Chapter 19
The Meeting
THE TWENTY GENS de couleur plantation owners fidgeted in their seats. As much as they all wanted to get started, a meeting like this would not begin until the most important plantation owner in their ranks, Patrice Beaumont, arrived. Each owner brought four or five additional armed men from their plantations and this security force, which numbered about seventy-five, was positioned outside of Madame Archambeau’s Café.
Chantal decided it was time to speak with Patrice. She knocked on the parlor door and asked Camille if she wouldn’t mind keeping her mother company in the bedroom; as Camille left, Chantal sat opposite Patrice in the parlor. When Camille entered the bedroom, the two chairs had been repositioned to their normal places and Giselle was sitting upright i
