Rigaud

“ The Gowana was mistaken there.’
‘I earnestly hope,’ cried Arthur aloud, ‘that Pancks may not be long gone, for this man’s presence pollutes the room.’
‘Ah! But he’ll flourish here, and everywhere,’ said Rigaud, with an exulting look and snap of his fingers. ‘He always has; he always will!’ Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in the room besides that on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting himself on the breast as the gallant personage of the song. ”

“ In military science, horsemanship, and activity, Rigaud was the first man on the island, of any color. Toussaint bears the following testimony to the great skill of the mulatto general: "I know Rigaud well. He leaps from his horse when at full gallop, and he puts all his force in his arm when he strikes a blow." He was high-tempered, irritable, and haughty. The charmed power that he held over the men of his color can scarcely be described. At the breaking out of the revolution, he headed the mulattoes in his native town, and soon drew around him a formidable body of men. ”

“ Rigaud took his cigarette from his mouth, and eyed him with a momentary revelation of surprise. But he put it between his lips again, as he answered with coolness:
‘I sell anything that commands a price. How do your lawyers live, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange? How do you live? How do you come here? Have you sold no friend? Lady of mine! I rather think, yes!’
Clennam turned away from him towards the window, and sat looking out at the wall.
‘Effectively, sir,’ said Rigaud, ‘Society sells itself and sells me: and I sell Society. ”

“ Rigaud, died in June 1807. The son of the Richmond Astronomical Observer brought an extensive and deserved renown upon his name. Stephen Peter Rigaud was born in 1775, and matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford, on 15th April 1791; he become B.A. in 1797, M.A. 21st November 1799. So brilliant was his University career, that he was elected a Fellow of his College before he was of sufficient standing for a degree. His whole life was spent in Oxford. In 1810 he became Savilian Professor of Geometry, which he relinquished in 1827 for the Savilian Professorship of Astronomy. ”

“ In September 1846 Rigaud, who had formed a great friendship with Dean Liddell, went to Westminster School as Liddell's senior assistant master. Rigaud's house at the school still bears his name. While he lived in London he was appointed domestic chaplain to the Duke of Cambridge, and in 1850 he was elected head master of Queen Elizabeth's school, Ipswich. ”

“ The Governor rose suddenly, striking the table with his scabbard to stop Rigaud in his rash and dangerous speech.
"Not a word more of comment, Chevalier Rigaud!" said he, with a sharp imperative tone that cut short debate; "not another word! His Majesty's name and those of his ministers must be spoken here respectfully, or not at all! Sit down, Chevalier de Vaudreuil; you are inconsiderate." ”

“ But what’s this?’ cried Rigaud. ‘It appears as if you don’t know, one the other. Permit me, Madame Clennam who suppresses, to present Monsieur Flintwinch who intrigues.’
Mr Flintwinch, unpocketing one of his hands to scrape his jaw, advanced a step or so in that attitude, still returning Mrs Clennam’s look, and thus addressed her:
‘Now, I know what you mean by opening your eyes so wide at me, but you needn’t take the trouble, because I don’t care for it. I’ve been telling you for how many years that you’re one of the most opinionated and obstinate of women. That’s what you are. ”

“ His private virtues are remembered by many of us; and his public services will be remembered as long as Astronomy is a science cultivated among men.” Professor Rigaud married, in 1815, Christian, eldest daughter of Gibbes Walker Jordan, Esq., by whom (who died in 1827) he had four sons and three daughters; as to his sons —
Stephen Jordan Rigaud, D.D., born March 1816, was Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, Head Master of Ipswich School, and Bishop of Antigua, where he died, May 1859. ”

“ To Mignard succeeded Rigaud as portrait painter, worthy to preserve the features of Bossuet and Fenelon. The unity of organization, the brilliancy of style, the imposing majesty which the king’s taste had everywhere stamped about him upon art as well as upon literature, were by this time beginning to decay simultaneously with the old age of Louis XIV., with the reverses of his arms, and the increasing gloominess of his court; the artists who had illustrated his reign were dying one after another, as well as the orators and the poets ”

“ I repeat it, your Excellency--dismantle Quebec? How in God's name are the King's dominions and the King's subjects to be defended?" Rigaud got warmer. He was fearless, and would, as every one knew, have out his say had the King been present in person. "Be assured, your Excellency, it is not the King who orders that affront to his faithful colony; it is the King's ministers--the King's mistresses--the snuff-box-tapping courtiers at Versailles, who can spend the public money in more elegant ways than in raising up walls round our brave old city! Ancient honor and chivalry of France! ”

“ He soon returned with the bottle of wine: which, according to the custom of the place, originating in a scarcity of corkscrews among the Collegians (in common with a scarcity of much else) , was already opened for use.
‘Madman! A large glass,’ said Rigaud.
Signor Panco put a tumbler before him; not without a visible conflict of feeling on the question of throwing it at his head.
‘Haha!’ boasted Rigaud. ‘Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman. A gentleman from the beginning, and a gentleman to the end. What the Devil! A gentleman must be waited on, I hope? ”

“ You know the dream as well as I do. When you come down-stairs into the kitchen with the candle in your hand, and hitched my apron off my head. When you told me I had been dreaming. When you wouldn’t believe the noises.’ After this explosion Affery put her apron into her mouth again; always keeping her hand on the window-sill and her knee on the window-seat, ready to cry out or jump out if her lord and master approached.
Rigaud had not lost a word of this.
‘Haha!’ he cried, lifting his eyebrows, folding his arms, and leaning back in his chair. ‘Assuredly, Madame Flintwinch is an oracle! ”

