Читать книгу The Hour and the Man, An Historical Romance - Harriet Martineau - Страница 22

The town of Cap Français was next morning in a hurry, which attracted the attention of General Laveaux in his prison, and the French commissary, Polverel, on board the vessel in the roads, in which he had taken refuge from the mulattoes, and where he held himself in readiness to set sail for France, in case of any grave disaster befalling the General or the troops. From his cell, Laveaux heard in the streets the tramp of horses and of human feet; and from the deck of the Orphée, Polverel watched through his glass the bustle on the wharves, and the putting off of more than one boat, which prepared him to receive news.

The news came. The report was universal in the town that Toussaint Breda had gone over from the allies to the side of republican France; and that this step had been followed by a large defection from the allied forces. Messengers had arrived, one after another, with dispatches which had been intercepted by the mulattoes. These who brought them, however, had given out that some posts had been surrendered, without a summons, into the hands of the French. This was certainly the case with Marmalade and Plaisance; and others were confidently spoken of.

“Offered to our hands just when our hands are tied, and we cannot take them!” said Polverel. “If our fresh regiments would only arrive to-day, and help us to wrench the prison keys from the hands of those devils of mulattoes, and let out Laveaux, the colony would be ours before night.”

As he spoke, he swept the horizon to the north and east with his glass; but no welcome sail was visible.

“Now look the other way,” said the commander of the vessel; “if there is no help at sea, try if there be none on land. I have been watching that mountain-side for some time; and, if I am not much mistaken, there is an army of dusky fellows there.”

“Dusky! mulattoes! then we are lost!” cried Polverel. “If the mulattoes from the south have come up in any numbers—”

“They are black as the night that is just gone,” said the commander, still keeping his eye fixed on the western heights above the town. “See, the sun strikes them now. They are blacks. The negroes under Toussaint himself, very probably. I shall not have the pleasure of carrying you to France just yet, Monsieur Polverel.”

Notwithstanding the display of black forces on the Haut-du-Cap, the bustle of the town seemed to be in the opposite direction. A few shots were fired in the south-east quarter, and some smoke arose from thence. This was soon explained by the news that Henri Christophe had approached the town from the plain, with four or five thousand men, and was forcing an entrance that way. There was little conflict. Toussaint poured down his force through the barracks, where the French soldiers gave him a hearty welcome, and along the avenues of Government-House, and the neighbouring public offices, in which quarter the mulattoes had little interest. Within an hour, the mulattoes had all slunk back into their homes, telling their families that they could have dealt with the French alone, but that they could not withstand an army of twenty thousand men (only doubling the real number), which had dropped from the clouds, for aught they knew. The few dead bodies were removed, the sand sucked up their blood, and the morning wind blew dust over its traces. A boat was sent off, in due form, to bring Commissary Polverel home to Government-House. Toussaint himself went to the prison to bring out General Laveaux, with every demonstration of respect; and all presently wore the aspect of a jour-de-fête.

Hour by hour tidings were spread which increased the joy of the French, and the humiliation of their foes. The intercepted dispatches were given up, and more arrived with the news of the successive defection from the allies of all the important posts in the colony, held by negro forces. In the name of Toussaint Breda, the garrisons of Marmalade and Plaisance first declared for republican France; and after them, Gros Morne, Henneri, and Le Dondon.

The news of the acquisition of these last arrived in the evening, when the French officials were entertaining the negro chief in the salon of Government-House. It was late: the house was brilliantly lighted; and its illuminations were reflected from a multitude of faces without. Late as it was, and great as had been the fatigues of the negro troops, they were not yet weary of hearing the praises of their own Toussaint. Adding their numbers to those of the white inhabitants of Cap, they thronged the court of Government-House and the Jesuits’ Walk; and even in the Place d’Archer and the Rue Espagnole, passengers found it difficult to make their way. The assemblage could scarcely have told what detained them there, unless it were the vague expectation of more news, the repetition of the praises they loved to hear, and, perhaps, some hope of getting one more glimpse of Toussaint on this night of his triumph. From mouth to mouth circulated the words which General Laveaux had spoken in the morning, when released from his prison—“This man is the saviour of the whites—the avenger of the authorities. He is surely the black, the Spartacus predicted by Raynal, whose destiny it should be to avenge the wrongs of his race.” From mouth to month went these words; and from heart to heart spread the glow they kindled.

