Nature wrought with the blacks this season for the fulfilment of their
hopes, and the defence of their precarious liberties. Never, within the
remembrance of the young people at Pongaudin, had the heat set in so
early, and the month of May been so sickly in the towns. To the eyes of
such as Genifrede, who were ever on the watch for signs, it might almost
seem that they saw Pestilence floating, on her poison-dropping wings,
beneath the clouds which sailed from all quarters of the sky to the
mountain-peaks; clouds muttering in thunder, and startling the intruders
with terrific lightnings, from night-to-night. The reports of fever
having broken out here and there among the invaders became more and more
frequent. At first, those who were watching the times the most intently
concluded that, early as the season was, "the wish" must be "father to
the thought," and believed little of what they heard. But before
Toussaint had been ten days at Pongaudin, it was certain that disease
was raging to such an extent among the French troops at Cap, that the
Captain-General had retired to Tortuga, to join his lady, and others of
the expedition who were the most carefully guarded. The garrison at
Saint Marc was thinning, Therese sent word; and the country people
conveyed to Pongaudin the news that funerals were becoming daily more
frequent at Limbe, Le Dauphin, and other posts along the northern shore.
Not for this, however, was there any relaxation of the vigilance with
which L'Ouverture was watched by the foe. His mode of life was simple,
and open to the observation of any who chose to look on. He improved
his gardens; he read much; he interested himself in Denis's studies; he
rode out daily, and conversed everywhere with the people by the wayside.
He wrote many letters, sometimes with his own hand, and sometimes
employing that of his friend, Monsieur Pascal, who, with his wife,
resided with the Ouvertures. Toussaint also received many letters, and
a perpetual succession of visitors--of applicants about matters of
business, as it seemed. The only mystery was, how all his despatches
were sent to their destination. This was a mystery which grew out of
the French practice of intercepting his correspondence. Accidents had
happened to so many of his letters during the first week, that he
presently learned the necessity of some plan for securing the privacy of
his correspondence: and some plan he did devise, which quite succeeded;
as appeared from the French General having recourse to a new mode of
surveillance--that of setting spies on the person and movements of the
black chief.
Toussaint's family were alarmed at finding his steps tracked, and his
repose watched. They heard incessantly of his path being crossed in his
rides; and they knew that many of the trifling messages which were
brought, at all hours of the day and night, to be delivered into
L'Ouverture's own ear, were mere devices to learn whether he was at
home. They saw that their grounds were never private; and felt that
eyes watched them from the outer darkness when their saloon was lighted
for their evening employments and amusements. Toussaint smiled at the
alarms of his family, admitting the fact of this incessant _espionnage_,
but asking what harm it did, and pointing out that it was only an
inconvenience of a few weeks' duration. He would not hear of any
strengthening of his guard. To increase his guard would be to encourage
and authorise the suspicions which he was now daily weakening. He had
nothing to conceal; and the sooner the invaders satisfied themselves of
this, the better for all parties.
In answer to Madame L'Ouverture's frequent speculations as to what
Leclerc could fix his suspicions on, Toussaint said he was probably
supposed to be in communication with Dessalines. He thought so from his
never approaching the mornes, in his rides, without finding French
soldiers overlooking his proceedings from every point of the hills. He
was not in communication with Dessalines. He did not know, and he
wished not to know even where he was--whether with the Bellairs, or
training his soldiers elsewhere for further warfare. Dessalines had
never submitted; and while this was the case, it was obviously prudent
for those who had made terms to know nothing of any plans of his to
which they might wish success. Therese would not compromise the
Ouvertures by living with them, in the present state of affairs. She
remained quietly on her husband's estate, near Saint Marc, only
corresponding frequently with her friends at Pongaudin, in letters which
all the world might see.
The chief subject of this correspondence was the fever-hospitals
preparing at Saint Marc, as at all the other towns on the coast, for the
reception of the sick whites. Whatever might be Therese's feelings
towards the whites, her compassion towards sick persons of every colour
was stronger. Her gentle nature asserted itself whenever weakness and
suffering appealed to it; and this season she began to inspire that
affection in her neighbours--to establish that character for devoted
charity, which afterwards made her the idol of the people. If her
husband had been with her, he would probably have forbidden her to save
the lives of any of that race whom he desired to exterminate. But
though she could perhaps have taken away life, with her own hand, on the
battlefield, with the cry of liberty in her ear, she could form no
compact with such an ally as pestilence. In the season of truce and
retreat, in the absence of the sounds and sights of conflict, she became
all the woman--the gentle spirit--to whom the colony from this time
looked up, as sent to temper her husband's ferocity, and wisely to
direct his strengthening passions. She who was so soon after "the Good
Empress," was now the Sister of Charity, actually forgetting former
wrongs in present compassion for the helpless; and ministering to the
sick without thought whether, on recovery, they would be friends or
foes. It was matter of speculation to many besides the Ouvertures,
whether the invaders omitted the opportunity of making a hostage of her,
because their sick needed her services, or because they were grateful
for her offices, or because they knew Dessalines well enough to be aware
that, so far from such an act bringing him to submission, it would
exasperate his ferocity, and draw down new sufferings and danger upon
the discouraged whites.
