1794 Borgne
Gericault Life
Limonade (detail) 1760 Carte Topgraphique de la région du Cap-Français et du Fort Daupin, au Nord-est de la colonie française ou Saint Domingue. Image courtesy of Gallica (France).
1794 Borgne – Saint Domingue
As many readers know, Louis Nicolas Joseph Robillard de Péronville was one of Théodore Géricault’s most important Saint Domingue relations. In past articles we reported that Louis Robillard de Peronville owned a coffee plantation in the parish of Borgne west of Le Cap, where he resided before fleeing Saint Domingue in 1796. After settling in Paris, in 1797, Louis Nicolas later financed the Musée français, the art enteprise which transformed the life of Theodore Géricault during the years 1803-1809.
We are now able to gain a more complete picture of Louis Robillard de Péronvill’s life in Borgne 1788 to 1794. This new understanding comes from connecting seemingly un-connected events: the crafting of the testament of Jean Guillaume Robillard at the plantation of Louis Nicolas in Borgne in 1794, and the crafting of the testament of Claude de Barras, the brother of Marie Anne Charles de Barras, the wife of Louis Nicolas, at the same plantation in 1793.
Scholars of Saint Domingue have long known that Borgne was one of the few parishes in Saint Domingue to organize a successful defense against the violence which swept over the colony from the summer of 1791 on. This violence engulfed the plantation of Jean Guillaume Robillard, the uncle of Louis Robillard de Peronville, situated south of Le Cap in August of 1791. We do not know when Claude de Barras, the brother-in-law of Louis Robillard de Peronville, quit his own plantation in Limonade in north-eastern Saint Domingue. We do know, however that Limonade was the site of a number of battles.
What seems clear at this point is that the Robillard de Peronville – de Barras plantation in Borgne served as a sanctuary for his Robillard and de Barras relations during the early phases of the wars in Saint Domingue, at least until Spain invaded the colony and crushed the resistance established in Borgne by Louis Nicolas and his fellow habitants there. We will add to this investigation as we can. We also know now that a number of Robillard Peronville’s de Barras relations found sanctuary of a sort with Louis Nicolas and Marie Anne Charles in their home on the rue de le Concode in Paris after 1802. More to follow.