The French afterward took possession of the western part of the island. Their principal city was named Cap François, which means French Cape. The African prince Gaou-Guinou was sold in the market of that city. He was more fortunate than slaves generally are. He was bought by the manager of a sugar plantation belonging to a French nobleman, named the Count de Breda. He was kind-hearted, and was very careful to employ none but humane men to take charge of his laborers. The condition of the young African was also less desolate than it would have been, by reason of his finding on the Breda estate several members of the Arradas tribe, who, like him, had been stolen from their homes. They at once recognized him as the son of their king, and treated him with the utmost respect. In process of time he married a black slave, who is said to have been handsome and virtuous. They joined the Roman Catholic Church, which was the established religion of France and the French islands. Of their eight children, the oldest, born in 1743, one hundred and twenty-two years ago, was named Toussaint. The day of his birth is not certainly known. It has been said to have been on the 20th of May. But, from his name, it seems more likely that it was on the 1st of November. In Catholic countries, almost every day of the year is set apart to the worship of some saint; and a child born on the day of any particular saint is very apt to receive his name from that day. The first of November is a festival of the church, called All Saints' Day; and Toussaint, in the French language, means All Saints. In the neighborhood of Gaou-Guinou lived a very honest, religious old black man, named Pierre Baptiste. He had been in the service of Jesuit missionaries, and had there learned to read and write, also a little of geometry. By help of the Catholic Prayer-Book he learned some prayers in Latin, and found out their meaning in French. This man stood godfather for Toussaint at his baptism, and as the boy grew older it was his pleasure to teach him what little he himself knew. The language of the Arradas tribe was always spoken in the family of Gaou-Guinou, but from his godfather Toussaint learned to speak tolerably good French, which was the language of the whites in the western part of St. Domingo. It is said that Gaou-Guinou was allowed to cultivate a little patch of ground for his family, and that some of his fellow-slaves were permitted to assist him occasionally. This indulgence indicates that he stood well in his master's opinion. But, in common with other slaves, it is probable that he and his wife toiled early and late in the fields or the sugar-house, and that their family were huddled together in a hut too small to allow of their observing the laws of cleanliness or modesty.