, with the inscription beneath: 'Aimée Dubuc De Rivéry,
Sultana-Validé, et mère de Mahmoud II.--A pretty face, with hair
powdered and combed back after the early fashion of the eighteenth
century, and that soft roundness of lines suggesting the ripeness of
sixteen years,--when the slender child is just passing into the beauty
of womanhood.
The legend is said to have inspired a novel, which I was not able to
find in the colony; it is perhaps long out of print. The pages of M.
Sidney Daney,[1] who treats the story as a historical event, probably
form the best authority for it. According to this writer Mademoiselle
Aimée Dubuc Dérivry was born on the Pointe Royale plantation at Robert
in December, 1766,--three years later than Josephine. She was the
child of one of the oldest and most distinguished creole families of
Martinique. She was sent to France at an early age to be educated, and
passed several years in a convent school at Nantes. At the age of
eighteen she was called home, and embarked from the same port in charge
of a governess. The vessel was attacked and captured by an Algerian
corsair, and Aimée, her governess, and other passengers were taken to
Algiers and sold as slaves. The beauty of the young creole attracted
the notice of the Dey, who, desiring to gain the friendship of the
Sultan, bought the girl and sent her as a present to Selim III at
Constantinople. There, it was alleged, she became first the favorite,
and afterward Sultana-Validé--as the mother, in 1785, of Mahmoud II,
who ascended the Ottoman throne in 1808. Such is the legend, in its
briefest possible form.
To those familiar with Turkish history, the narrative is palpably
absurd. But it is still believed in the colony, notwithstanding its
disproval by a more careful writer than Daney,--M. Pierre Régis
Dessalles, in a note attached to one of the chapters of his 'Annales
du Conseil Souverain de la Martinique.'[2] Dessalles, disciplined to
exactitude by his legal profession, never set down a statement without
thorough examination of fact, and had to aid him all the _Archives de
la Marine_,--among which are preserved in France all important colonial
documents, since climate and insects render the perfect conservation
of papers impossible in the tropics. From these he found the history
of the De Rivéry, or Dérivry family,--the latter spelling being
the official one. The father was Henri Jacob Dubuc Dérivry, of the
parish of Robert, who married (24th May, 1773) Demoiselle Marie Anne
Arbousset, belonging to a family illustrious in Martinique history. By
this marriage he had three children:--
1. Marie-Anne, born April 5, 1774; died November 28, 1775.
2. Rose-Henriette-Germaine, born February 6, 1778. There is
no documentary evidence in existence as to what became of
Rose-Henriette-Germaine. This is probably the girl alleged to have
entered the seraglio at Constantinople, and to have had her brother
(captured with her) created a pasha--Mehemet-Ali, father of Ibrahim
Pasha.
3. Marie--Alexandrine--Louise--Victoire, born June 24, 1780, and
married January 15, 1806, to a Monsieur Malet.
Thus the legend evaporates! Allowing for the precocity of creole women,
it is still quite evident that, as Rose-Henriette-Germaine was born
February 6, 1778, and the Sultan Mahmoud (her alleged son!) on July 20,
1785, the story is impossible according to the records, which allow an
interval of only twelve years between the marriage of M. Dérivry and
the birth of Mahmoud, at which time Rose could have been only seven
or eight years old. M. Daney says she was born at Robert, December i,
1755; but M. Dérivry was married only in 1773. Furthermore, Mahmoud
II was not the son of Selim III! Yet, in spite of these hard facts,
the legend is still believed; the colony still boasts of its Aimée
Dérivry as a mother of Sultans; and faded MS. documents--some of which
I have read, and copied myself--are shown to strangers as proof of the
romantic story.
All that is certain is that about a hundred years ago some young creole
girl of the Dubuc family was sent to France for her education, and
was never seen again by her parents; that many strange stories were
related accounting for the mystery of her disappearance, some cruel,
some improbable, all false; that her relatives went to Europe and spent
years in vain efforts to discover a trace of her; and that meanwhile
there sprang up this legend of her fate, still told with pride to
strangers in the colony, over a glass of sugar syrup and rum, by
hospitable planters.
[Footnote 1: _Histoire de la Martinique, depuis la colonization
jusqu'en_ 1815. Par M. Sidney Daney, Membre du Conseil Colonial de la
Martinique. Fort-Royal: 1844. See vol. iv, p. 234.]
[Footnote 2: Vol. H, pp. 285, 286.]
V
But though the old order of creole life remains almost unchanged, that
life has shrunk into much smaller channels, and has undergone many
modifications. The wealth and indolent luxury of the eighteenth century
have become memories. The influence of the race upon home politics
has totally ceased. The race itself is rapidly disappearing from the
islands. Except among the few survivors of the old régime you may now
seek in vain for that proud, fine type of valiant and vigorous manhood,
once the honor of colonial France. With the abolition of slavery and
the introduction of universal suffrage, the new social conditions
became almost unbearable for the formerly dominant class,--with its
intense conservatism. Naturally the men of strong individuality
suffered most in the hopeless war of race prejudice and race politics
provoked by a too speedy conferring of political rights upon a
population of slaves; and the more energetic whites found themselves
forced to emigrate elsewhere. Those powerful characters who had given
the old creole life all its dignity and stability vanished from the
scene; and the remnant of the whites softened down into that condition
of dull, inert, flaccid existence which is their portion to-day. The
social conditions of the time of the monarchy have been, indeed, almost
reversed: the dark population, multiplying with wonderful rapidity
ever since emancipation, is crowding the white population out of the
islands; and the former slave race is now politically the dominant
one. It seems more than possible that the white creole race will
have disappeared from all the French West Indies within a few more
generations,--certainly from Martinique.
How much the creole white woman has suffered in this race contest
may only be understood by those long familiar with colonial life.
With the decline of caste dignity and caste prosperity her existence
necessarily becomes more and more narrowed, and her future vaguer in
its promises of happiness. Something of her present life may be divined
from its invisibility; still more from the fact that it is dominated
by a religious influence which strictly, regulates and limits her
diversions, her reading, and the boundaries of her knowledge. She has
lost that graceful haughtiness once the particular characteristic of
her race; she has also, perhaps, lost something of that aristocratic
gift of fine tact which formerly distinguished her as a daughter of
statesmen; she is becoming something of a _bourgeoise_, Her chances
in life are also growing cruelly small. Probably the white female
population now considerably exceeds the male; yet weddings are
infrequent, and their number yearly grows less. Among the modern
creoles, the size of a girl's dowry has most to do with influencing
a match; marriages are rather dependent upon business considerations
and social connections in relation to business prospects, than upon
mutual affection. It was not so in the old days: marriage was then
regarded as a social duty; and even the laxity of tropical morals in
slave times rarely prevented any man from fulfilling that social
duty, and abandoning all reckless living after a certain age. The
change in colonial ideas in this respect has been attributed to moral
degeneracy,--to class conservatism in creole relations with the foreign
element,--to various other causes. It is simply the result of poverty!
The old conditions were wholly artificial, wholly based upon the
institution of slavery, supported by a strong monarchical government;
and the true character of that structure is now being revealed by the
fact that the white race cannot hold its own in the colonies.