The Hour and the Man Part 20

"See, he sighs!" said Madame, sighing in echo.

"These are empty words," said Therese. "They give him only what they cannot withhold; and at the very moment they surround him with spies."

"He says," replied Madame, "that Hedouville is sent here 'to restrain his ambition.' Those were the words spoken of him at Paris, where they will not believe that he has no selfish ambition."

"They will not believe, because they cannot understand. Their Commander-in-chief has a selfish ambition; and they cannot imagine that ours may be a man of a higher sold. But we cannot help it: they are whites."

"What a dress--what a beautiful dress!" exclaimed Madame, who almost condescended to stand fairly in the window, to see the presents now displayed before her husband by the commissary's servants.

"These presents," pursued General Michel, while Petion stood aloof, as if he had no concern in the business--"this dress of embroidered velvet, and this set of arms, I am to present to you, in the name of the late Directory of France, in token of their admiration of your services to the colony."

Toussaint stretched out his hand for the sword, which he immediately a.s.sumed instead of the one he wore, observing that this sword, like that which he had now laid aside, should be employed in loyal service to the republic. As he took no notice of the embroidered dress, it was conveyed away.

"Not only in the hall of government," resumed Michel--"but throughout all Europe, is your name ringing to the skies. A eulogium has been delivered at the Council of Ancients--"

"And an oration before the governors of the Military Schools," added Hedouville.

"And from Paris," said Pascal, "your reputation has spread along the sh.o.r.es of the Rhine, and as far north as Saint Petersburg; and in the south, even to Rome."

Toussaint's ear caught a low laugh of delight from the piazza, which he thought fit alone for a husband's ear, and therefore hoped that no one else had heard.

"Enough, gentlemen," he said. "Measuring together my deeds and this applause, I understand the truth. This applause is in fact given to the powers of the negro race; and not to myself as a soldier or a man. It belongs not, therefore, to me. For my personal support, one line of a letter, one word of message, from the chief of our common country, would be worth the applause of Europe, of which you speak."

Monsieur Petion produced a sealed packet, which he delivered; and this seemed to remind General Vincent that he had one too. Toussaint was unable to refrain from tearing open first one, and then the other, in the intense hope of receiving some acknowledgment, some greeting from the "brother in destiny and in glory," who was the idol of his loyal heart. There was no word from Bonaparte among the first papers; and it was scarcely possible that there should be in the other packet; yet he could not keep his eye from it. Other eyes were watching from behind the jalousies. He cast a glance, a half smile that way; the consequence of which was that Aimee, forgetting the time, the deputation, the officers, the whole crowd, sprang into the room, and received the letter from Isaac, which was the only thing in all that room that she saw. She disappeared in another moment, followed, however, by General Vincent.

The father's smile died away from the face of Toussaint, and his brow darkened, as he caught at a glance the contents of the proclamations contained in Petion's packet. A glance was enough. Before the eyes of the company had returned from the window, whither they had followed the apparition of Aimee, he had folded up the papers. His secretary's hand was ready to receive them: but Toussaint put them into his bosom.

"Those proclamations," said Hedouville, rising from the sofa, and standing by Toussaint's side, "you will immediately publish. You will immediately exhibit on your colours the words imposed, 'Brave blacks, remember that the French people alone recognise your freedom, and the legality of your rights!'"

As the commissary spoke these, words aloud, he looked round upon the a.s.sembled blacks, who, in their turn, all fixed their eyes upon their chief. Toussaint merely replied that he would give his best attention to all communications from the government of France.

"In order," said Hedouville, as if in explanation of a friend's purposes, "in order to yield implicit obedience to its commands." Then resuming his seat, he observed to Toussaint, "I believe General Michel desires some little explanation of certain circ.u.mstances attending his landing at Cap."

"I do," said General Michel, resuming his solemn air. "You are aware that General Vincent and I were arrested on landing?"

"I am aware of it. It was by my instant command that you were set free."

"By whose command, or by what error, then, were we arrested?"

"I hoped that full satisfaction had been afforded you by Monsieur Raymond, the Governor of Cap Francais. Did he not explain to you that it was by an impulse of the irritated blacks--an impulse of which they repent, and to which they will not again yield, proceeding from anger for which there is but too much cause? As you, however, are not to be made responsible for the faults of your government towards us, the offending parties have been amply punished."

"I," said Hedouville, from the sofa behind, "I am held responsible for the faults of our government towards you. What are they?"

"We will discuss them at Cap," replied Toussaint. "There you will be surrounded by troops of your own colour; and you will feel more at liberty to open your whole mind to me than, it grieves me to perceive, you are when surrounded by blacks. When you know the blacks better, you will become aware that the highest security is found in fully trusting them."

"What is it that you suppose we fear from the blacks?"

"When we are at Cap, I will ask you what it was that you feared, Monsieur Hedouville, when you chose to land at Saint Domingo, instead of at Cap--when you showed your mistrust of your fellow-citizens by selecting the Spanish city for your point of entrance upon our island.

I will then ask you what it is that your government fears, that it commits the interests of the blacks to a new legislature, which understands neither their temper nor their affairs."

"This was, perhaps, the cause of the difficulty we met with at Cap,"

observed General Michel.

"It is the chief cause. Some jealousy on this account is not to be wondered at; but it has not the less been punished. I would further ask," he continued, turning again to Hedouville, "what the First Consul fears, that--"

"Who ever heard of the First Consul fearing anything?" cried Hedouville, with a smile.

