Master of the Crossroads (21 page)

Fort de Joux, France August 1802

Daylight in the vaulted cell always seemed the light of dawn: gray, misty, cold and damp. Toussaint had been accustomed to get up before first light, to be well about his business before the sun had fully risen. He needed little sleep; two or three hours sufficed him ordinarily, so that he could spend half the night composing letters by lamplight, or ride cross-country by the light of the moon. Here in the Fort de Joux, the light of day did not progress; it gathered neither warmth nor energy, and Toussaint was tempted, because of the cold, to remain longer abed, his knees drawn up slightly under the brown woollen blanket, but when his watch advised him that, somewhere outside the thick stone walls that blocked his vision, the sun must have crested the cold mountain peaks, he rose and dressed himself rapidly, holding back a shiver from the chill, then went across the room to tend the fire.

Grâce à Dieu,
a few coals had held beneath the gray-black layers of ash. Toussaint knelt carefully, propped himself on his knuckles, and lowered his head to blow the coals to life. When the small flame rose, he sat back on his heels and fed it little splinters of wood, then a couple of larger chunks. A small billow of warmth and orange light swelled out a little way from the hearth—it would not carry across the cell, and was never sufficient to surround him altogether. His supply of wood was insufficient . . . Toussaint warmed his palms against the small balloon of heat for a moment more, before he stood.

The worst of rising was that his cough began, a tickle at the back of his throat that grew to an itch he could not suppress, though he swallowed and swallowed to keep it down, walking barefoot across the cold flagstones of the floor. Ten paces from the grated window opening to the iron-bound door. Five paces from the fireplace to the opposite wall—a raw slab of stone from the mountain’s heart—the fire could not throw its heat far enough to absorb the moisture that collected there. The cold shot spearlike up his legs and spine to his back teeth, waking him more effectively than coffee. When the cough began, it echoed from the walls, and Toussaint pressed his forearm across his aching ribs, gathering in the pain of it. In the clammy cold his knees and shoulders pained him in a way he’d never known, and his old wounds reawakened, especially the hip with its bullet wound and the hand that had once been crushed by a cannon.

He spat the proceeds of his cough into his night jar, then quickly recovered the vessel. At the fireside he prepared coffee and, while it brewed, he held his yellow madras headcloth loose before the fire till it heated through, and then retied it over his head—the warm band at his temples seemed to soothe the headache that had lately begun to plague him. As he drank the coffee, thickened with sugar, his cough subsided and became controllable. Yet his ration of sugar was insufficient . . . He softened a piece of hardtack in warm sweetened water and ate it slowly with the coffee; he was not hungry but it was necessary to eat, not only to sustain his strength but to measure regular intervals of the day, though in these confines he was so inactive that he never had real appetite.

The fort’s bell gonged eight times slowly as he drained off the syrupy dregs from his coffee cup. He drew on his stockings, then his boots, and walked to the door, then to the window grating with its small, gritty diamonds of pale light. The door, the window . . . This meager exercise was also necessary. It scarcely warmed him, but as he walked his mind loosened and began to work more easily. He had, after all, his report to compose—there was his trial to prepare for, when the tribunal would judge between him and Napoleon’s brother-in-law, Captain-General Leclerc. The report must contain just enough truth to be credited and yet reveal nothing that might jeopardize his cause.
Grâce à Dieu,
Toussaint thought, refining phrases as he paced and turned, the truth itself was malleable, ready to change both form and substance as you molded it with your mind and tongue and pen.

Whatever he finally dictated he would himself believe.

The trial . . . Toussaint paused before the window grating, head angled up toward the gritty, colorless light. He turned and paced again toward the door, the diamond shadows of the grate checking his back. The rowels of his spurs rattled with his steps. Baille had not so far sought to confiscate the spurs. By and large this jailer seemed of a decent heart; he had accorded Toussaint the respect due a fellow-soldier, perhaps even a
concitoyen.
His hesitation in providing writing materials was worrisome, however, and in truth Toussaint had even greater need of a secretary, or more than one. In Saint Domingue, through the watches of his nights, he had ridden one scribe after another to exhaustion, then compared the different versions they produced, selecting the most advantageous phrasing from each. Now it mattered more than ever, what the words he chose would make him out to be.

