Toussaint heard the words, but they made a faint impression at the moment of his imagination being fixed on the young artillery officer. There were those present, however, who lost nothing of what was spoken, and who conveyed it all to the eager ears outside. The black attendants, the gazers and listeners who went in and out, intoxicated with the glory of the negro general, reported all that was said of him. These last few words of Polverel wrought wonderfully, and were instantly spread through the excited multitude. A shout was presently heard, which must have sounded far up the mountains and over the bay; and Polverel started with surprise when his word came back to him in a response like that of an assembled nation. “L’ouverture!” “L’ouverture!” cried the multitude, fully comprehending what the word contained in its application to their chief, “Toussaint L’Ouverture!” Henceforth, the city, the colony, the island, and, after a time, all Europe, rang with the name of Toussaint L’Ouverture.
When Toussaint heard the cry from without, he started to his feet; and his hosts rose also, on seeing the fire in his eye—brighter than during the deeds of the morning.
“The general would address them,” said Polverel. “You wish to speak to the people, General Toussaint.”
“No,” said Toussaint.
“What then?” inquired Laveaux.
“I would be alone,” said Toussaint, stepping backwards from the table.
“Your fatigues have doubtless been great,” observed Laveaux. “Lights shall be ordered in your apartment.”
“I cannot sleep yet,” said Toussaint. “I cannot sleep till I have news from Breda. But I have need of thought, gentlemen; there is moonlight and quiet in these gardens. Permit me to leave you now.”
He paced the shrubberies, cool with moonlight and with dews; and his agitation subsided when all eyes but those of Heaven were withdrawn. Here no flatteries met his ear—no gestures of admiration made him drop his eyes, abashed. Constrained as he yet felt himself in equal intercourse with whites, new to his recognised freedom, unassured in his acts, uncertain of the future, and (as he believed) unprepared for such a future as was now unfolding, there was something inexpressibly irksome and humbling in the homage of the whites—of men who understood nothing of him, and little of his race, and who could have none but political purposes in their intercourse with him. He needed this evening the sincerities as well as the soothings of nature; and it was with a sense of relief that he cast himself once again upon her bosom, to be instructed, with infantine belief, how small an atom he was in the universe of God—how low a rank he held in the hierarchy of the ministers of the Highest.
“Yet I am one,” thought he, as the shout of his name and now title reached his ear, distinct, though softened by distance. “I am an appointed minister. It seems as if I were the one of whom I myself have spoken as likely to arise—not, as Laveaux says, after Raynal, to avenge, but to repair the wrongs of my colour. Low, indeed, are we sunk, deep is our ignorance, abject are our wills, if such a one as I am to be the leader of thousands—I, whose will is yet unexercised—I, who shrink ashamed before the knowledge of the meanest white—I, so lately a slave—so long dependent that I am an oppression to myself—am at this hour the ruler over ten thousand wills! The ways of God are dark, or it might seem that He despised His negro children in committing so many of them to so poor a guide. But He despises nothing that He has made. It may be that we are too weak and ignorant to be fit for better guidance in our new state of rights and duties. It may be that a series of teachers is appointed to my colour, of whom I am to be the first, only because I am the lowest; destined to give way to wiser guides when I have taught all that I know, and done all that I can. May it be so! I will devote myself wholly; and when I have done may I be more willing to hide myself in my cottage, or lie down in my grave, than I have been this day to accept the new lot which I dare not refuse!—Deal gently with me, O God! and, however I fail, let me not see my children’s hearts hardened, as hearts are hardened, by power! Let me not see in their faces the look of authority, nor hear in their voices the tones of pride! Be with my people, O Christ! The weaker I am, the more be Thou with them, that Thy gospel may be at last received! The hearts of my people are soft—they are gentle, they are weak:—let Thy gospel make them pure—let it make them free. Thy gospel—who has not heard of it, and who has seen it? May it be found in the hearts of my people, the despised! and who shall then despise them again? The past is all guilt and groans. Into the future open a better way—”