The story of this war, interesting though it was, cannot be told here. Toussaint’s resistance broke the force of Bonaparte’s attack. Although it lasted less than three months, it swept away one French army, and ruined the industry of the colony to an extent that required years of repair. Had Toussaint not been betrayed by his own generals, and had he been less attached than he was to civilization and despotic theories of military rule, he would have achieved a personal triumph greater than was won by any other man of his time. His own choice was to accept the war of races, to avoid open battle where his troops were unequal to their opponents, and to harass instead of fighting in line. He would have made a war of guerillas, stirred up the terror and fanaticism of the negro laborers, put arms into their hands, and relied on their courage rather than on that of his army. He let himself be overruled. “Old Toussaint,” said Christophe afterward, “never ceased saying this, but no one would believe him. We had arms; pride in using them destroyed us.”[135] Christophe, for good reasons, told but half the story. Toussaint was not ruined by a few lost battles, but by the treachery of Christophe himself and of the other negro generals. Jealous of Toussaint’s domination, and perhaps afraid of being sent to execution like Moyse--the best general officer in their service--for want of loyalty to his chief, Christophe, after one campaign, April 26, 1802, surrendered his posts and forces to Leclerc without the knowledge and against the orders of Toussaint. Then Louverture himself committed the fatal mistake of his life, which he of all men seemed least likely to commit,--he trusted the word of Bonaparte. May 1, 1802, he put himself in Leclerc’s hands in reliance on Leclerc’s honor. Surprising as such weakness was in one who had the sensitiveness of a wild animal to danger,--Leclerc himself seemed to be as much surprised that the word of honor of a French soldier should be believed as any bystander at seeing the negro believe it,--the act had a parallel in the weakness which led Bonaparte, twelve years afterward, to mount the deck of the “Bellerophon,” and without even the guaranty of a pledge surrender himself to England. The same vacillations and fears, the same instinct of the desperate political gambler, the same cowering in the face of fate, closed the active lives of both these extraordinary men. Such beings should have known how to die when their lives were ended. Toussaint should have fought on, even though only to perish under the last cactus on his mountains, rather than trust himself in the hands of Bonaparte.