Saint-Pierre, Martinique

“ Now had I been more familiar with the rare though limited treasures of West Indian literature, I would not have marvelled at the glorious mountain summits of Martinique that day we came to picturesque St. Pierre; I might have said to my companion: “Ah! here they are, quite as I expected; old, old friends; little white city, square cathedral tower, narrow, hilly streets; above and beyond little irregular fields—all hanging to the mountainside as they should!” ”

“ Martinique has suffered from occasional severe storms, as in 1767, when 1600 persons perished, and M. de la Pagerie, father of the Empress Josephine, was practically ruined, and in 1839, 1891 and 1903, when much damage was done to the sugar crop. Earthquakes have also been frequent, but the most terrible natural disaster was the eruption of Mont Pelé in 1902, by which the town of St Pierre, formerly the chief commercial centre of the island, was destroyed. ”

“ Pierre. I knew a little about it, to be sure; I knew that the Empress Josephine—the beautiful and unfortunate wife of the great Napoleon—was a creole from the shores of this island; I read in our West Indian guide-book (fortunately a very tiny affair) that Martinique is 43 miles long and 19 miles wide; that it has a population of 175,000; that its mountains rise to the height of some 4,500 feet; that the annual rainfall is great—some 87 inches; that the mean temperature is high, about 81 degrees; that the soil is rich and readily responds to cultivation ”

“ The freshness of the air, too, giving tension to the nerves, was favourable to the health of Europeans. From those heights, situated near the middle of the island, and surrounded by extensive forests, neither the sea, nor Port Louis, nor the church of the Shaddock Grove, nor any other object associated with the remembrance of Virginia could de discerned. Even the mountains, which present various shapes on the side of Port Louis, appear from hence like a long promontory, in a straight and perpendicular line, from which arise lofty pyramids of rock, whose summits are enveloped in the clouds. ”

“ Certain it is, no conquest can be attempted, either by sea or land, without exposing’ the ships and troops to a possibility of being disabled and diminished; and the same possibility militated as strongly against an attempt upon Guadeloupe, as it could possibly discourage the attack of St. Pierre. Besides, Martinique was an object of greater importance than Guadaloupe;* as being the principal place possessed by the French in those seas, and that to which the operations of the armament were expressly limited by the instructions received from the ministry. ”

“ Lucia and Martinique, an island of magnificent mountain peaks reminiscent of Hawaii and the high islands of the South Seas. By noon we had put Diamond Rock astern and rounded Cape Solomon. In midafternoon, less than twenty-four hours from Bridgetown, we dropped the anchor in the lee of an imposing gray stone fortress. Fort de France, the port city and capital of Martinique, spread out along the waterfront, looking very much like Papeete in the French Societies. ”

“ JOSEPHINE. Chapter I. Life in Martinique. A.D. 1760-A.D. 1775
Martinique.
Its varied beauties. The island of Martinique emerges in tropical luxuriance from the bosom of the Caribbean Sea. A meridian sun causes the whole land to smile in perennial verdure, and all the gorgeous flowers and luscious fruits of the torrid zone adorn upland and prairie in boundless profusion. Mountains, densely wooded, rear their summits sublimely to the skies, and valleys charm the eye with pictures more beautiful than imagination can create. ”

“ Pierre in the island of Martinique, where he established his head-quarters. The Boyne proceeded to Fort Royal Bay, where she was laid up for the hurricane months in a snug harbour, called Trois Islet Bay, and the sick and wounded were landed for the [Pg 127] benefit of fresh air, and every attention paid to them that could alleviate their sufferings. ”

“ At the foot of this mountain stands the town of Port Louis. On the right is formed the road which stretches from Port Louis to the Shaddock Grove, where the church bearing that name lifts its head, surrounded by its avenues of bamboo, in the middle of a spacious plain; and the prospect terminates in a forest extending to the furthest bounds of the island. The front view presents the bay, denominated the Bay of the Tomb; a little on the right is seen the Cape of Misfortune; and beyond rolls the expanded ocean, on the surface of which appear a few uninhabited islands ”

