Isabel Allende - Island Beneath the Sea

When France dissolved the Assemblee Coloniale in Saint-Domingue, the Patriots, as the monarchist colonists called themselves, refused to submit to authorities in Paris. After having spent so much time in the isolation of the plantation, Valmorain now began to plot along with his peers. As he often went to Le Cap, he rented the furnished house of a wealthy Portuguese merchant who had returned for a period to his country. It was near the port and comfortable for him, but he nevertheless planned to acquire a house of his own very soon using the help of the agent who handled his sugar dealings, the same extremely honorable old Jewish man who had served his father. It was Valmorain who initiated the secret conversations with the English. In his youth he had known a sailor who now commanded the British fleet in the Caribbean, whose instructions were to intervene in the French colony the minute there was opportunity. By then the confrontations between whites and mulattoes had reached unimagined violence, and the blacks took advantage of that conflict to rebel, first in the western part of the island and then in the north, in Limbe. The Patriots followed events with close attention, anxiously awaiting the moment to betray the French government.

Valmorain spent a month in Le Cap with Tete, the children, and Eugenia's coffin. He always traveled with his son, and in turn Maurice was not going anywhere without Rosette and Tete. The political situation was too unstable for him to be apart from his son, and neither did he want to leave Tete at the mercy of Prosper Cambray, who had his eye on her, to the point that he had tried to buy her. Valmorain supposed that another man in his situation would sell her to keep his head overseer happy, and in the process get rid of a woman who no longer excited him, but Maurice loved her like a mother. Besides, the matter of Tete had become a silent struggle of wills between him and the overseer. During those weeks in Le Cap he had attended the political meetings of the Patriots, who gathered in his house in an atmosphere of secrecy and conspiracy though in truth no one was watching them. Valmorain planned to look for a tutor for Maurice, who was turning five in a state of total wildness. It was his duty to give him the rudiments of education that would allow him in the future to enter a boarding school in France. Tete prayed that that moment would never come, convinced that Maurice would die if he were far away from her and Rosette. He also had to dispose of Eugenia. The children were used to the coffin lying in corridors and accepted with all naturalness that it contained the mortal remains of "the ill lady." They never asked exactly what the "mortal remains" were, saving Tete the necessity of explaining what would have caused Maurice new nightmares, but when Valmorain caught them trying to open it with a knife from the kitchen, he realized it was time to make a decision. He ordered his agent to send it to the nuns' cemetery in Cuba, where Sancho had bought a mausoleum because Eugenia had made him swear he would not bury her in Saint-Domingue, where her bones could end up in a Negro drum. The agent intended to send the coffin by way of a ship sailing in that direction, and in the meantime left it in a corner of the storeroom, where it stood forgotten until it was consumed in flames two years later.

At the plantation, Prosper Cambray waked at dawn to a fire in one of the fields and the yelling of slaves, many of whom did not know what was happening because they had not been included in the secret of the uprising. Cambray used the general confusion to surround the area and to subdue the slaves who'd had time to react. The domestic servants took no part in any of it but clustered together in the big house, expecting the worst. Cambray gave orders for the women and children to be enclosed, and he himself carried out the purge among the men. Not much had been lost: the fire was quickly controlled, only two fields of dry cane burned; it was much worse on other plantations to the north. When the first detachments of the marechaussee arrived with the mission of restoring order to the region, Prosper Cambray limited himself to handing over those he considered guilty. He would have preferred to deal with them personally, but the idea was to coordinate efforts and crush out the rebellion at the roots. The suspects were taken to Le Cap to tear from them the names of the leaders.

The chief overseer did not notice Tante Rose's disappearance until the next day, when those who'd been flogged at the Habitation Saint-Lazare needed to be treated.

In the meantime in Le Cap, Violette Boisier and Loula had finished packing the family's possessions and had stored them in a warehouse in the port to await the ship that would take the family to France. Finally, after nearly ten years of waiting, work, saving, moneylending, and patience, the plan conceived by Etienne Relais in the early days of his relationship with Violette was coming about. They had begun bidding farewell to their friends when the major was summoned to the office of the Gouverneur, Vicomte Blanchelande. The building lacked the refinement of the Intendance; it had the austerity of a barrack and smelled of leather and metal. The vicomte was a mature man with an impressive military career, who had been Marechal and Gouverneur of Trinidad before being assigned to Saint-Domingue. He had just arrived and only begun to take the pulse of the situation; he did not know a rebellion was brewing outside the city. His authority on the island depended on his mandate from the Assemblee Nationale in Paris, whose capricious delegates could withdraw their support as quickly as they bestowed it. His noble origins and fortune weighed against him among the most radical groups, the Jacobins, who intended to do away with every vestige of the monarchical regime. Etienne Relais was led to the vicomte's office through several nearly bare rooms hung with paintings of multitudinous battles blackened by soot from the lamps. The Gouverneur, dressed in civilian clothes and not wearing a wig, was barely visible behind a rough barracks table battered by many years of use. At his back hung the flag of France, topped by the coat of arms of the Revolution, and to his left, on another wall, was pinned an fanciful unfolded map of the Antilles, illustrated with marine monsters and ancient galleons.

"Major Etienne Relais, from the Regiment Le Cap," Relais presented himself, feeling ridiculous in the dress uniform and decorations that so strongly contrasted with his superior's simplicity.

"Have a seat, Major. I imagine you would like a coffee." The vicomte, who looked as if he'd passed a bad night, sighed.

He stepped from behind the table and led Relais toward two worn leather armchairs. Immediately, from out of nowhere, sprang an orderly followed by three slaves, four people for two little cups: one of the slaves held the tray, another poured the coffee, and the third offered sugar. After serving, the slaves withdrew, backing out of the room, but the orderly stood at attention between the two chairs. The Gouverneur was a man of medium height, slim, with deep wrinkles and sparse gray hair. At close sight he looked much less impressive than he did on horseback in his plumed hat and his medals, with the sash of his charge across his breast. Relais perched uncomfortably on the edge of the chair, clumsily holding the porcelain cup that he could have shattered with a breath. He was accustomed to observing the rigid military etiquette imposed by rank.

"You must be wondering why I have called you here, Major Relais," said Blanchelande, stirring sugar into his coffee. "What is your view of the situation in Saint-Domingue?"

"What is my view?" Relais repeated, disconcerted.

"There are colonials who want to be independent, and we have an English flotilla in sight of the port ready to help them. What would England love more than to annex Saint-Domingue! You must know the ones I am referring to-you can give me the names of the seditionists."