The First Consul left Boulogne to return to Paris, in order to be present at the marriage of one of his sisters. Prince Camille Borghese, descendant of the noblest family of Rome, had already arrived at Paris to--marry Madame Pauline Bonaparte, widow of General Leclerc, who had died of yellow fever in San Domingo. I recollect having seen this unfortunate general at the residence of the First Consul some time before his departure on the ill-starred expedition which cost him his life, and France the loss of many brave soldiers and much treasure. General Leclerc, whose name is now almost forgotten, or held in light esteem, was a kind and good man. He was passionately in love with his wife, whose giddiness, to put it mildly, afflicted him sorely, and threw him into a deep and habitual melancholy painful to witness. Princess Pauline (who was then far from being a princess) had married him willingly, and of her own choice; but this did not prevent her tormenting her husband by her innumerable caprices, and repeating to him a hundred times a day that he was indeed a fortunate man to marry the sister of the First Consul. I am sure that with his ****** tastes and quiet disposition General Leclerc would have preferred less distinction and more peace. The First Consul required his sister to accompany her husband to San Domingo. She was forced to obey, and to leave Paris, where she swayed the scepter of fashion, and eclipsed all other women by her elegance and coquetry, as well as by her incomparable beauty, to brave a dangerous climate, and the ferocious companions of Christophe and Dessalines. At the end of the year 1801 the admiral's ship, The Ocean, sailed from Brest, carrying to the Cape (San Domingo) General Leclerc, his wife, and their son. After her arrival at the Cape, the conduct of Madame Leclerc was beyond praise.
On more than one occasion, but especially that which I shall now attempt to describe, she displayed a courage worthy of her name and the position of her husband. I obtained these details from an eye-witness whom I had known at Paris in the service of Princess Pauline.
The day of the great insurrection of the blacks in September, 1802, the bands of Christophe and Dessalines, composed of more than twelve thousand negroes, exasperated by their hatred against the whites, and the certainty that if they yielded no quarter would be given, made an assault on the town of the Cape, which was defended by only one thousand soldiers; for only this small number remained of the large army which had sailed from Brest a year before, in brilliant spirits and full of hope.
This handful of brave men, the most of them weakened by fever, led by the general-in-chief of the expedition, who was even then suffering from the malady which caused his death, repulsed by unheard of efforts and heroic valor the repeated attacks of the blacks.
During this combat, in which the determination, if not the number and strength, was equal on both sides, Madame Leclerc, with her son, was under the guard of a devoted friend who had subject to his orders only a weak company of artillery, which still occupied the house where her husband had fixed his residence, at the foot of the low hills which bordered the coast. The general-in-chief, fearing lest this residence might be surprised by a party of the enemy, and being unable to foresee the issue of the struggle which he was maintaining on the heights of the Cape, and against which the blacks made their most furious assaults, sent an order to convey his wife and son on board the fleet. Pauline would not consent to this. Always faithful to the pride with which her name inspired her (but this time there was in her pride as much greatness as nobility), she spoke to the ladies of the city who had taken refuge with her, and begged them to go away, giving them a frightful picture of the horrible treatment to which they would be exposed should the negroes defeat the troops. "You can leave. You are not the sisters of Bonaparte."
However, as the danger became more pressing every moment, General Leclerc sent an aide-de-camp to his residence, and enjoined on him, in case Pauline still persisted in her refusal, to use force, and convey her on board against her will. The officer was obliged to execute this order to the letter. Consequently Madame Leclerc was forcibly placed in an arm-
chair which was borne by four soldiers, while a grenadier marched by her side, carrying in his arms the general's son. During this scene of flight and terror the child, already worthy of its mother, played with the plume of the soldier who was carrying him. Followed by her cortege of trembling, tearful women, whose only source of strength during this perilous passage was in her courage, she was thus conveyed to the seashore. Just as they were going to place her in the sloop, however, another aide-de-camp of her husband brought news of the defeat of the blacks. "You see now," said she, returning to her residence, "I