Jean-Jacques Dessalines

“ Dessalines was less successful against Saint-Marc, which he failed to storm. This defeat convinced him of the necessity of organizing his troops. After establishing his headquarters in the Artibonite province, this illiterate man, who could barely sign his name, astonished even his opponents by the energy and the audacity of his combinations. Within a comparatively short time he got up a regular army. And what were these soldiers? Men who had just been freed from slavery—peasants, most of whom had never handled a gun! ”

“ A ray of light crept into the black face. "And is there anyone, I should like to know, more fitted to rule than Monsieur le Comte? is there any other man possessed of such power of mind and body?" Dessalines' arms fell slowly to his sides where they hung, elbows bent from the tonic contraction of the heavy biceps. "Who," Jules continued, "has such a magnificent presence for the council chamber; such wisdom for the laws of statecraft?" Dessalines' eyes brightened. "Such honesty, such goodness, to endear him to his people!" The negro face assumed an expression of ineffable good nature. ”

“ Jules saw that the Jew would spare nothing to place Dessalines in power. Then, very properly, he would ask for and receive a bonus; a subsidy; special export duties for his coffee or timber grants. As for the agent, he knew that if successful he had but to ask. Dessalines was generous.
Their conference contained no element of dissension; the three mutually friendly, mutually respectful; their floreate expressions were not rococo, they gilded strong sentiments.
These three men are not such infrequent types as one might think; there are to be met many such if one travels their paths. ”

“ Fouchère shrugged. "It sounds most fatiguing. But do you not miss the gayeties, the life, the ladies?"
Dessalines frowned. "My dear Tancrède I was never a gay fellow like yourself; but since I have been in England I have been led to the Light." Expressions which would have been cant to an Englishman were deeply impressive to the primitive nature of Dessalines. "Personally I prefer the English régime; decency, morality, religion, are the strongest buttresses of state. ”

“ Dessalines forgot his contempt; he struggled to remember that he was a spectator; cold, dispassionate, watching from a height the writhings of worms. His muscles began to twitch, his bulging eyes to roll.
The dance progressed; beside him La Fouchère trembled spasmodically. Shocking scenes were enacted; the earth seemed to have ruptured and spewed up the denizens of hell. The drum beat on; the chorus grew hoarse, supplicating, convulsive. Dessalines' brain swam; like a drowning man all but unconscious, he fought on blindly, not knowing why he should fight. ”

“ The people about me were my slaves; I had everything. I firmly believed my people to be the greatest on earth; Hayti the garden spot of the world; myself destined to be a power in Hayti; for you see, Giles, my father recognized early that I was the superior of those about me; he was ambitious for me and he needed me to aid in carrying out a long-formed project."
Giles had listened, absorbed, embarrassed at first and uncomfortable at Dessalines' reference to things the mere hint of which was a matter of shame and anger to an Anglo-Saxon. Dessalines' origin had never occurred to him ”

“ He is very bright and a charming musician. You shall hear him play the flute. And now tell me all about our dear Paris; would you believe it, it is four years since I was last there. These troublous times! What a blessing to be rich; not to be harassed by cares of business!"
Dessalines spent a pleasant evening. As they were about to retire early, according to local custom, Calisthène remarked with a half smile:
"You are to be envied, Aristide; one does not come back to Hayti every day, and from England. Tiens. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV ISIDORE ROSENTHAL BUT do not delay in New York, Dessalines," pleaded Madam Fouchère, "continue with us to Port au Prince. New York is abominable unless one is bleached white like myself."
They were sitting together in one of the alcoves of the main salon; it was late in the afternoon; Fouchère was playing cards with some Parisians and Dessalines had asked Madam Fouchère to have champagne and fruit.
"It is imperative, my friend," answered Dessalines. "There are affairs which it is impossible to neglect." ”

“ The Waccamaw was a good ship; she ran smoothly "in a groove," true as a liner. The brokers had played fair; Rosenthal had played fair; Dessalines had bought a good vessel cheaply. Her machinery held no false notes; no rough sounds.
Dessalines listened to the throb and beat and found himself adapting the time to an English evangelical hymn which had always stirred him. He began to voice the words to the thrust from the great cylinders, the click of the eccentric, the jar of the circulating pump:
"Mine eyes shall see the glory of the coming of the Lord!" ”