Toussaint himself had heard these words; and in his heart also were they glowing. As he sat at table, refreshing himself with fruits, but (according to his invariable custom) refusing wine, he was reminded by all that passed that his career was not ended. He wore the uniform of brigadier-general—a token that he had not lost rank. Monsieur Polverel had declared his intention of soon returning to France; and General Laveaux had said that when he was thus left in charge of the colony, he should entreat General Toussaint, who best understood its affairs, to fill the office of lieutenant-governor, and should also be guided in military affairs implicitly by his counsels. Toussaint heard, and felt that, in truth, his career was not ended. He was requested to name a day when he would take the oaths publicly, and receive the homage of the grateful colony; and in his reply he took occasion to declare with earnestness that his present course of action originated altogether in the decree of the Convention in favour of the negroes; and that the resources of his power and influence should all be directed towards raising his race to that intellectual and moral equality with the whites, without which they could neither enjoy nor retain the political equality which the Convention had decreed. In the midst of the strongly expressed sympathy of his hosts, who were this day disposed to approve and admire all he said and did—while they were uttering hopes for his own people which touched his soul, the final news of this great day was brought in, contained in dispatches which told of the acquisition of the posts of Limbé and l’Aeul—the two bars to the north-western peninsula of the colony. The commanders declared their adhesion to the cause of the blacks and Toussaint Breda.

“Bravo!” cried the French general: “that obstinate region is ours! We will march through those posts to hold our festival, and the oaths shall be taken at Port Paix. Was not that district considered the most obstinate, general?”

Toussaint did not answer. He did not hear. The mention of Port Paix carried back his thoughts to the night when he was last there, heavy at heart, assisting his master to escape.

“All is ours, now, through him,” said Monsieur Polverel, gazing at his guest, “Yes,” rejoined Laveaux; “he is the Napoleon Bonaparte of Saint Domingo.”

“Who is he?—who is Napoleon Bonaparte?” asked Toussaint, roused to listen. “I have heard his name. What has he done?”

“He is a young French artillery officer—”

“A Corsican by birth,” interposed Polverel.

“Is he really? I was not aware of that,” said Laveaux. “That circumstance somewhat increases the resemblance of the cases. He was ill-used (or thought he was) by his officers, and was on the point of joining the Turkish service, when he was employed in the defence of the Convention, the other day. He saved the Convention—he saved Paris—and he is about to put off his uniform of brigadier-general” (and Laveaux smiled and bowed as he spoke)—“like yourself, he is about to put off his uniform of brigadier-general for that of a higher rank. His name was known before in connection with the siege of Toulon. But this last achievement is the grand one. He has cleaved the path of the Convention. Polverel, did I not say rightly that General Toussaint is the Napoleon Bonaparte of Saint Domingo?”

“Yes. General Toussaint also is making for us an opening everywhere.”

Toussaint heard the words, but they made a faint impression at the moment of his imagination being fixed on the young artillery officer. There were those present, however, who lost nothing of what was spoken, and who conveyed it all to the eager ears outside. The black attendants, the gazers and listeners who went in and out, intoxicated with the glory of the negro general, reported all that was said of him. These last few words of Polverel wrought wonderfully, and were instantly spread through the excited multitude. A shout was presently heard, which must have sounded far up the mountains and over the bay; and Polverel started with surprise when his word came back to him in a response like that of an assembled nation. “L’ouverture!” “L’ouverture!” cried the multitude, fully comprehending what the word contained in its application to their chief, “Toussaint L’Ouverture!” Henceforth, the city, the colony, the island, and, after a time, all Europe, rang with the name of Toussaint L’Ouverture.

When Toussaint heard the cry from without, he started to his feet; and his hosts rose also, on seeing the fire in his eye—brighter than during the deeds of the morning.

“The general would address them,” said Polverel. “You wish to speak to the people, General Toussaint.”

“No,” said Toussaint.

“What then?” inquired Laveaux.

“I would be alone,” said Toussaint, stepping backwards from the table.

“Your fatigues have doubtless been great,” observed Laveaux. “Lights shall be ordered in your apartment.”

“I cannot sleep yet,” said Toussaint. “I cannot sleep till I have news from Breda. But I have need of thought, gentlemen; there is moonlight and quiet in these gardens. Permit me to leave you now.”

He paced the shrubberies, cool with moonlight and with dews; and his agitation subsided when all eyes but those of Heaven were withdrawn. Here no flatteries met his ear—no gestures of admiration made him drop his eyes, abashed. Constrained as he yet felt himself in equal intercourse with whites, new to his recognised freedom, unassured in his acts, uncertain of the future, and (as he believed) unprepared for such a future as was now unfolding, there was something inexpressibly irksome and humbling in the homage of the whites—of men who understood nothing of him, and little of his race, and who could have none but political purposes in their intercourse with him. He needed this evening the sincerities as well as the soothings of nature; and it was with a sense of relief that he cast himself once again upon her bosom, to be instructed, with infantine belief, how small an atom he was in the universe of God—how low a rank he held in the hierarchy of the ministers of the Highest.

