paper, "Will give a concert every week until Easter." At the conclusion of the last concert, the mayor of Lille placed a crown of laurels on St. Georges' brow and read a poem dedicated to him. On 20 April 1792, compelled by the National Assembly, Louis XVI declared war against his brother-in-law, Francis II. General Dillon, commander of Lille, was ordered by Dumouriez to attack Tournai, reportedly only lightly defended. Instead, massive fire by the Austrian artillery turned an orderly retreat into a rout by the regular cavalry but not that of the volunteers of the National Guard. Captain St. Georges, promoted in 1791, commanded the company of volunteers that held the line at Baisieux near the Belgian border. On 18 May, "M. St. Georges took charge of the music for a solemn requiem held [in Lille] for the souls of those who perished for their city on the fateful day of the 29 of April last." Saint-Domingue In Saint-Domingue, the news from abroad that the "whites of La France had risen up and killed their masters", spread among the black slaves of the island. "The rebellion was extremely violent ... the rich plain of the North was reduced to ruins and ashes ..." After months of arson and murder, Toussaint Louverture, a Haitian revolutionary, took charge of the slave revolt. In the Spring of 1796, a commission with 15,000 troops and tons of arms sailed for Saint-Domingue to abolish slavery. Second to Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, leader of the commission, was Julien Raimond, the founder of Saint-Georges's Légion. According to Louise Fusil, Saint Georges and his friend Lamothe had been absent from Paris for nearly two years. "I since learned that they had left for Saint-Domingue, then in full revolt; it was rumoured they had been hanged in a mutiny. I gave them up for dead and mourned them with all my heart, when one day, as I sat in the Palais Royal with a friend absorbed in a magazine ... I looked up and screamed, thinking I saw ghosts. They were Lamothe and Saint Georges who, clowning, sang to me 'At last there you are! You thought we've been hanged /For almost two years what became of you?' 'No, I was not sure that you were hanged, but I did take you for ghosts, come back to haunt me!' 'We nearly are [ghosts] they answered, for we come from very