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 simple 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 y