"Hear it now, then."

"In this place?" said Hedouville, looking round. "In public?"

"In this place--among the most loyal of the citizens of France," replied Toussaint, casting a proud look round upon his officers and a.s.sembled friends. "If I were about to make complaints of the First Consul, I would close my doors upon you and myself, and speak in whispers. But it is known that I honour him, and hold him to my heart, as a brother in destiny and in glory: though his glory is now at its height, while mine will not be so till my race is redeemed from the consequences of slavery, as well as from slavery itself. Still, we are brothers; and I therefore mourn his fears, shown in the doc.u.ments that he sends to my soldiers, and shown no less in his sending none to me."

"I bring you from him the confirmation of your dignity," observed General Michel.

"You do so by message. The honour is received through the ear. But that which should plant it down into my heart--the greeting from a brother--is wanting. It cannot be that the First of the Whites has not time, has not attention, for the First of the Blacks. It is that he fears--not for himself, but for our country: he fears our ambition, our revenge. He shall experience, however, that we are loyal--from myself, his brother, to the mountain child who startles the vulture from the rocks with his shouts of Bonaparte the Great. To engage our loyalty before many witnesses," he continued, once more looking round upon the a.s.semblage, "I send this message through you, in return for that which I have received. Tell the First Consul that, in the absence of interference with the existing laws of the colony, I guarantee, under my personal responsibility, the submission to order, and the devotion to France, of my black brethren. Mark the condition, gentlemen, which you will p.r.o.nounce reasonable. Mark the condition, and you will find happy results. You will soon see whether I pledge in vain my own responsibility and your hopes."

Even while he spoke, in all the fervour of unquestionable sincerity, of his devotion to France, his French hearers fell that he was virtually a monarch. The First of the Blacks was not only supreme in this palace, and throughout the colony; he had entered upon an immortal reign over all lands trodden by the children of Africa. To the contracted gaze of the diplomatists present, all might not be visible--the coming ages when the now prophetic name of L'Ouverture should have become a bright fact in the history of man, and should be breathed in thanksgiving under the palm-tree, sung in exultation in the cities of Africa, and embalmed in the liberties of the Isles of the West:--such a sovereignty as this was too vast and too distant for the conceptions of Michel and Hedouville to embrace; but they were impressed with a sense of his power, with a feeling of the majesty of his influence; and the reverential emotions which they would fain have shaken off, and which they were afterwards ashamed of, were at the present moment enhanced by sounds which reached them from the avenue. There was military music, the firing of salutes, the murmur of a mult.i.tude of voices, and the tramp of horses and of men.

Toussaint courteously invited the commissaries to witness the presentation to him, for the interests of France, of the keys of the cities of the island, late in the possession of Spain, and now ceded to France by the treaty of Bale. The commissaries could not refuse, and took their stand on one side of the First of the Blacks, while Paul L'Ouverture a.s.sumed the place of honour on the other hand.

The apartment was completely filled by the heads of the procession--the late Governor of the city of Saint Domingo, his officers, the magistracy of the city, and the heads of the clergy.

Among these last was a face which Toussaint recognised with strong emotion. The look which he cast upon Laxabon, the gesture of greeting which he offered, caused Don Alonzo Dovaro to turn round to discover whose presence there could be more imposing to the Commander-in-chief than his own. The flushed countenance of the priest marked him out as the man.

Don Alonzo Dovaro ordered the keys to be brought, and addressed himself in Spanish to Toussaint. Toussaint did not understand Spanish, and knew that the Spaniard, could speak French. The Spaniard, however, chose to deliver up a Spanish city in no other language than that of his nation.

Father Laxabon stepped forward eagerly, with an offer to be interpreter.

It was an opportunity he was too thankful to embrace--a most favourable means of surmounting the awkwardness of renewed intercourse with one, by whom their last conversation could not be supposed to be forgotten.

"This is well--this fulfilment of the treaty of Bale," said Toussaint.

"But it would have been better if the fulfilment had been more prompt.

The time for excuses and apologies is past. I merely say, as sincerity requires, that the most speedy fulfilment of treaties is ever the most honourable; and that I am guiltless of such injury as may have arisen from calling off ten thousand blacks from the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and commerce, to march them to the gates of Saint Domingo.

You, the authorities of the city, compelled me to lead them there, in enforcement of the claims of France. If warlike thoughts have sprung up in those ten thousand minds, the responsibility is not mine. I wish that nothing but peace should be in the hearts of men of all races.

Have you wishes to express, in the name of the citizens? Show me how I can gratify them."

"Don Alonzo Dovaro explains," said the interpreter, "that it will be acceptable to the Spanish inhabitants that you take the customary oath, in the name of the Holy Trinity, respecting the government of their whole region."

"It is indeed a holy duty. What is the purport of the oath?"

"In the name of the Holy Trinity, to govern wisely and well."

"Has there lived a Christian man who would take that oath?"

"Every governor of the Spanish colony in this island, from Diego, the brother of Columbus, to this day."

"What is human wisdom," said Toussaint, "that a man should swear that he will be always wise? What is human virtue, that he should pledge his salvation on governing well? I dare not take the oath."

The Spaniards showed that they understood French by the looks they cast upon each other, before Laxabon could complete his version.