28 



HOW THE AUTHOR WAS LED TO 



liad, on the contrary, but softened his. No man in 

 this generation — a generation so much agitated, tossed 

 to and fro by so many waves — had undergone such 

 painful experiences. His father, an Auvergnat, the 

 principal of a college, then juge consulaire in our 

 most southern city, and finally summoned to the 

 Assembly of Notables in '88, had all the hard austerity 

 of his country and his functions, of the school and the 

 tribunals. The education of that era was cruel, a per- 

 petual chastisement ; the more wit, the more character, 

 the more strength, the more did this education tend to 

 shatter them, to break them down. My father, of a 

 delicate and tender natui'e, could never have survived 

 it, and only escaped by flying to America, where one 

 of his brothers had previously established himself A 

 change of linen was his only fortune, except his youth, 

 his confidence, his golden dreams of freedom. Thence- 

 forth he always cherished a peculiar tenderness for that 

 land of liberty ; he often revisited it, and earnestly 

 wished to die there. 



" Called by the needs of business to St. Domingo, he 

 was present in that isLand at the gi-eat crisis of the reign 

 of Toussaint L'Ouverture. This tiaily extraordinary- 

 man, who up to his fiftieth year had been a slave, who 

 comprehended and foresaw everything, did not know 

 how to write, or to give expression to his ideas. His 

 genius succeeded better in great actions than in fine 

 speeches. He lacked a hand, a pen, and more — the 

 young bold heart which shall teach the hero the heroic 

 language, the words in harmony with the moment and 

 the situation. Toussaint, at his age, could only utter 



