About three o’clock of the day on which Antanànarìvo fell, a shell was thrown into the palace-yard, which was then packed with people, who had taken refuge there. By this shell some sixty were torn to pieces under the eyes of the queen, who with the prime minister was on the verandah of the great palace. Her Majesty all but fainted at the sight, and at once gave orders for the flag on the palace to be lowered. Her eyes had been opened by that time, and she saw how basely she had been betrayed by those whom she had trusted. No one would obey her and lower the flag until, at last, one of the menials of the court climbed up, and cut the rope. An officer—the protégé of the Jesuits and seducer of the other traitors from their allegiance, and their coach in the part they were to play—and one of the queen’s private secretaries were sent out with the white flag of surrender. They were only just in time, as it was 3.20 when the flag was seen, and the bugles sounded cease firing. Another ten minutes, and the bombardment with melinite shells would have commenced. The guns were loaded with them, the officers standing by, watch in hand; but in the providence of God the appearance of the white flag averted the catastrophe.
RAINILAIÀRIVÒNY, THE LAST PRIME MINISTER OF MADAGASCAR.
After the French had established themselves in the capital, Rainilaiàrivòny, the late prime minister, and husband of the queen, was deposed. He was then a man of nearly seventy years of age, and for many years had been the one prominent figure in the island. His character was a strange mixture, and, living as he did through the period of transition from heathenism to Christianity, he seemed more or less to partake of both elements, the latter, however, predominating. For, whatever may have been his faults, he was, not only in natural ability, but in general uprightness, head and shoulders above most of those by whom he was surrounded. He was the genius of the Hova people—one of the ablest men I ever met. He lived a thoroughly respectable, upright life; introduced, especially in earlier years, numerous beneficial reforms; was in entire sympathy with all educational and religious work; and had ruled the island for thirty years as it never had been ruled before. He was then nearing his dotage, and the French removed him. He was taken to one of his country seats a few miles to the north of the capital, where, after suffering imprisonment for some months, he was, soon after the rising began, banished to Algeria, and died there about five or six months after. His corpse was taken back to Antanànarìvo some five years after, and buried in the family tomb.
General Duchesne, who was a chivalrous French gentleman of the old school, treated the queen with the utmost courtesy and kindness, and did all in his power to soften her fall. Very different indeed was his treatment of her from that which she afterwards received. For his chivalry he was attacked and abused by a section of the French press. The queen had been betrayed (a word which Frenchmen are themselves prone enough to use with less justification) rather than conquered. All this was forgotten by those who profited by her fall. Sympathy was denied her because she was only a nigger! The General, however, stuck to his guns, declined to do anything dishonourable or degrading, and behaved all through in a way that earned for him the respect of all those—natives and foreigners—whose respect was worth having. It was due to him, who had throughout shown himself to be not only a kindly disposed and merciful man, but also a rigid military disciplinarian, that there was no looting, no drunkenness, no disturbance of any kind, and that all provisions were bought—in the capital at least—with honest cash.
On the march of the expedition through our old district of Vònizòngo, some of the French black troops took Rainihàrisòa, a Malagasy medical practitioner—an old pupil of mine—prisoner, and robbed him of his watch. He was brought before General Duchesne, who asked how he had been treated, and if he had been robbed of anything. He told him of his being robbed of his watch. The General asked the value of it; was told £3. He immediately handed that sum to Rainihàrisòa. He then summoned the captain of the black troops who had committed the robbery before him, and in the sternest terms informed him what would be the consequences if such conduct was allowed to be repeated. Notwithstanding all that, the wire-pullers managed to have him nominally honoured, but practically disgraced and shelved. The blame of all the blundering and sacrificing of soldiers’ lives during the campaign was laid upon him, and not on the real culprit at the War Office.
Immediately after the arrival of the French at the capital William and Lucy Johnson of the Friends’ Mission, with their little daughter ‘Blossom,’ were murdered at Arìvonimàmo, in the west, by a semi-heathen mob. The Johnsons ought to have been in the capital; but sense of duty kept them at their station, although no work could be done there at the time. They trusted the people, and would not believe that they could harm those who, like themselves, had never done them anything but good. That feeling of trust kept them from taking advantage of the opportunity to escape, when they might have done so, even when they were urged to flee. They paid dearly for their error of judgement. The temper of a mob, but especially of a semi-heathen mob, is always an unknown quantity.
The martyrdom of the Johnsons, as it afterwards appeared, saved the lives of the queen, the French General and staff, the chief Malagasy officials, the traitors, and the European community at Fàravòhitra in the capital. For one of the tribes—the Zànakàntitra—in the neighbourhood of the capital, having branches in other parts of the central province, had formed a conspiracy to murder the traitors for betraying them and selling their fatherland; the queen and chief Malagasy officials for yielding to the French; the French General and his staff; and the European community for being on friendly terms with the French, and therefore in their minds, of course, in league with them against the Malagasy. The whole tribe was to assemble from the various villages by different routes at the weekly market at the capital, on a certain Friday, armed with knives and small meat-axes, which could easily be carried hidden under their cotton plaids. At a pre-arranged signal one party was to rush the French residency, another the palace, and a third Fàravòhitra, where the European community mostly resided, and all were to be massacred. As nothing of this kind was suspected by any one the plot might very easily have succeeded.
On the Monday, however, before the Friday fixed upon, two Malagasy officers—one of whom I knew well—and nine soldiers were sent out west to one of the villages of the Zànakàntitra tribe to arrest a bad character who was wanted; but who was being harboured by the chief of that village. On their arrival at the village they demanded in the queen’s name that the man should be given up; but the chief refused to hand him over to them. Thereupon the Hova officers in an arrogant tone—Hova officers were nothing if not arrogant—declared that if he was not given up at once he would be taken by force together with the chief, and that both would be carried off as prisoners to the capital. The chief dared them to do so. Whereupon the officers and men drew their batons—they had no other arms—and entered the village; but as they were completely at the mercy of the villagers, who were armed and ready to receive them, they were at once speared or cut down. Thus the eleven were literally cut to pieces!
Having committed so great a crime as the murder of the queen’s officers and men they knew the consequences, and having once tasted blood determined not to wait till Friday; but rose at once, and sent off messengers to call out the other branches of the tribe. As they were not prepared to rise at a moment’s notice, and many were from home, they were joined only by a few from their immediate neighbourhood. They marched next morning on Arìvonimàmo, to seek, it was said, for an evangelist against whom they had a grudge, and who, it had been reported, was under shelter in Mr. Johnson’s house. When they found that he had escaped they attacked the Johnsons and murdered them all. They looted their property and burned down their dwelling.