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Updated: June 29, 2025
The Spaniards left a garrison but the persistent Frenchmen returned and drove it out. In 1664 the French West India Company took possession, established a garrison, and appointed as governor an energetic man, D'Ogeron, under whom the country rapidly advanced in prosperity and commerce.
It was some months after the rescue of Mademoiselle d'Ogeron in August of that year 1687 that this little fleet, after some minor adventures which I pass over in silence, sailed into the great lake of Maracaybo and effected its raid upon that opulent city of the Main. The affair did not proceed exactly as was hoped, and Blood's force came to find itself in a precarious position.
"That," she said in a small voice, "is the unforgivable thing. It has destroyed him deservedly." "Destroyed him?" His lordship laughed a little. "Be none so sure of that. He has grown rich, I hear. He has translated, so it is said, his Spanish spoils into French gold, which is being treasured up for him in France. His future father-in-law, M. d'Ogeron, has seen to that."
Before him, guarded by two half-naked negroes, stood young d'Ogeron, in frilled shirt and satin small-clothes and fine shoes of Cordovan leather. He was stripped of doublet, and his hands were tied behind him. The young gentleman's comely face was haggard. Near at hand, and also under guard, but unpinioned, mademoiselle his sister sat hunched upon a hillock of sand.
The settlements soon put on a new air of prosperity, and really owed their existence as a permanent French colony to the efforts of this new governor. It was under the administration of d'Ogeron that l'Olonnais, Michel le Basque, and most of the French buccaneers flourished, whose exploits are celebrated in Exquemelin's history.
One sunny morning the Governor of Tortuga came aboard the Arabella, accompanied by a chubby little gentleman, amiable of countenance, amiable and self-sufficient of manner. "My Captain," M. d'Ogeron delivered himself, "I bring you M. de Cussy, the Governor of French Hispaniola, who desires a word with you."
"On that understanding all arranges itself." "You think so?" said Captain Blood. "But if M. d'Ogeron should refuse to pay the ransom? What then?" He laughed, and got lazily to his feet. "No, no. If Captain Levasseur is meanwhile to keep the girl, as he proposes, then let him pay this ransom, and be his the risk if it should afterwards not be forthcoming."
In French Hispaniola corsairing had been forbidden for several years, yet the French governor found the problem of suppressing the evil even more difficult than it was in Jamaica. M. de Pouançay, the successor of d'Ogeron, died toward the end of 1682 or the beginning of 1683, and in spite of his efforts to establish order in the colony he left it in a deplorable condition.
But since you chose war and opened fire on me with some damage to my ship and loss of life to five of my men, why, war it is, and your ship a prize of war." From the quarter rail Mademoiselle d'Ogeron looked down with glowing eyes in breathless wonder upon her well-beloved hero. Gloriously heroic he seemed as he stood towering there, masterful, audacious, beautiful.
M. d'Ogeron looked on, a man bemused, unable to surmise what the issue either way could mean for him. Meanwhile, two of Blood's men who had taken the place of the Frenchman's negro guards, had removed the crown of whipcord from his brow. As for mademoiselle, she had risen, and was leaning forward, a hand pressed tightly to her heaving breast, her face deathly pale, a wild terror in her eyes.
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