Istwa Nou

The coffin was carried at speed across town to the Cimetière Extérieure through streets full of shooting soldiers, and the shape of the morning became clear. General Edmond Delly, military commandant of the capital and a candidate for the presidency, had surrounded the cathedral, and his men had broken up the funeral. Beaufossé Laroche, another candidate, had put his own troops into the streets to head Delly off. The two sides contended until midday, mostly by noise, when Seymour Pradel got the Réforme regiment and the presidential guard to clear the area so that the diplomats and clergy could withdraw and have a drink. At four the National Assembly met to choose a successor, and Delly's men charged the building. When the shooting stopped at dusk the electors picked Michel Oreste, a lawyer and deputy, over Luxembourg Cauvin. After a hundred and nine years Haiti had a civilian head of state. Each elector received a note from Oreste for six hundred dollars in gold, payable by the national treasury.