Somehow the admirable opposite of his adversary, Captain-General Leclerc, who was . . . who was what? Impetuous, yes, there was a word. Blame Leclerc with the weakness of an unskilled rider, incapable of controlling the spirited mount he had been given. The forces under his command had escaped his capacity to direct them, he had thoughtlessly let those forces run recklessly abroad. Then too, Leclerc was famously a cuckold, his wife Pauline constantly and ostentatiously unfaithful. Such a man could not but see betrayal in every shadow. It was the disorder of his own mind that had made Leclerc suspect Toussaint of treason.

But he must not blame Leclerc directly—let all that emerge as an effect of contrast. For his own part, against this hotheaded, ill-disciplined, mentally unbalanced commander, Toussaint Louverture, general in chief of the French army of Saint Domingue, opposed his qualities of fidelity and watchfulness. The fierce dog at the gate of France’s most prized overseas possession. Endowed with the blind devotion to duty of (why not?) a former slave. When once he had recognized his sacred obligation, he clung to it with the tenacity of an English bulldog. Was that a fault? Perhaps, under certain circumstances, one
might
find blamable a simple old soldier’s blind attachment to what he sincerely believed to be the interest of his nation, France . . .

There. Toussaint stopped by the door, half smiling, his head cocked toward the keyhole, for the sentry on the other side had sneezed or shifted his feet. He listened, but there was no further sound. The adjoining cell was empty now, since his personal servant, Mars Plaisir, had been shipped out to some other, unknown destination. Before the valet’s departure, they had been in one another’s company for a little more than an hour each day. Mars Plaisir had seen to Toussaint’s needs and comfort as best he might under such conditions. He had brewed the coffee, sugared the wine, warmed the food—small ceremonies which Toussaint would not now permit himself to regret. Also the companionship. Even when they were apart, each could listen for and sometimes hear the movements of the other in the neighboring cell, though of course they were forbidden to call out.

Toussaint stood listening, but there was nothing more to hear, except the echo of the distant drip and splash in the third corridor, whose floor was always inches deep in water . . . His mental exertion had made him forget the chill, which now cut through to him again. He paced toward the window. Now that the image was complete in his mind, he must search the words to bring that image into being . . .

It is necessary that I account for . . .
he began, but no. The phrasing implied too much in the way of external constraint. The impulse to tell the perfect truth must rather come from within the character he was creating. Unconscious of his action, Toussaint sat down in the chair by the fire. He gripped the wooden arms with both hands and focused his concentration.

It is my duty to render an exact account of my conduct to the French
government.
Yes.
I will report the facts with all the frankness and naïveté of
an old soldier.
Yes, that was the tone, the attitude. The flow of his own words began to warm him. He sat with his eyes half-closed, his lips sometimes moving slightly, as he chose the words, reviewed and refined them, and set them down firmly in his memory.

Shortly after the fort’s bell had rung twelve times, he heard boots splashing in the third corridor, the sentry’s challenge, and then Baille’s reply. The huge iron key cried in the lock, but when the door opened it did so almost silently, floating into shadows by the wall. Baille came in with another, smaller Frenchman. The door shut behind them; the key screeched again and the lock snapped shut.

Toussaint did not rise from his chair, but lifted his head ever so slightly to acknowledge the visitors.

“You are well, I trust?” Baille’s smile was ever uneasy; his gray hands worked over each other. In one hand he held a white cloth bag.

“I am well enough.” Toussaint sniffed, then throttled the cough that tried to rise from the back of his throat. “Apart from the cold.”

“You understand, the requisition . . . be it for firewood or . . .” Baille’s weak smile guttered as he trailed off, then slowly regained its pale strength. “In the meantime, I have brought you sugar from my own personal supply.”

“You do me honor.” Toussaint glanced at the small square table.

As if released, Baille walked across and placed the supplementary sugar among the other provisions there. From the corner of his eye, Toussaint measured the package—perhaps two cupfuls.

“As for your other request,” Baille nodded to his companion. “I present my personal secretary, Monsieur Jeannin.”

Toussaint looked into the fire. The movement concealed his face from the others and so concealed his feeling—a quick rush of relief he much preferred not to reveal. He would certainly have been capable of phrasing the necessary document without the services of a secretary, but he knew that both his spelling and his penmanship were poor.

“C’est bien,” he said finally, raising his head.