“Yet I am one,” thought he, as the shout of his name and now title reached his ear, distinct, though softened by distance. “I am an appointed minister. It seems as if I were the one of whom I myself have spoken as likely to arise—not, as Laveaux says, after Raynal, to avenge, but to repair the wrongs of my colour. Low, indeed, are we sunk, deep is our ignorance, abject are our wills, if such a one as I am to be the leader of thousands—I, whose will is yet unexercised—I, who shrink ashamed before the knowledge of the meanest white—I, so lately a slave—so long dependent that I am an oppression to myself—am at this hour the ruler over ten thousand wills! The ways of God are dark, or it might seem that He despised His negro children in committing so many of them to so poor a guide. But He despises nothing that He has made. It may be that we are too weak and ignorant to be fit for better guidance in our new state of rights and duties. It may be that a series of teachers is appointed to my colour, of whom I am to be the first, only because I am the lowest; destined to give way to wiser guides when I have taught all that I know, and done all that I can. May it be so! I will devote myself wholly; and when I have done may I be more willing to hide myself in my cottage, or lie down in my grave, than I have been this day to accept the new lot which I dare not refuse!—Deal gently with me, O God! and, however I fail, let me not see my children’s hearts hardened, as hearts are hardened, by power! Let me not see in their faces the look of authority, nor hear in their voices the tones of pride! Be with my people, O Christ! The weaker I am, the more be Thou with them, that Thy gospel may be at last received! The hearts of my people are soft—they are gentle, they are weak:—let Thy gospel make them pure—let it make them free. Thy gospel—who has not heard of it, and who has seen it? May it be found in the hearts of my people, the despised! and who shall then despise them again? The past is all guilt and groans. Into the future open a better way—”

“Toussaint L’Ouverture!” he heard again from afar, and bowed his head, overpowered with hope.

“Toussaint L’Ouverture!” repeated some light gay voices close at hand. His boys were come, choosing to bring themselves the news from Breda—that Margot and her daughters, and old Dessalines and Moyse were all there, safe and happy, except for their dismay at finding the cottage and field in such a state of desolation.

“They will not mind when they hear that they are to live in a mansion henceforward,” said Placide. “Jean Français had better have stood by his colour, as we do.”

“And how have you stood by your colour, my young hero?”

“I told Jean in the camp to-day—”

“Jean! In the camp! How came you there?”

“We were so near, that I galloped in to see what they thought of your leaving, and who had followed you.”

“Then I thank God that you are here.”

“Jean caught me; but the General bade him let me go, and asked whether the blacks made war upon children. I told him that I was not a child; and I told Jean that you had rather live in a cave for the sake of the blacks, than go off to the court of Spain—”

“What made you fancy I should go there?”

“Not you, but Jean. Jean is going, he says, because he is a noble. There will soon be peace between France and Spain, he says; and then he shall be a noble at the court of Spain. I am glad he is going.”

“So am I, if he thinks he shall be happy there.”

“We shall be better without him,” said Isaac. “He would never be quiet while you were made Lieutenant-Governor of Saint Domingo. Now you will be alone and unmolested in your power. Where did you learn all this?”

“Every one knows it—every one in Cap. Every one knows that Jean has done with us, and that the Commissary is going home, and that General Laveaux means to be guided in everything by you; and that the posts have all surrendered in your name; and that at Port Paix—”

“Enough, enough! my boys. Too much, for I see that your hearts are proud.”

“The Commissary and the General said that you are supreme—the idol of your colour. Those were their words.”

“And in this there is yet no glory. I have yet done nothing, but by what is called accident. Our own people were ready—by no preparation of mine; the mulattoes were weak and taken by surprise, through circumstances not of my ordering. Glory there may hereafter be belonging to our name, my boys; but as yet there is none. I have power: but power is less often glory than disgrace.”

“Oh, father! do but listen. Hark again! ‘Toussaint L’Ouverture!’ ”

“I will strive to make that shout a prophecy, my sons. Till then, no pride! Are you not weary? Come in to rest. Can you sleep in my fine chamber here as well as at Breda?”

“Anywhere,” said Isaac, sleepily.

Toussaint gave up his apartment to his sons, and went forth once more to survey the town, and see that his troops were in their quarters. This done, he repaired to his friend Henri, willing for one more night to forego his greatness; and there, in his friend’s small barrack-room, the supreme in the colony—the idol of his colour—slept, as he had hoped for his boys, as tranquilly as if he had been at Breda.