Hello and welcome to revolutions.

Episode 4.

4.16, dying like flies.

After arresting and deporting Tucson Louverture from Sandomang in June 1802.

The young French General Charles Leclaire was kind of surprised to discover the expulsion of

General Tucson did not immediately spark a mass uprising.

The cultivators in the fields had long ago grown disenchanted with Governor for Life Tucson,

and his senior officers more or less engaged in a conspiracy to sit on their hands and do nothing while their old leader

and patron was shipped off.

But this was about the only piece of good news Leclare could point to for the rest of his

short life, because from here on out, his attempt to reassert French control over Sandomang was going to be a running disaster.

Now, some of these disasters would be of his own making.

Some would be beyond his control, but they would all combine to make

the Leclare expedition one of the all-time great debaucles in French history.

But obviously, Leclare did not know how bad it was going to get, and he had some hope that the worst was in fact behind him.

The 75-odd day campaign he had waged between mid-February 1802 and the end of April,

had been hard and bloody, costing him somewhere between six and nine thousand men.

But the fighting was now over, and it was time to settle into peaceful administration.

And to help him run the colony, Leclare had with him two senior partners.

Possibly reflecting the three-man style consulate that govern France, Bonaparte had envisioned a similar

three-man system for San domain.

Leclare would of course be the Captain General in charge of all military matters, but he would

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