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Leclerc sent these boys to Toussaint, with the demand that he should submit or send his children back as hostages. An affecting interview took place between the boys and their father, and when they repeated to him Napoleon’s words, he was at first inclined to yield, but fuller consideration induced him to refuse.

“I cannot accept your terms,” he said. “The First Consul offers me peace, but his general no sooner arrives than he begins a fierce war. No; my country demands my first consideration. Take back my sons.”

In the continuation of the war a French force of twenty thousand men under Rochambeau marched against Toussaint, who was strongly intrenched at Crete a Pierrot. In the contest that followed Toussaint at first outgeneralled Rochambeau and defeated him with severe loss. But the assistance he looked for from his subordinates failed to reach him, and at length he was forced to retreat.

The French, however, despite their superior numbers and the military experience of their leaders, found that they had no mean antagonist in the negro general, and Leclerc again resorted to negotiation, offering the blacks their freedom if they would submit. Toussaint, seeing that he was unable to hold his own against his powerful foe, and convinced that the terms offered would be advantageous to his country, now decided to accept them, saying, “I accept everything which is favorable for the people and for the army; as for myself, I wish to live in retirement.”

The negro liberator trusted his enemies too much. The pride of Napoleon had not yet digested the affront of Toussaint’s message, “From the First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites,” and he sent orders to Leclerc to arrest and send him to France. In June, 1802, a force was sent secretly at night to Toussaint’s home, where he was dwelling in peace and quiet. The house was surrounded, two blacks that sought to defend him were killed on the spot, and he was dragged from his bed and taken to the coast. Here he was placed on board a man-of-war, which at once set sail for France.

Napoleon’s treatment of Toussaint was one of the dark deeds in his career. Reaching France, the captive was separated from his wife and children and confined in the dungeon of a dreary frontier castle. Here, one morning in April, 1803, Toussaint L’Ouverture, the negro liberator, was found dead. He had been starved to death, if we may accept the belief of some authors.

The Haytien patriot died in poverty, though he might easily have accumulated vast wealth. In his official position he had maintained a degree of magnificence, and Napoleon believed that he had concealed great riches somewhere in the island. He sent spies to question him, but Toussaint’s only reply was, “No, the treasures you seek are not those I have lost.” The lost ones were his wife, his children, and his liberty.

Treachery is often an error, and Napoleon was soon to find that he had made a fatal mistake in his treatment of the leader of the blacks. Alarmed at his seizure, and having no one to control them, the negroes flew to arms, and soon the revolt spread over the whole island. Yellow fever came to the aid of the blacks, raging in Leclerc’s army until thousands of soldiers and fifteen hundred officers found graves in the land they had invaded. In the end Leclerc himself died, and Pauline was taken back to France. When Napoleon heard the story of the fate of his expedition, he exclaimed in dismay,–

“Here, then, is all that remains of my fine army; the body of a brother-in-law, of a general, my right arm, a handful of dust! All has perished, all will perish! Fatal conquest! Cursed land! Perfidious colonists! A wretched slave in revolt. These are the causes of so many evils.” He might more truly have said, “My own perfidy is the cause of all those evils.”

A few words must conclude this tale. General Rochambeau was sent large reinforcements, and with an army of twenty thousand men attempted the reconquest of the island. After a campaign of ferocity on both sides, he found himself blockaded at Cape Haytien, and was saved from surrender to the revengeful blacks only by the British, to whom he yielded the eight thousand men he had left. As he sailed from the island he saw the mountain-tops blazing with the beacon-fires of joy kindled by the blacks. From that day to this the island of Hayti has remained in the hands of the negro race.