“Besides his thinking that there has been too much fighting,” said Aimée, “he wishes that the people should labour joyfully in the very places where they used to toil in wretchedness for the whites.”
Thérèse turned to listen, with fire in her eyes.
“In order,” continued Aimée, “that they may lose the sense of that misery, and become friendly towards the whites.”
Thérèse turned away again, languidly.
“There are whites now entering,” said Paul; “not foreigners, are they?”
“No,” said Madame. “Surely they are Creoles; yes, there is Monsieur Caze, and Monsieur Hugonin, and Monsieur Charrier. I think these gentlemen have all been reinstated in their properties since the last levée. Hear what they say.”
“We come,” exclaimed aloud Monsieur Caze, the spokesman of the party of white planters; “we come, overwhelmed with amazement, penetrated with gratitude, to lay our thanks at your feet. All was lost. The estates on which we were born, the lands bequeathed to us by our fathers, were wrenched from our hands, ravaged, destroyed. We and our families fled—some to the mountains—some to the woods—and many to foreign lands. Your voice reached us, inviting us to our homes. We trusted that voice; we find our lands restored to us, our homes secure, and the passions of war stilled, like this atmosphere after the storms of December. And to you do we owe all—to you, possessed by a magnanimity of which we had not dared to dream!”
“These passions of war, of which you speak,” said Toussaint, “need never have raged, if God had permitted the whites to dream what was in the souls of the blacks. Let the past now be forgotten. I have restored your estates because they were yours; but I also perceive advantages in your restoration. By circumstances—not by nature, but by circumstances—the whites have been able to acquire a wide intelligence, a depth of knowledge, from which the blacks have been debarred. I desire for the blacks a perpetual and friendly intercourse with those who are their superiors in education. As residents, therefore, you are welcome; and your security and welfare shall be my care. You find your estates peopled with cultivators?”
“We do.”
“And you understand the terms on which the labour of your fellow-citizens may be hired? You have only to secure to them one-fourth of the produce, and you will, I believe, be well served. If you experience cause of complaint, your remedy will be found in an appeal to the superintendent of cultivators of the district, or to myself. Over the cultivators no one else, I now intimate to you, has authority.”