Baille looked into the corners of the room, then clucked his tongue and rubbed his hands together. “No chair for Monsieur Jeannin to sit,” he said. “I will order one to be brought.”

Toussaint rose from his own seat, abruptly, as if to dismiss the commandant. “No matter,” he said. “Let the chair be brought tomorrow. Today I will dictate standing.”

“I will be outside the door,” Baille said, taking a step backward. “In case of need.” He looked pointedly at Jeannin. His nod to Toussaint was just short of a bow.

The key whined in the lock once more, and the silent shadow of the door floated across the room. Toussaint looked at Jeannin more closely. The secretary wore civilian clothes, a dark blue suit freely sprinkled with lint. He was small and slight, with a ring of stiff, dark curly hair surrounding a scaly bald spot, like a tonsure. His head thrust high from his grubby collar. Under his left arm he carried a wooden lap desk.

“To begin.” Toussaint indicated the chair he’d vacated with an unfolding of his right hand. Jeannin hitched the chair to the table, sat down and opened the lap desk. He took out a pen, an inkwell, and several sheets of paper, then looked up and cleared his throat.

“You are ready? Good,” Toussaint said. “Write what I say:
It is my duty
to render an exact account of my conduct to the French government; I will
report the facts with all the frankness and naïveté of an old soldier, adding
such reflections as may naturally present themselves . . .

Jeannin’s mouth opened. He dampened the pen point against his tongue, then dipped it in the ink well and began to write.

“You have it? Good.” The spiral of Toussaint’s steady pacing brought him near enough behind the table and chair that he could see the secretary’s hand was fair, and his transcription faithful. He nodded, pursing his lips as he moved toward the window.

“In the end, I will tell the truth,”
he continued,
“even if it be against
myself.”
He waited, listening to the scratching of the pen. A chunk of wood collapsed in the fireplace, scattering coals on the hearthstone.

“A new paragraph,” Toussaint said, when Jeannin’s pen had stopped. “But first, if you please, attend to the fire.”

Jeannin scratched around the edges of his tonsure and looked at him, eyes startled and glittering like a bird’s. After a moment, he shrugged, dropped the pen in the inkwell and did as he was bidden, adding a couple of sticks to the fire and, for the want of a proper tool, scraping the coals together with the side of his shoe. Toussaint waited for him to regain his seat.

“To the next paragraph.
The colony of Saint Domingue, which I commanded, enjoyed the greatest tranquillity; both agriculture and commerce
were flourishing there
. . . .” Toussaint paused, listening to the pen. Jeannin slumped gradually forward across the table as he wrote, supporting himself on his left elbow, his head turned to one side. When he had finished he pushed himself upright.

“You have all that? Excellent,” Toussaint said.
“All that, I am bold to
say was my own work.”

In a matter of two weeks the memoir was drafted, recopied and ready for its reader. Toussaint might have finished it in half the time, but he had the services of only a single secretary and that for no more than a couple of hours each day. Yet his consciousness of time fell from him, and when Jeannin was absent he composed and memorized constantly, except for the moments when he ate and the hours when he slept. In a state somewhere between waking and dream (he had taken a slight fever) his mind’s eye filled with images of Saint Domingue, where Captain-General Leclerc now found himself more and more severely pressed on every side, as his European soldiers, already decimated by the battles of the spring, died out from yellow fever at a terrifying rate, while his black generals observed the weakening of his situation with what seemed an increasingly ill-concealed satisfaction, for the sly and diabolical policy of Toussaint continued to exercise itself through his former subalterns even in his absence, so that it was worth almost nothing to be rid of him. Everywhere there were risings in the hills, which the black generals never managed, and perhaps never really tried, to suppress completely. Leclerc’s program to disarm the population was revealed a wretched failure, and in fact he had no idea how many guns Toussaint might have poured into the countryside, though there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply, as if the weapons grew, like soursops and mangoes and bananas, on the jungle trees. The black generals could neither be trusted nor arrested (for only they controlled the black troops nominally under French command), and more and more it seemed impossible that the captain-general could ever satisfy Napoleon’s imperious demand—“Rid us of these gilded Africans, and we shall have nothing left to wish for . . .” Sonthonax had been right, Moyse had been right, Toussaint himself would be right in the end. Dismisally, Leclerc wrote home to France, “It’s not everything to have removed Toussaint, there are still two thousand chiefs here to be removed.”