Rigaud hastened to collect his forces, in order to defend his territory against this invasion of Pétion; and the latter, having already passed the mountains of La Hotte, was met by his antagonist in the plain of Aux Cayes. A furious battle immediately took place; and after a gallant resistance, Rigaud’s troops had already begun to give ground before the overpowering numbers and successive charges of the enemy, when a strong reinforcement of troops under the command of General Borgella, coming in from Aquin, turned the tide of battle in favor of Rigaud, and Pétion was defeated in his turn, and his army almost annihilated in the rout which followed.[39] The joy of this signal victory over his opponent, which had driven him from the southern territory, did not efface the bitter recollections which had fastened themselves upon the sensitive mind of Rigaud. In that province, where he had once been all-powerful, and Pétion a subservient instrument of his will, he saw that his former glory had so far departed that he could not trust the fidelity of his own personal attendants, while his former lieutenant was now his triumphant rival. The applauses and sworn devotedness with which the multitude had once followed in the march of his power had now with proverbial fickleness, been exchanged for the coldness of indifference, or an open alliance with his foes. In this desolate state of his fortunes, Rigaud had lost his wonted energies; and instead of following up his late success, and arming himself for the last desperate effort to crush his insinuating but unwarlike opponent, he returned to Aux Cayes, to new solicitudes and new experience of the faithlessness of that mob whose whirlwind-march he had once guided by a single word. Pétion’s partisans had now gained over to their opinions a formidable proportion of the people of Aux Cayes, and Rigaud had scarcely entered his capital when a multitude of blacks and mulattoes were gathered in the streets opposite the government house. Their cries of vengeance upon Rigaud, and their menacing preparations, struck a panic into the little body of followers, who, faithful among the faithless, still adhered with unshaken constancy to the declining fortunes of their once glorious chief. His friends besought Rigaud not to attempt the hazardous experiment of showing himself in the gallery to persuade the mob to disperse. But not suspecting that the last remnant of his once mighty influence had departed from him, Rigaud persevered in his design, and advancing to the gallery of the house, he demanded in a mild voice of the leaders of the multitude what they intended by a movement so threatening, when he received in answer a volley of musketry aimed at his life.