Robert McCormick
Alejo Carpentier’s The Kingdom of this World and Jean-Claude Fignolé’s Une heure pour l’éternité represent the lives of both Leclercs in the Caribbean. According to Fignolé’s novel, both are seeing the Caribbean for the first time. Carpentier’s novel gives much greater narrative attentive to Pauline Bonaparte, and her consorts, while virtually ignoring the disease-stricken French general. In fact, he is more interested in Makandal, Henri Christophe and voodou, in what constitutes the essence of New World culture. Fignolé, on the other hand, puts General Leclerc on center stage. He is the one given an hour before eternity. He will relate his crossing with his new wife and his new orders, both from Napoleon, his pre-mortem encounters with Toussaint and the too obvious infidelities of his wife. Leclerc will never leave the Caribbean whereas his wife does. This paper will examine the role of the Leclercs in both texts to elucidate the divergent conceptions of the two Caribbean authors about Europeans in the New World around the time of the French and Haitian Revolutions.
