March 30, 2010

The Duke of Marmalade and Count of Limonade invite you to help their unhappy island

Your humble curators have shaken off winter hibernation, and indeed most of the attendees at our February 3rd London book launch are slowly recovering from the evening. (Reportage, and also new reviews, can be seen here and here.) At the time of the launch party, the suffering people of Haiti were receiving around-the-clock news coverage, though public attention spans are short nowadays. So this post ends with an unusual invitation to help Haiti while getting to know its fascinating history, which goes well beyond the caricatures of 1930s B-movie “White Zombie” with Bela Lugosi (or indeed the pulp books of William Seabrook, Lost Generation writer, traveller, Haitian Voodoo enthusiast, host of Aleister Crowley and sometime insane asylum inmate.)

One of the most colourful aspects of genuine Haitian history is the sporadic monarchies that were formerly established on the island. In 1811 the country’s president, Henry Christophe, who had begun life as a slave, proclaimed himself King of Haiti as Henry I and built a magnificent marble-floored palace which he named after Frederick the Great’s residence Sans-Souci.

He also created a nobility, conferring 87 titles on men whom he favoured: four princes, seven dukes, 22 counts, 40 barons and 14 knights. He then established a College of Arms to create coats of arms for his nobles. The commander-in-chief of his armed forces was created Duke of Marmalade and his Secretary of State was made Count of Limonade, both of these being place names on the island. Henry Christophe only controlled the northern half of the island and his reign became increasingly troubled. In 1820, rather than face being deposed, he shot himself with a silver bullet. Although his dynasty did not survive on the throne and his monarchy died with him, his great-great-great-granddaughter, Michèle Bennett Duvalier, was First Lady of Haiti in the 1980s — a time when the Duvaliers’ sinister paramilitary thugs, the Tonton Macoutes (“bogeymen”), terrorised the population with their literally heavy-handed tactics and supposed aura of supernatural powers.

Anyway, the reign of Henry Christophe was not the end of Haiti’s experience of monarchy. In 1849 Faustin-Élie Soulouque, also a former slave, proclaimed himself monarch with the even more exalted title of Emperor of Haiti, as Faustin I. He too established a peerage, on a larger scale than Christophe. In the first year of his reign he created four princes, 59 dukes, two marquises, 99 counts, 215 barons and numerous hereditary knights, followed by four orders of chivalry. After several unsuccessful wars against the Dominican Republic he was forced to abdicate by a military coup and went into exile aboard a British warship. Later he was allowed to return to Haiti where he died as a private citizen in 1867.

Today, thanks to an initiative by the College of Arms in London, people who wish to make a donation to relieve the victims of the earthquake that devastated Haiti in January can do so in a way that also allows them to acquire an astonishing book. The College of Arms, the regulatory heraldic body for England that is part of the Queen’s household, has published The Armorial of Haiti. This book, a hardcover volume of 216 pages with colour illustrations throughout, is based on an historic manuscript in the possession of the College and records the colourful and eccentric coats of arms of the 87 nobles created by King Henry Christophe, with historical notes. It is an entertaining and unusual collectors’ piece. The college is selling it at a price of £45 and all the proceeds go to Haitian earthquake relief.

This unique publication can be obtained from: The College of Arms, Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4BT. The book price is £45, plus postage rates of £5 (per copy) within the United Kingdom, £7.50 for Europe and £12.50 for the rest of the world, as shown on its website here. This enables buyers to enjoy a really unusual volume while helping unfortunates in Haiti. A good deal, I think.