But now, when all was prosperity, much sugar ground out, when the slaves of both sexes were seen dancing every night, when “Liberty!” and “To arms! To arms!” were on every tongue, who could fear or suspect the blacks! The happy, careless creatures who loved their masters.
“Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of God,” has been truly said—not a pebble rolls from its mountain-bed, but the relations of matter in the whole creation are changed: for the laws of gravitation are universal, and sustain the worlds. Nor is mind less universal or less mighty than matter. No thought is thought, no word is spoken, no act is acted, but it thrills the mind of the universe. We may not be conscious of this, yet it must be so; and it is well, therefore, for every man to see to it, that his secret thoughts are noble, not base.
The innate necessity for freedom had found expression in France, and the loftiest aspirations and most earnest hopes went, like the lightning, from mind to mind, from man to man, from nation to nation, and lighted even the benighted mind of the slave in St. Domingo.
Thus matters stood in 1789. The Third Estate, the slaves in France had risen, and grasped the handle of the whip. Centuries of political and ecclesiastical misrule and profligacy had exasperated the people to a state of frenzy. The battle of liberty and despotism was begun; the Bastile had fallen! The principles of manhood had been asserted and seized; the petit blancs in St. Domingo felt the impulse, and aspired to self-government. The whites were rent into parties[18]—for the king and against the king—but all against the men of color “les sangs melées.”
The free mulattoes claimed their rights, and had presented Ogé as their bloody sacrament. Their rights were declared by the French nation;—their rights were resisted by the whole body of the planters. Arms were in every hand; all was combustible, and a spark might start the conflagration.
The whites and mulattoes stood upon the thin crust of the crater; under their feet were four hundred and eighty thousand negro slaves.
On the 25th of August was the feast of St. Louis.
For the week preceding, the planters gathered at Cap François, to concert measures against the mulattoes—against the National Assembly and—to dine. The great men, and the rich, and the brave, were there. It was not a time to drive the slaves; and during that week they “danced” more than before. On the evening of the 22d August,[19] the best dishes of the cook Henri (a born prince, whose future no one could suspect) tempted the palates of the born whites. In brave counsels, in denunciations of the mulattoes, in songs for Blanchelande and Liberty, the time passed, the wine flowed, and hearts swelled—so the shadows of the night stole on. Light! more light! was called for; they threw open the jalousées; curious black faces swarmed about the piazzas—but what meant that dull glare which reached the sultry sky! The party was broken up—they rushed to the windows—they could smell the heavy smoke—they could hear the distant tramp of feet. The band, unbidden, struck the Marseillaise; it was caught up in the streets; and from mouth to mouth, toward the rich Plain du Nord, passed along the song:
“Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Aux armes! aux armes! pour Liberté!”[20]