Yellow fever came
to the aid of the blacks, raging in Leclerc's army until thousands of
soldiers and fifteen hundred officers found graves in the land they had
invaded. In the end Leclerc himself died, and Pauline was taken back to
France. When Napoleon heard the story of the fate of his expedition, he
exclaimed in dismay,--
"Here, then, is all that remains of my fine army; the body of a
brother-in-law, of a general, my right arm, a handful of dust! All has
perished, all will perish! Fatal conquest! Cursed land! Perfidious
colonists! A wretched slave in revolt. These are the causes of so many
evils." He might more truly have said, "My own perfidy is the cause of all
those evils."
A few words must conclude this tale. General Rochambeau was sent large
reinforcements, and with an army of twenty thousand men attempted the
reconquest of the island. After a campaign of ferocity on both sides, he
found himself blockaded at Cape Haytien, and was saved from surrender to
the revengeful blacks only by the British, to whom he yielded the eight
thousand men he had left.
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