Novellara worth 160,000 French francs. Ill-health forced Leclerc to resign from his military post in October of the same year; he was transferred to Paris. Leclerc was again relocated upon arrival, this time to Brittany. Pauline stayed in Paris with Dermide. Laure de Permond—the future Duchesse d'Abrantès—and her mother welcomed Pauline into their salon at the rue Saint-Croix. Napoleon seized power in Coup of Brumaire in November 1799: deposing the Directory, he pronounced himself First Consul. Saint-Domingue Saint-Domingue in the West Indies (modern-day Haiti) had been a French colony since 1697, but had been in rebellion against France since 1791. Napoleon wished to restore French authority there, and so organized an expedition. He put General Leclerc at its head, appointing him Governor-General of the island. Leclerc, Dermide, and Pauline embarked for the colony from Brest on 14 December 1801. Leclerc's fleet totaled 74 ships. The gubernatorial family occupied the flagship, l'Océan. After a 45-day journey, the fleet arrived in Le Cap harbour. The Governor-General ordered General Christophe, who commanded a force of 5,000 soldiers, to resign Le Cap to French authority. After all attempts at conciliation failed, Leclerc attacked the town under cover of darkness. Christophe responded by razing Le Cap to the ground. Pauline, meanwhile, was left aboard the flagship with their son. According to Leclerc, in a letter dated 5 March to Napoleon, "The disastrous events in the midst of which she [Pauline] found herself wore her down to the point of making her ill." Leclerc succeeded in requisitioning the capitulation of the rebel leader, Toussaint L'ouverture, in May. However, celebrations were dampened by the advent of yellow fever season: 25 generals and 25,000 soldiers died from the fever. Leclerc had initially guaranteed that slavery, abolished by the Jacobin republic in 1794, would stay proscribed; however, the inhabitants caught wind of its re-establishment in another French colony, neighbouring Guadeloupe, in July. The French government had eliminated slavery in May. As a result, the indigenous residents of Saint-Domingue planned an insurrection for September 16. Black troops in Leclerc's army defected to their old commanders, and the Governor-General had a mere 2,000 men against the rebels' 10,000. Leclerc, fearing for Pauline's safety, gave express orders to Jacques de Norvin, a sergeant, to remove Pauline from Saint-Domingue at a moment's notice, but these precautions proved unnecessary when Leclerc defeated the insurgents. The climate was taking its toll on Pauline's health. She