“ One hardly dares to speak; we are in frightful confusion. There is some one here now who will rejoice to see you." He watched Dessalines narrowly. "Your old friend General Miragoâne."
"I am charmed!" exclaimed Dessalines. "But come below, my dear Calisthène; I have some excellent champagne and this vessel makes ice. I am starving for the news."
He led his friend below, where Jules served them with champagne. Rosenthal, of course, did not appear.
"Is your captain then not anxious to proceed at once?" inquired Calisthène, and again his chocolate-colored eyes examined Dessalines covertly. ”

“ I love Hayti! It is Fouchère who is fond of Paris—but then Fouchère has me!" She laughed, and he felt her eyes playing over him from the dark crevice between the lashes. "Monsieur resides in England. Why is that? Are the people not fatiguing? Do you find it amusing?"
"I have been studying," answered Dessalines slowly. "I did not go to be amused; my amusements are to come later." His black features grew thoughtful. Dessalines was unable to hide an emotion, although he could conceal a purpose. ”

“ Dessalines went to Rosenthal's stateroom.
"I will bid you au revoir, my friend. General Miragoâne has been here and is no doubt already on his way to the rendez-vous."
"And the situation?" asked Rosenthal. Dessalines in a few words put him in possession of the facts given him by the mulatto.
In their delight the two embraced.
"There is nothing more to be said?" asked Dessalines.
"I can think of nothing, my king!" exclaimed the Jew. "It now remains only to act. Haste is necessary. Our blows must be swift, strong, and final. ”

“ A smiling assurance of physical damage from a Jew who stood ferociously ready to put his threat into execution had perhaps awed them more than the threat itself. Rosenthal had won his point, threatened violence, then invited them to drink. He was a competent man.
At midnight Dessalines awoke; his slumbers had been nervous and fitful. The African is not a deep sleeper; he is indolent; rests at odd intervals, like a dog, a cat, any primitive creature. In the deep night he will awake, listen, twitch, peer, often arise and prowl when a white man will be fathoms deep in oblivion. ”

“ All that your people need is decent treatment; to be encouraged to diligence and thrift—what any peasant class needs. Exactly, I am very glad to find that you take such a sensible view of the case."
Dessalines, his oratorical bubble pricked, subsided helplessly, smiled, shuffled a trifle, and seemed for the moment at a loss. At this moment dinner was announced and Dessalines, as guest of honor, took out his hostess.
"If I had let the fellow run on," muttered Leyden to Virginia, as she laid her hand upon his arm, "we would all have been carried away by his eloquence ”

“ CHAPTER XV AN OVATION AFTER being left by his agent, Dessalines gave himself up to a debauch of imaginings, for like many Africans he possessed to a very great degree the capacity for highly colored flights of fancy. It is this quality which, perhaps more than any other, raises the negro to the plane above many other savage races who lack this quality of living in other worlds than the material ”

“ Soon the neophytes had disappeared; others from the edge of the amphitheater took their places. All, as they danced, drank great draughts of the mixture in the caldron; the women tore the clothes from their bodies.
Dessalines, from the depths of his lair, had watched silently. At first the sinister scene had excited him, stirred his wild fancies, half frightened him. This sensation had been dispelled by the mummery about the altar; as an educated man it roused his contempt; as a Christian, his righteous anger. It had given him time to collect himself ”

“ Virginia, recovered in the respite when he had taken his eyes from hers, and now fighting hard to control the revulsion which impelled her almost irresistibly to rush shrieking from his presence, was unable to formulate a reply. Dessalines, led into a new train of thought by this query, stood for a moment in silence.
"What is it?" he asked, and an odd fretfulness had entered his voice. "Have we not the same souls, the same God, the same heaven? We feel no repulsion to the whites, why should they feel it toward us?" ”

