“I cannot spare you—remember—Thérèse!”
To the pang of the thought that he had died unconfessed succeeded the question, more painful still—
“Could religious offices avail anything to a soul wholly unsanctified? Is there a promise that any power can put such a spirit into immediate congeniality with the temper of Heaven? Among the many mansions, is there one which would not be a prison to such?—to the proud one who must there feel himself poor and miserable, and blind and naked?”
Chapter Thirty Seven.
June.
Of the letters written by Toussaint and Pascal on the evening when news arrived of the imposition of compulsory labour on the negroes, some reached their destination; but one did not. That one was to L’Ouverture’s aide, Fontaine, at Cap Français. It contained the following:—
“It is said that General Leclerc is in a bad state of health at Tortuga. Of this you will inform me. If you see the Captain-General, be sure to tell him that the cultivators are no longer disposed to obey me, for the planters wish to set them to work at Hericourt; which they certainly ought not to do.
“I have to ask you whether any one near the person of the Captain-General can be gained to procure the release of D—, who would be very useful to me from his influence at La Nouvelle, and elsewhere.
“Acquaint Gingembre that he is not to quit the Borgne, where the cultivators must not be set to work.”
This letter never reached Fontaine, but was, instead, made the subject of a consultation in the Captain-General’s quarters. Amidst the boastings which he sent home, and by which France was amused, Leclerc felt that his thirty-five thousand soldiers had made no progress whatever in the real conquest of Saint Domingo. He was aware that France had less power there than before she had alienated L’Ouverture. He felt that Toussaint was still the sovereign that he had been for ten years past. He knew that a glance of the eye, a lifting of the hand, from Toussaint, wrought more than sheaves of ordinances from himself, and all the commendations and flatteries of the First Consul. Leclerc, and the officers in his confidence, could never take a morning ride, or give an evening party—they could never hear a negro singing, or amuse themselves with children, playing on the shore or in the woods, without being reminded that they were intruders, and that the native and abundant loyalty of the inhabitants was all for their L’Ouverture, now that France had put him in opposition to herself. Leclerc and his confidential advisers committed the error of attributing all this to Toussaint’s personal qualities; and they drew the false inference (most acceptable to the First Consul) that if Toussaint were out of the way, all would be well for the purposes of France. Having never seriously regarded the blacks as free men and fellow-citizens, these Frenchmen omitted to perceive that a great part of their devotion to Toussaint was loyalty to their race. Proceeding on this mistake, Leclerc and his council, sanctioned by the First Consul, ruined their work, lost their object, and brought irretrievable disgrace upon their names—some of which are immortalised only by the infamy of the act which ensued.