The Hour and the Man, An Historical Romance

by Harriet Martineau

Great mystery hangs over the tale of Toussaint’s imprisonment and death. It appears that he was confined in the Temple only as long as Napoleon had hopes of extorting from him information about the treasures, absurdly reported to have been buried by him in the mornes (Note 1), under circumstances of atrocious cruelty. It has been suggested that torture was employed by Bonaparte’s aide, Caffarelli, to procure the desired confession; but I do not know that the conjecture is founded on any evidence.

As to the precise mode of L’Ouverture’s death, there is no certainty. The only point on which all authorities agree is, that he was deliberately murdered; but whether by mere confinement in a cell whose floor was covered with water, and the walls with ice (a confinement necessarily fatal to a negro), or by poison, or by starvation in conjunction with disease, may perhaps never be known. The report which is, I believe, the most generally believed in France is that which I have adopted—that the Commandant, when his prisoner was extremely ill, left the fortress for two or three days, with the key of Toussaint’s cell in his pocket; that, on his return, he found his prisoner dead; and that he summoned physicians from Pontarlier, who examined the body, and pronounced a serious apoplexy to be the cause of death. It so happened that I was able, in the spring of last year, to make some inquiry upon the spot; the result of which I will relate.

I was travelling in Switzerland with a party of friends, with whom I had one day discussed the fortunes and character of Toussaint. I had then no settled purpose of writing about him, but was strongly urged to it by my companions. On the morning of the 15th of May, when we were drawing near Payerne from Freyburg, on our way to Lausanne, I remembered and mentioned that we were not very far from the fortress of Joux, where Toussaint’s bones lay. My party were all eager that I should visit it. There were difficulties in the way of the scheme—the chief of which was that our passports were not so signed as to enable us to enter France; and the nearest place where the necessary signature could be obtained was Berne, which we had left behind us the preceding day. I had, however, very fortunately a Secretary of State’s passport, besides the Prussian Consul’s; and this second passport, made out for myself and a femme-de-chambre, had been signed by the French Minister in London. One of my kind companions offered to cross the frontier with me, as my femme-de-chambre, and to help me in obtaining access to the prison of Toussaint; an offer I was very thankful to accept. At Payerne, we separated ourselves and a very small portion of luggage from our party, whom we promised to overtake at Lausanne in two or three days. We engaged for the trip a double char-à-banc, with two stout little horses, and a brave homme of a driver, as our courteous landlady at Payerne assured us. Passing through Yverdun, we reached Orbe by five in the afternoon, and took up our quarters at the “Guillaume Tell,” full of expectation for the morrow.

On the 16th, we had breakfasted, and were beginning the ascent of the Jura before seven o’clock. The weather was fine, and we enjoyed a succession of interesting objects, till we reached that which was the motive of our excursion. First we had that view of the Alps which, if it were possible, it would be equally useless to describe to any who have and any who have not stood on the eastern slope of the Jura, on a clear day. Then we wound among the singular defiles of this mountain range, till we reached the valley which is commanded by Jougne. Here we alighted, climbing the slope to the gate of the town, while the carriage was slowly dragged up the steep winding road. Our appearance obviously perplexed the two custom-house officers, who questioned us, and peeped into our one bag and our one book (the Handbook of Switzerland) with an amusing air of suspicion. My companion told them that the aim of our journey was the fortress of Joux; and that we expected to pass the frontier again in the afternoon, on our return to Orbe. Whether they believed us, or, believing, thought us very foolish, is best known to themselves; but I suspect the latter, by their compliments on our cleverness, on our return. At Jougne we supplied ourselves with provisions, and then proceeded through valleys, each narrower than the last, more dismal with pines, and more chequered with snow. The air of desolation, here and there rendered move striking by the dreary settlements of the charcoal-burners, would have been impressive enough, if our minds had not been full of the great negro, and therefore disposed to view everything with his eyes.

The scene was exactly what I have described in my story, except that a good road, made since Toussaint’s time, now passes round and up the opposite side of the rock from that by which he mounted. The old road, narrow and steep, remains; and we descended by it.

We reached the courtyard without difficulty, passing the two drawbridges and portcullis described. The Commandant was absent; and his lieutenant declared against our seeing anything more than the great wheel, and a small section of the battlements. But for great perseverance, we should have seen nothing more; but we obtained, at last, all we wanted. We passed through the vault and passages I have described, and thoroughly examined the cell. No words can convey a sense of its dreariness. I have exaggerated nothing—the dim light, the rotten floor, shining like a pond, the drip of water, the falling flakes of ice, were all there. The stove was removed; but we were shown where it stood.

There were only three persons who pretended to possess any information concerning the negro prisoner. The soldier who was our principal guide appeared never to have heard of him. A very old man in the village, to whom we were referred, could tell us nothing but one fact, which I knew before—that Toussaint was deprived of his servant, some time before his death. A woman in the sutler’s department of the fortress pretended to know all about him; but she had never seen him, and had no further title to authority than that her first husband had died in the Saint Domingo invasion. She did us the good service of pointing out the grave, however. The brickwork which surrounds the coffin now forms part of a new wall; but it was till lately within the church.

This woman’s story was that which was probably given out on the spot, to be told to inquirers; so inconsistent is it in itself, and with known facts. Her account was, that Toussaint was carried off from Saint Domingo by the ship in which he was banqueted by Leclerc (the last of a line of two hundred), weighing anchor without his perceiving it, while he was at dinner. The absurdity of this beginning shows how much reliance is to be placed upon the rest of her story. She declared that the Commandant Rubaut had orders from the Government to treat the prisoner well; that his servant remained with him to the last; that he was well supplied with books, allowed the range of the fortress, and accustomed to pass his days in the house of the Commandant, playing cards in the evenings: that on the last night of his life he excused himself from the card-table, on the plea of being unwell; that he refused to have his servant with him, though urged not to pass the night alone; that he was left with fire, fauteuil, flambeaux, and a book, and found dead in his chair in the morning; and that the physicians who examined the body declared his death to have been caused by the rupture of a blood-vessel in the heart. This last particular is known to be as incorrect as the first. As for the rest, this informant differs from all others in saying that Mars Plaisir remained with his master to the last day of his life; and we may ask why Toussaint’s nights were to be passed in his horrible cell, if his days were so favoured; and how it was that no research availed to discover to the eager curiosity of all Europe and the West Indies the retreat of L’Ouverture, if he, a negro, was daily present to the eyes of the garrison of the fortress, and to those of all the inhabitants of the village, and of all the travellers on that road who chose to raise their eyes to the walls.

Our third informant was a boy, shrewd and communicative, who could tell us the traditions of the place; and, of course, young as he was, nothing more. It was he who showed us where the additional stove was placed when winter came on. He pointed to a spot beside the fireplace, where he said the straw was spread on which Toussaint lay. He declared that Toussaint lived and died in solitude; and that he was found dead and cold, lying on that straw—his wood-fire, however, not being wholly extinguished.

The dreary impressions of the place saddened our minds for long after we had left it; and, glad as we were, on rejoining our party at Lausanne, to report the complete success of our enterprise, we cannot recur to it, to this day, without painful feelings.