“ There is about you an irresistible charm——”
“Ah!” shrieked Jaqueline, “so there is! I see it all now! It’s all along of that water I drank this morning. Get out of the way, do!” and, rushing past him, she ran off to the room of Madame Rigaud, whom she earnestly entreated to introduce her to the priest of the family without loss of time. “I shall place myself under his protection,” said she.
“The resolution does you great credit,” observed Madame Rigaud. “He will attend you here immediately, I am sure; for he is an excellent man, and always delighted to do good.” ”

“ Here lie the mortal remains of Stephen Peter Rigaud, M.A., F.R.S., &c, born August 1 2th, 1774, who departed this life, in expectation of the Resurrection, through faith in his Redeemer, March 16th, 1839. He was elected Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1794 ”

“ What! I am born to be served. Come then, you Cavalletto, and fill!’
The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with Rigaud, and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and poured out from the bottle into the glass. The blending, as he did so, of his old submission with a sense of something humorous; the striving of that with a certain smouldering ferocity, which might have flashed fire in an instant (as the born gentleman seemed to think, for he had a wary eye upon him) ”

“ Petion and several other generals followed Rigaud, when, at the conclusion of his war with Toussaint, he embarked for France. When Napoleon's ill-fated expedition came to St. Domingo, Rigaud returned, made his appearance at Aux Cayes, and, under his influence, the south soon rallied in arms against Toussaint. He fought bravely for France until the subjugation of the blacks and the transportation of their chief to the mother country, when Napoleon felt that Rigaud, too, was as dangerous to the peace of St. Domingo as Toussaint, and he was once more forced to return to France. ”

“ The English tried once more to win him over to their cause. Writing to him through Lapointe, they endeavored to speculate upon his supposed jealousy of Toussaint Louverture on account of his being appointed Commander-in-Chief of the army. In his reply Rigaud asserted his devotion to France and defended Toussaint. "I must," said he, "repress your insolence and your insulting tone toward the French General Toussaint Louverture. You have no right to speak of him as a coward, since you do not dare to encounter him; or as a slave, because a French Republican cannot be a slave. ”

“ Cavalletto got up again as before, and laid them before him in his former manner. Rigaud, after some villainous thinking and smiling, wrote, and read aloud, as follows:
‘To MRS CLENNAM.
‘Wait answer.
‘Prison of the Marshalsea. ‘At the apartment of your son.
‘Dear Madam, ‘I am in despair to be informed to-day by our prisoner here (who has had the goodness to employ spies to seek me, living for politic reasons in retirement) , that you have had fears for my safety.
‘Reassure yourself, dear madam. I am well, I am strong and constant. ”

“ Then the child’s head disappeared, and the prison-keeper’s head disappeared, but the little voice prolonged the strain until the door clashed.
Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way before the echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for imprisonment, and seemed to lag) , reminded him with a push of his foot that he had better resume his own darker place. The little man sat down again upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one who was thoroughly accustomed to pavements ”

“ The great part of us know well the other, and they all tell me. But!—no person can tell me nothing of him, Rigaud. Fifteen times,’ said Cavalletto, thrice throwing out his left hand with all its fingers spread, and doing it so rapidly that the sense of sight could hardly follow the action, ‘I ask of him in every place where go the foreigners ”

“ He told with perfect truth how it had come of a little contraband trading, and how he had in time been released from prison, and how he had gone away from those antecedents. How, at the house of entertainment called the Break of Day at Chalons on the Saone, he had been awakened in his bed at night by the same assassin, then assuming the name of Lagnier, though his name had formerly been Rigaud; how the assassin had proposed that they should join their fortunes together ”

“ Rigaud enjoyed great prestige in the South. Released by Hédouville's order from all obedience to Toussaint, and thus rendered somewhat independent, there was a possibility of his becoming a dangerous rival. To maintain his authority it would be necessary for Toussaint completely to cripple the power of the only man who could successfully resist him. Therefore he lost no time in beginning to discredit him.
Such was the situation when, on January 12, 1799, Roume arrived at Port-au-Prince. After concerting with Toussaint Louverture he called a meeting of Rigaud, Beauvais, and Laplume. ”

“ Without dismissing this general, the decree aimed at curtailing his authority. A. Chanlatte, Beauvais, and Martial Besse were respectively appointed commandants of the arrondissements of Jacmel, Léogane, and Saint-Louis. All of these officers were mulattoes; therefore it was believed that they would become interested in the downfall of André Rigaud, whilst the latter would distrust them: hence would arise fresh discord and the weakening of the power of this class of men. Sonthonax's scheme was a clever one. The Agency declared besides that it would no longer correspond with André Rigaud. ”

“ I heard afterwards that it was caused by the negroes of Morne-Rouge, who hurried from one end of the camp to the other, announcing the return of my liberator, and declaring their intention of supporting him in whatever object he had come to Biassou’s camp for. Rigaud had informed the generalissimo of this, and it was the fear of a fatal division in the camp that prompted Biassou to make some sort of concession to the wishes of Pierrot.
“Your Highness,” remarked he, with an air of injured innocence, “if we are hard on the whites, you are equally severe upon us. ”

“ I must have gone through at least seven rooms before I reached the sanctuary in which Monsieur Raoul Rigault held his audience.
This autocrat, whom the republicans (to their eternal shame be it said) had placed in power after the 4th of September, is (and was then) the most successful specimen of a scamp that the human race has ever produced. At this moment Rigault has more power than any one else in Paris. ”

“ There were two gendarmes standing behind Rigault's chair waiting for orders, and a man (of whom I did not take particular notice) leaning against the mantelpiece at the other end of the room.
I approached the table, waiting like a culprit for the all-powerful
Rigault to look up and notice me.
But he did not; he continued to be occupied with what he was doing. So I ventured to break the ice by saying, "Monsieur, I have come to procure a passport, and here is Mr. Washburn's card (the American Minister) to tell you who I am." ”