July to 2 December 1908 · Haitianspan
Fire, unpaid soldiers, and an old president carried onto a French cruiser
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The last months of Nord Alexis went badly. On 5 and 6 July 1908 fire took twelve hundred houses in Port-au-Prince, and four days later the Grand'Rue nearly went with them. Jamaica offered relief supplies and was told that cash would suit better, since government salaries were four months in arrears. In October the president's wife died. He was nearly blind by then and could no longer get onto a horse. On 15 November he watched the Sunday parade from the palace balcony, lectured his officers on loyalty, and then dismissed General Antoine Simon, who had governed the South from Les Cayes for eighteen years. Simon was past seventy. He marched on the capital with peasant troops carrying spears and machetes and reached Leogane on 30 November. On the night of 1 December the last regiments in Port-au-Prince changed sides and the cabinet fled to the French legation. Nord Alexis was still washing when they came to tell him to go. He was walked to the wharf through a howling crowd that cut his coat open and took thirty thousand dollars in gold from his baggage.
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