page_title: Boisrond-Tonnerre
hierarchical_section_title: Boisrond-Tonnerre
caption_attribution_description: Timbre poste d'Haïti commémorant le 150e anniversaire de la Révolution haïtienne.
context_page_description: Louis Félix Mathurin Boisrond-Tonnerre, better known as simply Boisrond-Tonnerre, was a Haitian writer and historian who is best known for having served as Jean-Jacques Dessalines' secretary. Boisrond-Tonnerre was educated in Paris until 1798 when he returned to Haiti. He is the author of the 1804 Independence Act of Haiti, which formally declared Haiti's independence from the colonial rule of France. He is also known for his work chronicling the Haitian Revolution, Mémoires pour Servir à l'Histoire d'Haïti.
  Boisrond-Tonnerre was born Louis Boisrond in Torbeck in southwest Haiti. He acquired the name "Tonnerre", French for "thunder", as an infant when his cradle was hit by lightning. His father, a carpenter named Mathurin Boisrond, amazed that his infant son was unharmed, gave him the name "Tonnerre". Boisrond-Tonnerre studied in France before returning to Haiti, where he took part in the Haitian Revolution.
  Boisront-Tonnerre became a victim of post-revolutionary infighting and was executed in October 1806.
context_section_description: Louis Félix Mathurin Boisrond-Tonnerre (born 6 June 1776; executed 24 October 1806), better known as simply Boisrond-Tonnerre, was a  Haitian writer and historian who is best known for having served as Jean-Jacques Dessalines' secretary. Boisrond-Tonnerre was educated in Paris until 1798 when he returned to Haiti (Daut 56). He is the author of the 1804 Independence Act of Haiti, which formally declared Haiti's independence from the colonial rule of France. He is also known for his work chronicling the Haitian Revolution, Mémoires pour Servir à l'Histoire d'Haïti.
  Boisrond-Tonnerre was born Louis Boisrond in Torbeck in southwest Haiti. He acquired the name "Tonnerre", French for "thunder", as an infant when his cradle was hit by lightning. His father, a carpenter named Mathurin Boisrond (see Daut below), amazed that his infant son was unharmed, gave him the name "Tonnerre". Boisrond-Tonnerre studied in France before returning to Haiti, where he took part in the Haitian Revolution. 
  Boisront-Tonnerre became a victim of post-revolutionary infighting and was executed in October 1806. According to the Haitian author Christophe Phillippe Charles, Boisrond-Tonnerre scribbled the following quatrain on the walls of his cell before his execution on either the night of 23 or 24 October 1806:
  Humide et froid séjour fait par et pour le crime
  
  Où le crime en riant immole sa victime
  
  Que peuvent inspirer tes fers et tes barreaux
  
  Quand un cœur pur y goûte un innocent repos? (Christophe 35).
  Translation :
  Cold and humid internment crime has both fashioned and formed 
  
  Where crime, laughing, immolates and consumes its servant 
  
  But what [fear] can your iron bars hope to inspire 
  
  When a pure heart wrests from them a peaceful rest? (Christophe 35)
  Dessalines had been assassinated seven or eight days prior on 17 October in Port-au-Prince.
caption: Louis Boisrond Tonnerre on a Haitian postage stamp for the 150-year anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, (1804-1954).
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