Reading History to avoid further deceit !

<< THE CHATEAU DE JOUX AND TOUSSAINT
THE LAST DAYS OF TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE >>

Part 1/4

The The Last Days Of Toussaint L'Ouverture is an account by John Bigelow (1817–1911), editor (co-editor of the New York Evening Post ), author, and diplomat (US Consul in Italy), of a 1859 visit to the site of Toussaint Louverture's imprisonment and death on April 7, 1803: Fort de Joux. From the book Retrospections Of An Active Life. This also appeared in John R. Beard's book, Toussaint L'Ouverture: A Biography and Autobiography and was published in the New York Independent in 1861. (Beard p. 347

THE CHATEAU DE JOUX AND TOUSSAINT
I returned to Paris by way of Lausanne, for a look at the dwelling there to which Gibbon had given classic importance, and then I next took the somewhat unusual route over the mountains to Pontarlier.
I wanted to get a view, if possible, of Mont Blanc from the heights of the Jura; to become better acquainted with the people of this department of France, whom of all the French I most admire; and, above all, to visit the famous Chateau de Joux, where Mirabeau was confined at the time he contracted his scandalous relations with Mme. de Monnier, the "Sophie" of his Vincennes correspondence, and where Toussaint L'Ouverture died, a victim to the treachery of Napoleon and the severity of an Alpine climate.

Part 2/4
(....) Crossing the court and passing along the gloomy corridor of stone, I was next led to a door which, as my companion proceeded to unfasten, she informed me was occupied by the "naygre." It was the dungeon of Toussaint, first called "L'Ouverture" by a French officer, because of his military prowess in opening the ranks of the English soldiers with his sword during some engagement.

Though of African origin, and forty-eight years a slave, he took advantage of the revolutionary troubles in France, and subsequent hostilities between France and England, to make the blacks of St. Domingo independent, and himself President for life. Bonaparte, who approved of the lead he took in saving the colony from the English, was solicited to approve the action of the Central Assembly which made him President. Toussaint's letter bore the following somewhat memorable but not altogether conciliatory superscription, "The first of the blacks to the first of the whites."

Bonaparte's answer was taken out by Leclerc, his brother-in-law, and thirty thousand of the best troops in France, who issued a proclamation apprising the islanders that the French general had been sent out as the first magistrate and captain-general of the colony. Toussaint bade him and his master defiance, set fire to the Cape, retired to the mountains, and resisted the invaders with such success that at the end of eight months Napoleon's brother-in-law had but three thousand effective men out of the thirty thousand that had landed with him. Finding it impossible to conquer Toussaint, Leclerc invited him to a conference, under the usual pledges for his safety, and when in his power, regardless of his own honor or that of his master, or of the nation so gravely compromised by his conduct, he hustled the too confiding negro on board of a ship and sent him to France. After a brief confinement in the Temple at Paris, Napoleon ordered him to the Fort de Joux.

The room which he occupied, and to which I was now introduced, is some twenty-five or thirty feet long, by, say, twelve broad. There was a fireplace on one side near the middle, but no furniture of any kind. Its walls were all of stone, and arched with stone overhead. Near the ceiling one end was pierced by a small window which admitted what light and air the inmates were expected to enjoy, but which seemed enough to keep the place sufficiently dry for habitation.

On the mantel over the fireplace was the lower half of a skull, most of the brain-cover having been taken off, and resting on what remained, was the following avis, which my guide forbade my copying, as contrary to the orders of the commandant, and for a transcript of which, as for many other gratifying attentions, I was indebted to M. Girod, to whose archaeological and historical labors I have already made allusion

Part 3/4
Through the kindness of M. Girod I was enabled to derive from the archives of Pontarlier some further particulars respecting Toussaint's condition and treatment during his confinement here, which seemed worthy of exhumation. They are embodied in documents the originals of which I inspected.

