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.
As the diligence passed under the Fort de Joux , the chief object of my pilgrimage before reaching Pontarlier, I dismounted, allowing my baggage to go on to the bureau de poste. The fort, now more than seven centuries old, stands upon the very summit of a solid rock about five hundred feet high, which descends very abruptly on all sides, and by its position at a defile in the mountains, commands the approach from every direction.
With three hundred men it was impregnable in former times, notwithstanding which, in consequence of its great value as a frontier fortification, it has changed hands more frequently perhaps than any fortress in France outside of Paris. I found a small garrison at the fort, consisting mostly of soldiers just returned from Italy, who were lounging about in the last stages of disgust with the monotonous perch to which they were condemned.
A chatty old woman, who acted as concierge, promptly responded to my request to visit the castle, by running for her keys. She then led me over the portcullis, the ornaments of which showed that it was built before battle-ages and bows and' arrows went out of fashion, into the courtyard where the commandant resided.
The first curiosity to which she invited my attention was the well of the castle, dug through the solid rock down to the level of the little river Orbe, which winds along the base of the hill, a depth of at least five hundred feet. My cicerone, to give me some idea of the depth of the well, threw in some stones, from which no sound or echo of any kind came up. This well was built for the use of the garrison during a siege, though in ordinary times they are supplied with water caught in cistern.
It has not been used for many centuries, if ever; the citadel, when it has changed hands, having generally been betrayed, or shared the fate of battles fought elsewhere. The well was built, my guide told me-and her information I have confirmed from other sources-by the serfs and vassals of the feudal proprietor of the fort, in the ninth century.
She lowered her voice when she added that multitudes who went down to work in its abysses never returned to the light of day. Indeed, the tradition is that they were told when they were sent to their work that they were not to return till it was finished. They were obliged to dig large recesses at regular and convenient distances in the sides of the pit, as their excavations progressed, and these were their homes during their frightful imprisonment, from which most were relieved only by death.
Of all the dreadful shapes which "man's inhumanity to man" has ever taken, there are few which feed the imagination with more fearful visions of misery and despair than were reflected from this dark, impenetrable mirror, framed five hundred feet deep in granite.
When I considered that all the enormities of which this structure had been the occasion and the theatre were perpetrated in the quest of water, in all ages and countries the consecrated emblem of truth, I was struck for the thousandth time with the resemblance which runs through all the forms of human perversity.
While pondering the question whether France had gained any more substantial advantage from her endless and sanguinary ecclesiastical wars than from the sinking of this dismal pit, which the dews of heaven, that fall alike upon the unjust and the just, made superfluous, my guide led me to another part of the fort, where she showed me an opening like a closet in the wall, about three feet deep and high, and perhaps four feet long. Here, she informed me, Amaury, one of the earliest proprietors of the chateau, confined his wife, a young woman of only seventeen years, for infidelity to him during his absence with the crusaders in the Holy Land in He hung her suspected paramour upon the mountain immediately opposite, and confined Bertha-that was her name-in this mural sepulchre, which was too small to admit of her standing erect or lying prostrate, or indeed of stretching her limbs in any direction.
The only view of the outer world that she could get was through a little window, cut so that she could see the remains of her lover dangling from a distant tree. After some ten years of indescribable misery, death released her from her prison and from her brutal jailer. The good old woman, who related this legend tearfully although I have no doubt she had told it a thousand times before-gave great force to her denunciation of the cruel crusader by adding that, "after all, Bertha was innocent.
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. 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. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, The laws stipulate that ceremonies are to be held in Paris as well as in each metropolitan department as well as at all sites of memory dedicated to the slave trade. Paris: Mercure de France, New York: Vintage Books, , You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account.
You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. By Nathan H. Further Reading : Bell, Madison Smartt. Endnotes: [1] In March , under the presidency of Jacques Chirac, France declared May 10 the official date for the commemoration of abolition.
Like this: Like Loading Post navigation Lesec, from Brave Mulato into Blackness? Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here As Louverture frequently noted in his letters to French officials, he had tried to compromise with the French and was even willing to accept some blame. Is any man exempt from them though? The French had betrayed him. Alluding to the fact that in May Napoleon had allowed the reintroduction of slavery into the French Empire, but also clearly despondent over his forced estrangement from his family, one of the last things Louverture told Cafarelli was:.
Saint-Domingue is a huge treasure, but to bring it to its full potential, you need … the peace and freedom of the blacks. But oh! Marlene L. Audio version: listen to this article. Boukman then reportedly delivered an exhortation to war in Haitian creole: The god of the white man calls him to commit crimes; our god asks only good works of us.
On 29 August Louverture issued his rallying cry for unity: Brothers and friends … I have undertaken vengeance. Free and French In February the French Jacobin government had no choice but to abolish slavery throughout its empire.
Undone Louverture would pay dearly for this opposition to Leclerc, both personally and politically. Louverture told Coisnon, to that end, In the midst of such violence and destruction, I must not forget that I am carrying a sword Alluding to the fact that in May Napoleon had allowed the reintroduction of slavery into the French Empire, but also clearly despondent over his forced estrangement from his family, one of the last things Louverture told Cafarelli was: Saint-Domingue is a huge treasure, but to bring it to its full potential, you need … the peace and freedom of the blacks.
Caribbean France Haiti Black History. Related Articles. First Among Equals. King Henry of Haiti. Popular articles. While its citizens were now all free, Saint Domingue still remained a colony of France. Article 3 There cannot exist slaves in this territory, servitude is therein forever abolished. All men are born, live and die free and French. What settlement offer did Louverture propose to the white planters? Under them, a military leader named Toussaint Louverture rose.
The British forces allied with white planters and promised the continuation of slave-owning. In , France abolished slavery in all its territory. Who started Haitian revolution? Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of l'Overture's generals and himself a former slave, led the revolutionaries at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, where the French forces were defeated.
On January 1, , Dessalines declared the nation independent and renamed it Haiti. Who led the French Revolution? When drought and poor grain harvests led to rising bread prices, the people began to revolt against their king. One of the descendants of these slaves was a man named Toussaint L'Ouverture who was later called the black George Washington.
0コメント