Martinique continued - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 59

The last item in the document is a special legacy to 'Messire Seigneur Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, my
young nephew and godson,' of a 'little Negro named André, aged 4, son of the slave called Marthe,' and
of a two and a half year old foal. It sounds as though he were destined to act as a mixture of servant and
playmate.
There are one or two mentions of the estate of 'la Dame Catherine Brown,' widow of Joseph du Verger
de Sauvis. This was Josephine's maternal grandmother, who was of Irish origin. (French empresses seem
to specialize in Celtic ancestry. Eugénie's mother was called Kirkpatrick of Closeburn.) Her paternal
grandmother was a Mlle de Jaham de Vertpré, an aunt, several generations back, of our kind host at Vauc-
lin, and of Raoul's.
I returned this absorbing document to Rose-Rosette. It had supplied exactly the extra detail to the illu-
minating moments, days before, on the steps of Beauséjour, and in contemplation of the beautiful Créole
lady, that had been lacking in my mental reconstruction of the Créole world.
The St. Laurent was in action again at last, lying in the harbour of Fort-de-France, bound for Guadeloupe,
and calling at Roseau in Dominica on the way. The ugly quays grew smaller as we churned round and
headed westwards out of the bay of Fort-de-France. The lights dwindled to starboard and then van-
ished and all was dark. As we sailed out of the shelter of the leeward coast into the full impact of the
Trade Winds, the sea grew wilder. The St. Laurent pitched and rolled, and we went below and stretched
ourselves in the bunks and hoped for sleep. I opened the pages of Père Labat.
[1] Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amerique par le Rev. P. Labat . Paris, 1722, 6 vols.
[2] The livre tournoi had been officially abolished by Josephine's day, but no doubt they still circulated
in the Antilles. The value of one livre was a fraction more than that of the franc, of which, at that time,
there were twenty-five to the pound. Compare with those on page 373.