“It is grievous to see so good a negro as Toussaint lost and spoiled. I knew him of old, when he was at Breda: and many a time has Monsieur Bayou told me that he was the most faithful, decent, clever, well-mannered negro on the estate.”
“I believe he preserves those qualities still,” observed the abbess, reproving with a glance the laugh which was rising at this description of the Commander-in-chief.
“If those had been masters who ought to have been masters,” pursued Madame Ogé, “Toussaint would, no doubt, have been placed at the head of the negroes: for we knew him well—I and they whom I have lost. Then, without insubordination,—without any being lifted out of their proper places, to put down others—we should have had a vast improvement in the negroes. Toussaint would have been made their model, and perhaps would have been rewarded with his freedom, some day or other, for an example. This would have satisfied all the ambition he had by nature. He would have died a free man, and perhaps have emancipated his family. As it is, they will all die slaves: and they will feel it all the harder for the farce of greatness they have been playing these ten years. I am very sorry for them: and I always was; for I foresaw from the beginning how it would end.”
“Do you really imagine that any one thinks of enslaving this wonderful man again? And what should make him submit to it?”
“He would sooner lay a train to the root of Cibao, and blow up the island,” exclaimed Euphrosyne.
“Are you one of his party, young lady? You look too much as if you were but just landed from France for me to suppose that I was speaking before a friend of L’Ouverture’s. If you really are lately from France, you may know that there is a greater than our poor Toussaint, to whom he must yield at command.”
“I have never been at Paris, madame; and I do not believe that there is a greater than L’Ouverture, there, or anywhere else.”
“You have been a happy child, I see: you have lived so retired from our miserable world as not to have heard of Bonaparte. It was by Bonaparte, my dear, for Bonaparte’s convenience, and (it is my idea) for his amusement, that Toussaint was made what he is, and allowed to gallop about with his trumpeters behind him, for so long. You look as if you did not believe me, my dear. Well: time will show.”
“I thought,” said Euphrosyne, “that Toussaint was the First of the Blacks before Bonaparte was the First of the Whites. I have no doubt, however, that it has been very convenient to Bonaparte, and very surprising to him and everybody, that the colony has been so perfectly well governed by one from whom they could have expected nothing. I hope Bonaparte will be too wise and too grateful to injure him, or even to hurt his feelings; and I feel very sure that Bonaparte is not strong enough, with all the world to help him, to make L’Ouverture and his family slaves again.”
“We shall see. Even I may live to see it; and I have no doubt you will. Bonaparte is going to try; and, if he cannot, as you say, do it by himself, he may now persuade all the world to help him: for he is making peace on all hands.”