“ No child could be disinherited by his parents; emigration subjected a person to the loss of his citizenship, and a citizen becoming bankrupt lost all his privileges; all citizens too were required to make themselves skilful in some mechanical trade. Such enactments as these did credit to the people from whom they emanated, and must in some measure soften our detestation of Dessalines, who consented that they should form a part of the fundamental laws which he was sworn to observe, and by which he engaged to govern. ”

“ Dessalines' well-groomed appearance, the cut and style of his costume, his man-servant with whom he talked in French, constantly and volubly, separated him from all preconceived American views of the negro. He did not seem a "darky," he was an Othello; even the negro porter was impressed and respectful, an unusual quality in the attitude of a negro menial toward a negro gentleman.
Arrived in Boston he went at once to the most fashionable hotel, where he was accommodated without question. Other guests may or may not have protested his presence ”

“ Virginia reflected that whatever the past history of the race of which he was an exponent, there surely must have been some long-forgotten epoch of enlightenment to have transmitted this intellect through the dark eras which had followed.
"It is a shame to oblige you to stable your own horse, Count Dessalines," said Lady Maltby as they met.
Dessalines bowed. "The fault is mine, Lady Maltby. If one will ride a dragon one must expect to be his own hostler. It is far less trouble to stable the animal than to provide for a widow and a family!" ”

“ From without there came in swelling chorus the soft diapason of insect orchestra; the night air was heavy with dew-cooled, tropic perfumes.
"Hear it," said Calisthene. "Smell it! Ah, Hayti is only Hayti, is it not? Justitian, cher petit, come bid our guest bon soir."
Dessalines slept ill that night; the depth of fantasy which in the negro fills the place of sentient imagination had been more stirred by the events of this day of his arrival in his native country than at any time since the first formation of his ambitious projects. ”

“ As soon as we are clear of these accursed customs we will get into a cab and go to the hotel where I have engaged rooms for you; it is a quiet place where everyone minds his own business, and at this crisis it is better that you should sacrifice the admiration which accompanies you for the sake of discretion."
Dessalines acquiesced, although inwardly disappointed. He had been told by fellow passengers that New York had become too cosmopolitan to permit longer of race prejudice, and that he would be respectfully treated at any of the best hotels. ”

“ That he caused the death of innocent persons, there is not the slightest doubt; but that such a man as he was needed at the time, all must admit. Had Dessalines been in the place of Toussaint, he would never have been transferred from Hayti to France. Unlimited power, conferred upon him, together with the opposition of the whites in all countries, made him cruel even to his own race, and they, looked forward with a degree of hope to his removal. The mulattoes, against whom he had never ceased to war, were ever watchful for an opportunity to take his life. ”

“ Do not young people of her age die? She must die, my son, and perhaps before you. Who knows if she is alive at this moment? Nature meant you to die but once; you have prepared a second death for yourself. ”

“ And now listen when he talks; architects do not design drawing-rooms for such a voice. He should be banging a drum with his fist, and howling!"
Virginia laughed; Leyden meant that she should; he realized that Virginia was affected by the great black presence and knew that there is nothing to slacken tension like laughter.
Dessalines' amphorous voice was filling the room as the hostess led him to those of the guests whom he had not met. ”

“ Giles, receiving guests, intimate friends, conventional folk, at his father's door would have been less at his ease.
The tableau was greeted by an instant of involuntary silence. "Ach!" muttered Leyden, beneath his breath. "That is fine ... that spectacle. I did not think that he had it in him, this negro." Like many men who spend much of their lives in solitude of thought, Leyden had the habit of audible self-communing when suddenly impressed. Virginia overheard him.
Then Dessalines did a graceful thing; a Gallic action. He threw out both great arms, the massive head went back. ”

“ Dessalines groaned; his sobbings became more audible.
"You shall come with me to the house, Count Dessalines," said Virginia firmly. "You shall be our guest—you are still our friend."
"No!" The negro raised his great hand. "I am not fit to go under your roof. I am a negro, a creature of inferior race; the same God does not love us both; our souls have their separate heavens—and hells!"
"You have suffered, Count Dessalines," said Virginia in the tone one would use to a grieving child. "I heard that you were betrayed by one who you thought was your friend. ”