Let us look at France: she had grown desperate in her revolutionary fever; had risen _en masse_ against the powers of Europe, and had beaten them back. Dugommier even had carried the war across the Pyrenees, and his soldiers, like demons, shouting the _ça-ira_, threatened Spain. _The Convention at Paris on the 4th of February, 1794, confirmed and proclaimed the_ FREEDOM _of all the slaves!_[32]—news of which came slowly across the Atlantic, and reached the ears of Toussaint upon the heights of Dondon. FOOTNOTES: [32] _Biographie Universelle_. Art. Toussaint L. IX. The hour was nigh! The hands advanced on the dial plate of time. Events, which no man could have foreseen or controlled, had gathered for judgment, and at last a great nation had decreed freedom to a poor, debauched and servile race. But who should lead them, who should now defend them against themselves—give shape and system to their undisciplined wishes—carry them safely through the anarchy of unbounded liberty, and crystallize them into a STATE, whose only sure basis is the _Rights and Duties of Labor, Thought, Speech and Worship, the Rights and Duties of Manhood_? The Hour _has_ come and the Man. Toussaint Breda, from his eyrie near Dondon, sweeps the horizon. In the East he sees the decadent power of Spain—it has spoken no word of freedom for the blacks. In the West he sees the white sails of England—she is hand and glove with the planters to reëstablish slavery. In the North France and Laveaux are nigh death. France only has proclaimed liberty to the blacks. Toussaint sees the “opening” for his race and for himself, and from this day he is Toussaint Louverture—the first of the blacks. Bone of their bone and skin of their skin, he alone knows their needs, their capacities and their hearts. With the clear glance of inspiration he sees the moment, with the firm grasp of talent he seizes it.