One evening, the household of the Ouvertures were where it was now their
wont to be at sunset--under the trees, on a grassy slope of the gardens,
fronting the west. There they usually sat at this hour, to see the sun
sink into the ocean; the darkness following almost as quickly as if that
great fire were indeed quenched in the waters. On this occasion, the
sun was still half-an-hour above the horizon, when Madame Dessalines
appeared, in her riding-dress, and, as she said, in haste. She spoke
apart with Madame L'Ouverture and Toussaint; and presently called
Genifrede to the conference.
Therese had of late wanted help at Saint Marc--help in directing the
nursing of the sick. Now she must have it. Monsieur Papalier was ill--
very ill. The people of the house where he lived insisted upon sending
him into the hospital this very night, if good attendance were not
provided for him; and now--
Therese did not yet seem quite clear why this event had determined the
moment of her application for Genifrede's assistance. She was agitated.
She could only say that Genifrede had nursed Dessalines well; and she
must have her help again now.
"You will go, Genifrede," said her father; "that Madame Dessalines may
be at liberty to nurse Monsieur Papalier herself."
"No, no," said Therese, trembling. Genifrede also said "No."
"You would not have me nurse _him_?" said Therese. "Any one else! Ask
me to save Rochambeau. Send me to Tortuga, to raise Leclerc from the
brink of the grave; but do not expect me to be _his_ nurse again."
"I do hope it from you. I expect it of you, when you have considered
the tenfold mercy of nursing _him_ with your own hands. Think of the
opportunity you will give him of retrieving wrongs, if he lives, and of
easing his soul, if he dies. How many of us would desire, above all
things, to have those whom we have injured beside our dying pillow, to
make friends of them at last? Let Monsieur Papalier die grateful to
you, if he must die; and give him a new heart towards you, if he
survives."
"It was not this that I intended," said Therese. "Genifrede will do
everything, under my care. You shall have my help, Genifrede."
"No," said Genifrede. "Do not play the tempter with me. Find some one
else. You will have much to answer for, if you make me go."
"What temptation, Genifrede?" asked her mother.
"Do not press her," said Toussaint, who read his child's mind. "You
shall not be urged, Genifrede."
"You do not know--I myself do not know," said Genifrede, hurriedly, to
Madame Dessalines, "what might happen--what I might be tempted to do.
You know--you have read what some nurses did in the plague at Milan--in
the plague in London--in the night--with wet cloths--"
"Do not speak of it. Stay here, Genifrede. I can do without you."
"If," continued Genifrede, "they could do that for money--if the tempter
moved their hands to that deed with whispers of money, with the sight of
mere rings and watches, what might not a wretched creature do, at such a
time, with revenge muttering for ever in her heart! My ear is weary of
it here; and there--I cannot go."
"No, you cannot," said Therese.
"Christ strengthen you, my child," said Toussaint, "as Therese is
strengthening! She can already serve those whom she and you once hated
alike: and she is about to save her foe of foes."
"No, you will not save Monsieur Papalier," said Genifrede.
"L'Ouverture is a prophet, as all men are in proportion as they are
Christians," said Therese. "If he says I shall save my enemy, I believe
I shall."
"You will, at least, try. If you are going, go;--the sun is setting,"
said Toussaint. "What escort have you?"
"Old Dessalines and another, I want no more."
"Old Dessalines!" said Toussaint, smiling; "then he must have wine. I
must see him."
"He is here," said Therese, calling him.
The old man was, indeed, lingering near, preferring the chance of a word
from L'Ouverture even to supper and wine within. He was ready enough to
tell his story:--that he lived as butler at General Dessalines'; and,
that though master and servant had changed places, he liked the new
times better than the old. He was treated with more respect now, by
everybody, than when he was a negro tradesman, even though he then had a
slave of his own. The place of butler suited him too. General
Dessalines and his lady drank only water; and they left him to manage
the wine-cellar just as he liked; except at the present time, when a
dreadful quantity of wine was wanted for the convalescents. It
frightened him to think how soon the cellar might be emptied, if they
went on at this rate. Old Dessalines was glad he had come to Pongaudin
to-day. He had not only seen L'Ouverture, but had heard from
L'Ouverture's own lips that General Dessalines' cellars should never be
quite empty while there was wine at Pongaudin.
