But Bonaparte's plans were doomed to encounter an obstacle in the most remarkable man of negro blood known to modern history. Toussaint Louverture was the descendant, as he claimed, of an African chieftain. Highly endowed by nature, he had obtained an excellent education, and had gradually, though born a slave, cultivated his innate power of leadership until all the blacks in San Domingo regarded him with affection and awe. Asserting their liberties as men, he and his fellow-slaves then rose against their masters, and a servile war ensued. It was temporarily checked by British interference; but the unacclimatized white soldiers died in such numbers that the English were compelled to leave the fertile colony in full control of the negroes. Louverture, in imitation of Bonaparte, thereupon organized a consular government, and with consummate wisdom inaugurated a civilized rule. When summoned by Leclerc to surrender, he refused. For a time his resistance was successful, but in the end he was compelled by superior force to withdraw to the mountains. Thence he was enticed by guile, captured, and sent to France. Kept a close prisoner in the castle of Joux in Franche-Comté, the rigors of the climate speedily destroyed his health, and he died on April twenty-seventh, 1803. But the heat and mephitic vapors of his native isle revenged him. As the French soldiers sickened and died of yellow fever, the natives inaugurated a struggle for liberation, which was marked on both sides by horrible barbarity. In less than two years the task of subjugation became hopeless, and on December first, 1803, Rochambeau, having succeeded Leclerc, who had retired the year previous to die in the Tortugas, surrendered eight thousand men, the remnants of the expedition, to an English fleet. The island has since been left to its unhappy fate, and under native rule has relapsed into semi-barbarism. The magnificent French plan of American colonization, having lost the supports of both San Domingo and Louisiana, collapsed, leaving no trace. Its mere existence, however, was the strongest proof of Bonaparte's confidence in a lasting peace. Whatever his disappointment, he was at least rid of a republican general and a republican army. It was not much in comparison with his hopes, but it was something. CHAPTER XXII THE LIFE CONSULATE[23] [Footnote 23: The references for this chapter are those already cited; Fiévée, Fouché, Roederer, Musnier-Desclozeaux, Pingaud, Bourrienne. Also, de Martel: Étude sur l'affaire du 3 nivôse an IX; Fescourt: Histoire de la double conspiration de 1800; Madelin: Fouché (publishes many documentary extracts).]