I knew Hortense would ensure I had no opportunity to approach Jeanne before her departure. My best chance at a crossing would be to devise some plan that would allow me to credibly leave with them. On the eve of their departure for New Orleans in the company of the overseer, Champy, gathering together all the little courage at my disposal, I put my plan into effect: I reluctantly hauled myself to the summit of the grand staircase and, after several minutes of hesitation, abandoned myself to gravity’s cruelties in such a way that my front teeth were knocked out in the fall. As blood was gushing out my mouth, and with my golden teeth clutched in my hand, it was decided I would go to New Orleans instead of Champy, have my teeth attended to, and subsequently see to the auction of Jeanne and Berthe at the slave market. I would be gone for a week. I will never forget the stricken look in Hortense’s eyes as she kissed me on the cheek. Perhaps she somehow sensed we were saying goodbye.

As I sat with the two women in the buggy that would take me down to the jetty, Desire approached, gave me Jeanne’s and Berthe’s ownership titles, and said in a whisper that I might sell them separately if the price was better. He turned away without farewelling his daughter—who, as usual, betrayed nothing of her thoughts or feelings—or her mother, whose distress was clearly etched upon her face.

The boat trip to New Orleans took all the rest of that day and a good deal of the next, a bone-shaking, nauseating journey on the steamboat Phoenix, whose boiler was too powerful for the boat’s frail frame. A terrible tremble shook us throughout the journey. Down the river we rattled, through burning fields of sugarcane, with thick smoke billowing into the sky all around. I spent the entire journey in a fog of laudanum to dull the pain in my mouth, which only made my seasickness worse.

Having arrived in the port of New Orleans, I immediately took two rooms in a hotel by the river and went directly to a shipping agent and asked for two tickets on the next boat to France. A steamboat bound for Marseille was scheduled to leave three days hence, I was told, so I bought two first-class passages there and then. I returned to the hotel and found Jeanne and Berthe locked in the room where I had left them. I reassured them that they would not be sold and showed them the tickets I had just purchased.