When Toussaint resumed his seat under the tree, where the Pascals,
Euphrosyne, Placide, and Denis remained (the rest having gone into the
house with Therese), he found Denis discussing with Monsieur Pascal the
principle and policy of nursing the sick who were hereafter to be mown
down on the battlefield. Denis had been reminded that this was a time
of peace, and that he was not authorised to anticipate more
battlefields: and his reply had shown that he had no faith in this
peace, but looked forward, like others of his colour, to August and its
consequences. He was not contradicted here; and he went on to ask
whether the Crusaders (his favourite warriors) nursed the wounded and
sick heathens whom they found on their road, and in the cities they
took.
"They were no Christians if they did not," said Euphrosyne.
"It was a savage age," observed Placide.
"Still they were the representatives of the Christianity of their day,"
said Afra; "and Christianity requires us to do good to those who use us
ill."
"The Crusaders," said Toussaint, "lived in the early days of that
Christianity which is to endure as long as the race of man. Like
others, they did their part in acting out one of its principles. That
one was not love of enemies,--which yet remains for us."
"I agree with you," said Pascal. "There are many ways of warring for
the Cross. Theirs was one; ours is another."
"You always speak as if you were a black, Monsieur Pascal," said Denis.
"I would fain be a negro in heart and temper, Denis, if what your father
thinks of the vocation of negroes be true."
"But about those ways of warring for the Cross!" inquired Afra.
"I mean, and L'Ouverture, I think, means," said Pascal, "that nothing
can immediately alter the nature of men; that the glorious Gospel itself
is made to change the face of the world gradually; all the more surely,
because slowly and naturally. This seed of life was cast upon the flood
of human passions, and the harvest must not be looked for till after
many days. Meantime it sprouts out, now here, now there, proving that
it is alive and growing; but the harvest is not yet."
"We find one trace of the Gospel here, and another there," said
Toussaint; "but a Christian nation, or race, or class of people, who has
seen?"
"Not in the earliest days?" asked Euphrosyne. "Were not the first
confessors and martyrs a Christian class?"
"They were so according to their intention, to their own idea," said
Toussaint. "They were votaries of the one Christian principle most
needed in their time. The noble men, the courageous women, who stood,
calm and resolved, in the midst of the amphitheatre, with the heathen
altar behind them, the hungry tiger before them, and a careless or
scoffing multitude ranged all around--these were strong witnesses to the
great principle of Faith--noble proofs of the power of living and dying
for things unseen. This was their function. It was for others to show
forth the humility and modesty in which, as a class, they failed."
"The anchorites," said Pascal, "each in his cave, solitary, abstemious,
showed forth in its strength the principle of Devotion, leaving Charity
unthought of."
"And then the nun," said Toussaint--
"What possible grace of religion did the nun exhibit?" asked Euphrosyne.
"The original nun, Euphrosyne, was inspired with the reverence of
Purity. In an age of licence, those who were devoted to spiritual
things were the salt of the earth. But in their worship of purity they
outraged human love."
"The friar," said Pascal, "was a perpetual emblem of Unworldliness. He
forced upon the admiration of a self-seeking world the peace of poverty,
the repose of soul which is troubled with no thought for the morrow.
But for other teachers, however, industry would have been despised--the
great law of toil would have remained unrecognised."
"The Crusaders worked hard enough," said Denis. "Thousands and
thousands of them died of their toils, besides the slain."
"They were the apostles of Zeal," said Monsieur Pascal. "For the honour
of the Gospel they suffered and died. They overlooked all that it
teaches of toleration and universal love;--of peace on earth and
good-will to men."
"None of these Christians," said Afra, "appear to have had much concern
for men. They seemed to have lived for God and the faith, without love
or care for those for whose sake God gave the faith."
"Just so," said her husband. "That part of our religion had not yet
come into action. The first step taken towards this action was one
which united with it the former devotion to God. The organisation of
the great Church of Christ united, in the intentions of those who formed
it, care for the glory of God and the salvation of men. It was a great
step."
"But still," said Euphrosyne, "there was not the Charity, the living for
the good of men, soul and body, which was what Christ taught and
practised."
"That, Euphrosyne, was a later fruit; but it is ripening now. We have
more Sisters of Charity than contemplative nuns, at this time. There
are hospitals in every Christian land for the sick and the aged. It is
remembered now, too, that Christ had compassion on the blind, and the
deaf, and the insane: and charity to these is now the Christianity of a
multitude."
"And what is their defect?" asked Denis. "What essential do they
overlook, as the anchorite and the crusader overlooked this same
charity?"
