15366: Corbett: Napoleon's Secret Instruction to General Leclerc: First time published in English -- extremely rare even in French

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From Bob Corbett:

Folks, back in 1989 I was hunting everywhere for a copy of the rumored
"secret instructions" of Napoleon to General Leclerc.  I couldn't find
them anywhere in any language.

I was teaching in Vienna, Austria that year and had told folks there of my
quest.  About 1/2 year later a good friend of mine in Vienna was reading
a German language history of Napoleon's Colonial Policy and she discovered
an appendix in French with what she took to be those instructions.  She
sent me a xeroxed copy.

I prevailed on Jacques Chicoineau, French professor at Webster University
to translate this document.  He did, but asked me to do a final edit since
his English wasn't so great.  This I did, though I left some rather clumsy
phrases since Jacques and I could never agree on how to state it and we
didn't want to lose the exactness.

I didn't have my Haiti web site up until 1999, and for the past four years
I have been meaning to take the time to scan these old documents and post
them.  I finally got it done today.

To the best of my knowledge this is the first EVER publication of this
document in English and I have never found a French version of it, though
I am prepared to learn that such a copy exists in print.

No matter.  It may be found at:

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/history/revolution/secret.htm

So very revealing things in the document....... Jefferson, for instance,
was either double dealing Napoleon or Toussaint, since both believed they
had "deals" with him.....

Enjoy,

Bob Corbett