Bonaparte seems to have been angered by two letters which Toussaint sent him, after having completely pacified the island. These were addressed, "The First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites." The assumed equality seems to have touched the pride of the conqueror, for he disdained to answer the letters of the Haytian ruler. Early in 1800 a republican constitution was drafted under the auspices of Toussaint, which made Hayti virtually independent, though under the guardianship of France. An election was held and the liberator chosen president for life. When the news of this action reached France in July, 1800, Napoleon was furious. He had just been made First Consul and would brook no equal. "He is a revolted slave, whom we must punish," he exclaimed; "the honor of France is outraged." Resolved to reduce the negroes again to slavery, he sent to Hayti a fleet of sixty ships and an army of about thirty-five thousand men, under General Leclerc, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte. Pauline accompanied him, and also several officers who had been former opponents of Toussaint. Meanwhile, the Haytien president had not been idle. Having subdued the French portion of the island, he led his army into the Spanish portion, which was also reduced, San Domingo, its capital, being taken on January 2, 1801. When the keys of this city were handed to him by its governor, the negro conqueror said, solemnly, "I accept them in the name of the French Republic." Yet his conquests in the name of France did not soften the heart of the First Consul, who was bent on treating him as a daring rebel. The Peace of Amiens left the hands of Napoleon free in Europe, and the expedition under Leclerc reached the island about the end of 1801. To oppose the strong army of Napoleon’s veterans, men who had been trained to victory under his own eye, Toussaint had a force of blacks little more than half as strong. As he looked at the soldiers disembarking from the ships in the Bay of Samana he exclaimed in dismay, "We are lost! All France is coming to invade our poor island!" The French made landings at several of the ports of Hayti, driving back their defenders. The city of San Domingo, held by Toussaint’s brother, Paul, was taken. Cristophe, a daring negro who was to figure high in the subsequent history of the island, commanded at Cape Haytien, and when Leclerc summoned him to surrender, replied, "Go tell your general that the French shall march here only over ashes, and that the ground shall burn beneath their feet." This was not bombast, for when he found further defence impossible, he set fire to the city and retreated to the mountains, taking with him two thousand white prisoners. Grief and despair filled the soul of Toussaint when, marching to the relief of Cristophe, he saw the roads filled with fugitives and the city in ashes.