Toussaint Louverture - Madison Bell [142]
On May 6, Toussaint Louverture rode into Cap Francais in the midst of three hundred horsemen of his honor guard. Leclerc, who was dining shipboard with the naval officers, seemed to be taken by surprise. By the time he hastened back to shore, Toussaint's guard had occupied the government palace, and by one (perhaps exaggerated) account, his men were stalking the grounds with their sabers drawn. Jacques de Norvins, a young French officer, described the scene: Toussaint Louverture “had followed Leclerc into his salon where they sat down on a couch facing the door. I was not much reassured by this interview, nor by the haughty manner of Toussaint's numerous guards who, leaning on their sabers, filled the surroundings, the courtyard and the apartments of the residence, while others guarded their horses, and while Toussaint also leaned on his saber, which he held upright between his legs … Any bad sign on the part of Toussaint,” Norvins concluded, and “at any moment the sabers of those black dragoons could have come out of their scabbards.'94
In this crackling atmosphere, it was Toussaint who seemed to dictate terms to Leclerc. The black generals still in rebellion—Vernet, Charles Belair, and Dessalines—would be retained in their ranks in the French army, despite the fact that, when reproached by Leclerc for the massacres in which some three thousand civilians had died, Toussaint replied flatly, “It was Dessalines.” When Leclerc insisted that Toussaint himself continue service as his “lieutenant,” Toussaint demurred: “My general, I am too old and too ill; I need rest and to live in the country. I can no longer serve the Republic. I want to go with my children to my plantation at Ennery.”95 Undoubtedly he strongly suspected that Leclerc meant to have him arrested and did not mean to give him the least opportunity.
The tension was diffused, somewhat, by a banquet, but Toussaint was not in a festive mood. “He said he was sick,” Norvins reports, “and did not even eat any soup; no more did he want to drink any wine. Only, at dessert, I offered him some Gruyere cheese; he took the plate and cut out a square piece, from which he removed a big enough thickness from all four sides, took in his fingers what remained from this singular operation, ate it without bread, and drank a glass of water from a carafe broached since the dinner began; it was thus that he did honor to the General in Chief's table.”96
Following this austere celebration, Toussaint rode out, still surrounded by the men of his guard (which, two thousand strong, would “retire” with him at Ennery). On the public square at Marmelade he bade farewell to his assembled troops, then continued toward his Ennery plantations. En route, legend has it, he was hailed by someone who asked, “General, have you abandoned us?” and Toussaint replied, “No, my children, all your brothers are under arms, and all the officers conserve their ranks.”97
It was not only in the ranks of the French army that the blacks of Saint Domingue remained under arms. Even after Toussaint's surrender, resistance never completely stopped—nor did Toussaint stop tacitly encouraging it. A general effort to disarm the population soon proved almost completely futile. Sans-Souci, who was even more enraged than Toussaint at the way Christophe's surrender had cut him off at the knees, began organizing for a fresh rebellion almost immediately. The guerrilla leader Sylla was actively resisting at Mapou, a point between Ennery and Plaisance, at the time of Toussaint's retirement to Ennery, and Sylla's presence helped secure Toussaint there. It took a major assault to dislodge Sylla from that position, and even then neither he nor his men could be captured.
Suspicion of Toussaint's secret involvement in such eruptions was constant. Makajoux, a commander in the neighboring town of Pilate, wrote to his French superior, “Toussaint and the other chiefs have surrendered only in appearance, and have only sought to give their troops