“ Martinique (176, of which a few are white) , a West Indian French possession, one of the Lesser Antilles; has a much-indented precipitous coast; a mountain range in the centre is densely wooded; the plains are fertile, and produce sugar, coffee, and cotton, which with fruit are the exports; the climate is hot and not salubrious; the island has been French, with three short intervals, since 1635. ”

“ The heights you have passed are no longer verdant, but purplish or gray,—with Pelée's cloud-wrapped enormity overtopping all. A very strong warm wind is blowing upon you—the trade-wind, always driving the clouds west: this is the sunny side of Martinique, where gray days and heavy rains are less frequent. Once or twice more the sea disappears and reappears, always over canes; and then, after passing a bridge and turning a last curve, the road suddenly drops down to the shore and into the burgh of Grande Anse. ”

“ PAUL AND VIRGINIA
Situated on the eastern side of the mountain which rises above Port Louis, in the Mauritius, upon a piece of land bearing the marks of former cultivation, are seen the ruins of two small cottages. These ruins are not far from the centre of a valley, formed by immense rocks, and which opens only towards the north. On the left rises the mountain called the Height of Discovery, whence the eye marks the distant sail when it first touches the verge of the horizon, and whence the signal is given when a vessel approaches the island. ”

“ Saint-Pierre never despaired of finding justification for every one of them, with human happiness as its basis. He went on bravely without disturbing himself that the laugh was at his expense, and with an ardour of conviction which convinced many of the men and almost all the women who read him. ”

“ The landscapes of the Voyage to the Isle of France are for the most part very sad. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre found the Isle of France ugly and gloomy, perhaps because he had had [Pg 63] nothing but trouble there. Throughout his narrative he tries to convey the impression of a barren, cheerless country, in some places covered with scorched grass, which makes it look "black as a coal-pit," in others paved with stones of an iron-grey colour, which form an unpleasant surface to a rugged country. Plants, which he generally loves so much, do not appeal to him there. ”

“ The trembling families meantime addressed their prayers to God all together in the cottage of Madame de la Tour, the roof of which cracked fearfully from the force of the winds. So incessant and vivid were the lightnings, that although the doors and window-shutters were securely fastened, every object without could be distinctly seen through the joints in the wood-work! Paul, followed by Domingo, went with intrepidity from one cottage to another, notwithstanding the fury of the tempest; here supporting a partition with a buttress, there driving in a stake ”

“ Yet either translation of the name holds equal truth: a land of ghosts it is, this marvellous Martinique! Almost every plantation has its familiar spirits,—its phantoms: some may be unknown beyond the particular district in which fancy first gave them being;—but some belong to popular song and story,—to the imaginative life of the whole people. Almost every promontory and peak, every village and valley along the coast, has its special folk-lore, its particular tradition. ”

“ Money can purchase anything in the new country—American information not always to be depended upon—A night attack; we are beaten off—It proves a “cut up,” instead of a “cut out”—After all, we save something out of the fire.
The next morning we weighed anchor, and returned to our station off Martinique. We had run within three miles of St. Pierre’s, when we discovered a vessel coming out under jury-masts. She steered directly for us, and we made her out to be the American brigantine which we had boarded some time before. O’Brien sent a boat to bring the master of her on board. ”

“ About noon we arrived at the quarter of Golden Dust. He rushed down to the sea-shore, opposite to the spot where the Saint-Geran had been wrecked. At the sight of the isle of Amber, and its channel, when smooth as a mirror, he exclaimed,—"Virginia! oh my dear Virginia!" and fell senseless. Domingo and I carried him into the woods, where we had some difficulty in recovering him. As soon as he regained his senses, he wished to return to the sea-shore ”

“ Some eight miles from the capital a gap in the hills gave a wide-spreading view of the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and all the southern half of Martinique, tumbled, mottled by sunshine and cloud shadows, more brown than this central region, the three little islands that mark the birthplace of a French empress dotting the dense-blue bay. Houses and people began to appear again, happy-go-lucky little huts, though with far more pride in their appearance than those of Haiti ”

