in the interest of the cause. He went to Plaisance and Gros Morne, where he conferred with Magny and Paul Prompt, already at the head of many followers. In the neighborhood of Gonaives he afterward held an interview with General Vernet, Commandant of the arrondissement. Leaving Gonaives he proceeded to Petite Rivière, where Cottereau had already secretly gathered together a great number of cultivators.
On entering Petite Rivière, on October 17, 1802, he was warned by Saget that the Commandant of the place was commissioned to arrest him. Nevertheless, Dessalines committed the imprudence of accepting an invitation to breakfast at Father Videau's, the rector of the parish, in whose house French soldiers had been concealed. But an old woman, a servant of the rector, saved the life of the future liberator of Haiti in warning him by a stealthy gesture that they were about to tie him down. With the swiftness of a flash of lightning, the black General rushed from the house, sprang into the saddle and galloped at full speed to the Place d'Armes, where he fired two shots with his pistols. Cottereau and his followers understood the signal and fell upon Petite Rivière. The die was thus cast, and from that hour the insurrection had its acknowledged leader. Dessalines lost no time in taking possession of the fort of La Crête-à-Pierrot, where he found arms and ammunition of which he was sorely in need. This success provoked a new crime on the part of the French: General Quentin, at Saint Marc, caused a whole battalion of native troops to be massacred; here occurred another wholesale slaughter. These atrocities inflamed the spirit of the natives. Colonel Gabart attacked Gonaives with so much vigor that the French were compelled to evacuate the town. Dessalines was less successful against Saint-Marc, which he failed to storm. This defeat convinced him of the necessity of organizing his troops. After establishing his headquarters in the Artibonite province, this illiterate man, who could barely sign his name, astonished even his opponents by the energy and the audacity of his combina-
