When Bonaparte found his first leisure, after the fêtes and bustle occasioned in August by his being made First Consul for life, he issued his commands regarding the disposal of his West Indian prisoner: and presently Toussaint was traversing France, with Mars Plaisir for his companion in captivity—with an officer, as a guard, inside the closed carriage; another guard on the box; and one, if not two, mounted in their rear.
The journey was conducted under circumstances of great mystery. The blinds of the carriage were never let down; provisions were served out while the party was in full career; and the few baitings that were made were contrived to take place, either during the night, or in unfrequented places. It was clear that the complexion of the strangers was not to be seen by the inhabitants. All that Toussaint could learn was that they were travelling south-east.
“Have you mountains in your island?” asked the officer, letting down the blind just so much, when the carriage turned a corner of the road, as to permit to himself a glimpse of the scenery. “We are entering the Jura. Have you mountains in your island?”
Toussaint left it to Mars Plaisir to answer this question; which he did with indignant volubility, describing the uses and the beauties of the heights of Saint Domingo, from the loftiest peaks which intercept the hurricane, to the lowest, crested with forts or spreading their blossoming groves to the verge of the valleys.
“We too have fortresses on our heights,” said the officer. “Indeed, you will be in one of them before night. When we are on the other side of Pontarlier, we will look about us a little.”
“Then, on the other side of Pontarlier, we shall meet no people,” observed Mars Plaisir.
“People! Oh, yes! we have people everywhere in France.”
When Pontarlier was passed, and the windows of the carriage were thrown open, the travellers perceived plainly enough why this degree of liberty was allowed. The region was so wild, that none were likely to come hither in search of the captives. There were inhabitants; but few likely to give information as to who had passed along the road. There were charcoal-burners up on the hill-side; there were women washing clothes in the stream which rushed along, far below in the valley; the miller was in his mill, niched in the hollow beside the waterfall; and there might still be inmates in the convent which stood just below the firs, on the knoll to the left of the road. But by the wayside, there were none who, with curious eyes, might mark, and with eager tongue report, the complexion of the strangers who were rapidly whirled along towards Joux.
Toussaint shivered as the chill mountain air blew in. Perhaps what he saw chilled him no less than what he felt. He might have unconsciously expected to see something like the teeming slopes of his own mountains, the yellow ferns, the glittering rocks, shining like polished metal in the sun. Instead of these, the scanty grass was of a blue-green; the stunted firs were black; and the patches of dazzling white intermingled with them formed a contrast of colour hideous to the eye of a native of the tropics.
“That is snow,” exclaimed Mars Plaisir to his master, with the pride of superior experience.