“ Probably many years will elapse before Martinique once more regains the prosperity which was buried beneath the lava streams of Mont Pelee.
The appearance of the place to-day is not attractive. The blackened ruin of a rich city lies on the surface of the land like an unwholesome scar. ”

“ Pelée, you know, is identified with Martinique, much the same as the memory of Josephine; yet the people of the city can't seem to take his present disorder seriously. This is cataclysmic country. Hell—I use the word to signify a geological stratum—is very close to the surface down here. All these lovely islands are merely ash-piles hurled up by the great subterranean fires. The point is, Lost Atlantis is apt to stir any time under the Caribbean—and rub out our very pretty panorama."
"You regard this as an entertainment worth waiting for?" Paula asked. ”

“ We see that this is exactly the starting-point of The Modern Heloïse, a plebeian falls in love with a patrician. "From the first day," says Aimé Martin, "M. de Saint-Pierre felt the double ascendancy of her genius and her beauty, and she became at once the sole thought of his life." On her side the Julia of Poland did not remain insensible. We pass over the emotions which filled and lacerated their souls to the day blessed and fatal, when overtaken by a storm in a lonely forest, they repeated the scene of the groves of Clarens, adding thereto recollections of Dido's grotto. ”

“ During my constant journeys she has always slept at my side, and her face at waking has always been as at noon and all day long. She related to us once at the Marechale d'Albret's, where I knew her, that at Martinique—that distant country which was her cradle—an ancient negress, well preserved and robust, had been kind enough to take her into her dwelling. This woman led her one day into the woods. ”

“ One leaves Martinique with regret, even after so brief a stay: the old colonial life itself, not less than the revelation of tropic nature, having in this island a quality of uniqueness, a special charm, unlike anything previously seen.... We steam directly for Barbadoes;—the vessel will touch at the intervening islands only on her homeward route.
... Against a hot wind south,—under a sky always deepening in beauty. Towards evening dark clouds begin to rise before us; and by nightfall they spread into one pitch-blackness over all the sky. ”

“ Martinique is simply heaven on earth. You must imagine a community whose only vices are erotic. There are no thieves, no roughs, no snobs. Everything is primitive and morally pure—except in the only particular where purity would be out of harmony with natural conditions. As for the climate, it is divine—though this is the worst season.
And I have begun to hate all that is energetic, swift, rapid in thought or action, all rivalry, all competition, all striving in the race of success. It is just enough to live here: no, it is too much!—it is more than any ordinary human being deserves to enjoy. ”

“ In Martinique were white-faced houses like provincial France, and a boiling market full of colored women with kerchiefs ultramarine and scarlet. They passed hot St. Lucia, and Saba that is all one lone volcano. They devoured paw-paws and breadfruit and avocados, bought from coffee-colored natives who came alongside in nervous small boats; they felt the languor of the isles, and panted before they approached Barbados.
Just beyond was St. Hubert. ”

“ On the left side of the façade stood a tower, since demolished.
The church has no roof left above the vaulting. To visit the interior (consisting of a single nave of graceful proportions) apply to the carpenter. The entrance to the workshop is seen on the left of the photograph.
Church of Saint-Pierre (historical monument)
Market-day on Tuesdays and Fridays. If the tourist should wish to go to the top of the belfry or to visit the church on other than market days, he must apply to the concierge of the Tribunal (county court) in the square. ”

“ The population increased from 162,861 in 1878 to 175,863 in 1888 and 203,781 in 1901. In 1902 the great eruption of Mont Pelé occurred, and in 1905 the population was only 182,024. The bulk of the population consists of Creole negroes and half-castes of various grades, ranging from the “Saccatra,” who has retained hardly any trace of Caucasian blood, to the so-called “Sangmêlé,” with only a suspicion of negro commixture. The capital of the island is Fort de France, on the west-coast bay of the same name, with a fine harbour defended by three forts, and a population of 18,000. ”