"It may be liberality--regard to the Christian liberty of others;--it
may be--"
"Let us not look too closely into their failures," said Toussaint. "Let
us not judge our brethren. These are too near our own time for us to be
just judges. We see their charity--the brightest light yet in the
constellation of Christian principles; let us be thankful that our eyes
have seen it. It is brightening too; so that day telleth to-day of its
increase, and night is witness of it unto night. It is now not only the
sick and infirm in body that are cared for; but I am told there has been
a man in England who has taken such pity on those who are sick and
deformed in soul as to have explored the most loathsome of European
prisons in their behalf. There has been a Briton who pitied the guilty
above all other sufferers, and devoted to them his time, his fortune,
his all. He will have followers, till Christendom itself follows him;
and he will thus have carried forward the Gospel one step. The charity
which grieves more for the deformity of the soul than the evils of the
body is so far higher a charity, that it may almost be called a new
principle."
"What remains?" asked Euphrosyne.
"Do you see anything further to be done, father?" inquired Denis.
With a mournful smile, Toussaint replied that mankind had advanced but a
little way yet. The world was very far from being Christianised.
"In practice," said Euphrosyne. "But, supposing us all to fulfil what
has been exemplified from the earliest days till now, do you suppose
that many principles remain to be acted upon?"
"No doubt. If I saw none, I should believe, from all experience, that
revelations (or rather verifications of what Christ revealed) will
succeed each other as long as men exist. But, from the beginning till
now, individuals here and there have lived by the principles which
classes and nations have overlooked. By a solitary ray shining here and
there, we may foretell something of the new lights about to rise upon
the world. There will be more privileged classes, Euphrosyne; and,
Denis, these privileges are lying within our grasp."
"A new charity, father?"
"A new charity, my boy. To solace the sick and infirm is good. To tend
the diseased soul is better. But there is a higher charity still."
"To do good to those who hate us," said Monsieur Pascal; "in doing good,
to conquer not only our love of ease and our fear of pain, but our
prejudices, our just resentments, our remembrance of injuries, our
disgust at oppression, our contempt of pride--to forget or conquer all
these through the love of men as men, is, indeed, a higher charity than
any which classes have yet illustrated."
"The negroes are the race that will illustrate it," said Toussaint, with
calm confidence. "The Gospel is for the whole world. It sprang up
among the Jews; the white Gentiles hold it now; and the negroes are
destined to fulfil their share. They are to illustrate its highest
Charity. For tokens, mark their meek and kindly natures, the softness
and the constancy of their affections, and (whenever tried) their
placability. Thus prepared, liberty is about to be opened to them in a
region of civilisation. When God has given them the strength of the
free, it will exalt their meekness and their love into that highest
charity of which we have spoken. I myself am old; and though I shall do
what I can on this side the grave, I cannot see the great day, except in
faith. But my children may witness at least its dawn."
"In those days, wars will cease," said Euphrosyne, recalling the
thoughts she had revolved on the day of the death of Moyse: "there will
be no bloodshed, no violence--no punishment of injuries to others, while
your people forgive their own."
"So will it be, I trust," said Toussaint.
"Why not, then, begin now? Why not act upon your whole principle at
once?"
"Because the nature of the negro has been maimed. He has been made
selfish, cowardly, and indolent. He must be educated back into a fair
condition; and this necessary education circumstances have imposed. We
are compelled to the self-denial, toil, and danger of warfare, in order
to obtain the liberty which is to carry us forward. I once hoped
otherwise, Euphrosyne; but I now see the bracing process of defensive
warfare to be inevitable, and, on the whole, good for my people. Their
liberties, thus hardly won, will be prized, so as to shut out the future
danger of war. If, however, one stroke is inflicted for other purposes
than defence--if one life is taken for vengeance, we shall be set back,
long and far, in our career. It shall not be, under my rule. Alas! for
those who succeed me, if they permit it! It will not only make the
first black empire a by-word throughout the world, but it will render
the Christian civilisation of my people difficult and slow."
Toussaint spoke like a rider; and he was virtually still a sovereign, as
he had been for years past. Nor were the tokens of sovereignty
altogether wanting. At this moment, as was continually happening,
despatches arrived, on affairs of great importance, on which he must
think and act.
"See what these French commanders are doing," said he, handing his
letters to Monsieur Pascal, "at the very moment that they disclaim all
intention of enslaving the negroes! What are they doing yonder but
recommencing slavery? It must not be. Are you disposed for business?"
"This moment," said Monsieur Pascal, springing up before he had finished
the letters. "Will you provide a messenger? Slavery is restored; and
there is not a moment to be lost."
As in old days, lights were ordered into the library; and the
royal-souled negro dictated his commands to his friendly secretary, who
smiled, at such an hour, at the thought of the exultation of the French
court over the "surrender" and "submission" of the blacks.