The first simply acknowledges the notice sent to the prefecture of the department by the subprefect that Toussaint had arrived, and informs that functionary that the arrangements for the security of the prisoner are to be under the exclusive direction of the general in command of that division.

The second notifies the prefect that the Minister of Par had given orders that Toussaint should receive healthy and suitable food, and that he should be clothed suitably for the season, with the understanding that he must not wear a general's uniform.

The estimation in which their prisoner was held by the French Government, and the rigor of treatment to which they deemed it necessary to subject him, are revealed in the third letter from the prefect of the department to the subprefect at Pontarlier. The following extract from it might have been clipped, mutatis mutandis, from one of Governor Wise's heroic appeals to the chivalry of Virginia against John Brown:

I recommend you [he writes] not to lose sight of this important object. If any man imprisoned for the rest of his days, whatever the degree of his guilt, did not appeal to our humanity, I would say that this person, who is known only by his repeated perfidy, murders, pillage, incendiarism, and the most frightful cruelties, did not deserve any. But whatever be the opinion we ought to entertain of him, the orders of the Minister are precise.
Toussaint must not see any person, nor must he be permitted to leave the chamber in which he is confined, under any pretext whatever. The guard of the fort should be set with the greatest exactness, and without the relaxation of vigilance. The General of Division only can modify the rigor of these orders, and I know he will not do it without being authorized by the Minister. The commandant must sleep at the fort, unless specially authorized to the contrary by his superiors. The supplies of the prisoner have been prescribed. They must not be exceeded upon any pretext. Every excess will be stricken off from the account.

part 4/4
From these documents and others which I was shown it appears:

That Toussaint was guarded with unusual, if not excessive rigor, and that the view taken of his character and career at that time by the War Department, whose agent declared that if there was an exception to the rule that pity was due to the unfortunate, Toussaint was the exception, was very different from that which is taken of him now by the world, and indeed by the French themselves, who, through the mouth of the most inspired of their modern poets, have said of him, "Cet homme est une nation," and within fifty years after his cheerless death accepted the lesson of his life by striking the chains off every slave held under a French title.


Post-mortem Examination of Toussaint L'Ouverture

Copy of the Minutes of the Post-mortem Examination of Toussaint L'Ouverture


We, the undersigned, Doctor in Medicine and Surgeon of the city of Pontarlier, pursuant to the invitation of Citizen Amyot, Commandant of the Fort de Joux, and of Renaud, Justice of the Peace of the canton of Pontarlier, have gone to the said Fort de Joux, when, in their presence, we have proceeded to the opening and the examination of the body of the negro Toussaint L'Ouverture, prisoner, whose death yesterday we have verified.
Post-mortem ExaminationA little mucus mixed with blood in the mouth and on the lips, the left lateral sinus and the vessels of the pia mater gorged with blood, serous effusion in the lateral ventricle same side, the choroid pleurus infiltrated and strewed with hydatids, the pleura adhering almost entirely to the substance of the lungs; sanguineous engorgement of the right lung, as well as of the pleura corresponding, but of a purulent nature in these viscera; a little fatty polypus in the right ventricle of the heart, which otherwise was in a natural state; emaciation of the epiploon-pathological state of this membrane such as it presents after a long sickness.

The stomach, the intestines, the liver, the spleen, the veins, the bladder, exhibited no alteration. In consequence, we declare that apoplexy 1 , pleuro-pneumonia 2, are the causes of the death of Toussaint L'Ouverture.


Made, and certified to be true, at the Fort de Joux, the 18th Terminal [Germinal], An. XI of the French Republic. [April 8, 1803](Signed) TAVERNIER, Doctor of Medicine. SURGEON-MAJOR GRESSET.


Certified to conform with the original by us, the undersigned Secretary of the Mayoralty of Pontarlier. PONTARLIER, 5th December, 1859. (Signed) JACQUIT, etc.

Read more@ https://thelouvertureproject.org/index.php?title=The_Last_Days_Of_Toussaint_L%27Ouverture