Eustache Jean Juchereau de Saint-Denys (March 28, 1809 – June 17, 1883), was a lawyer, diplomat, polyglot, correspondent and French legislator of French-Canadian origin, graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris. He was one of the leading French diplomats to the Dominican Republic during the Dominican War of Independence.
Coming from a family of noble lineage and legitimist orientation, he entered the French diplomatic service and developed his career in several European, Asian and American countries, including Greece, Turkey, Spain, Haiti and, especially, the newly born Dominican Republic. In December 1843, he participared, along with his colleagues Adolphe Barrot and André-Nicolas Levasseur, in the negotiations held in Port-au-Prince with several Dominican deputies present at the Haitian Constituent Assembly.
During the first months of the First Dominican Republic's existence, he maintained good relations with all of the rulers, without being influenced by personal sympathies. He forged bonds of respect and cooperation with members of the Central Government Board —among them Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, Tomás Bobadilla, and José María Caminero —although his most notable influence was exercised over Pedro Santana, a general who had come to power after the and who viewed the Duartistas with suspicion, a group rejected by the French consul. Saint-Denys established himself as one of the most influential figures in Santana's first government, alongside ministers and senior military commanders. After completing his mission in the Caribbean in 1847, he decided to retire from diplomatic life and returned to his hometown in Corsica, where he lived until his death on June 17, 1883.
Early years Eustache Jean Juchereau de Saint-Denys was born on March 28, 1809 in Bastia, Corsica, under the First French Empire of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, his famous Corsican compatriot who then dominated much of Europe.
He was the son of Louis Juchereau de Saint-Denys (b. 1778) and Marie Antoinette de Rossi (b. 1790). His paternal grandfather, Eustache Marie Juchereau de Saint-Denys (1741–1792), a French-Canadian born in Beauport, New France, was a lieutenant colonel in the Artillery and a Chevalier of the Order of Saint Louis. During the September Massacres of the French Revolution, he was assassinated for his loyalty to Louis XVI on September 4, 1792 at Charleville-Mézières, where he was in command, at the age of 50. Eustache Marie's mother—and Eustache Jean's great-grandmother—was Marie Françoise Chartier de Lotbinière, daughter of Eustache Chartier de Lotbinière (1688–1749), Sieur de Lotbinière, an important civil servant in New France. After being widowed by Marie Françoise (1693–1723), daughter of Captain François-Marie Renaud d'Avène des Méloizes (1655–1699) and Françoise-Thérèse (b. 1670), he was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Quebec and appointed canon, archdeacon of Notre-Dame Cathedral, and Vicar general of the diocese of Quebec.
In his youth, he acquired a command of modern Greek, Italian, and Spanish. He earned a law degree from the Faculty of Law of Paris.
During the Restoration (1815–1830), under the reign of Louis XVI's brother, Charles X (1824–1830), France recognized the independence of Greece with the signing of the Treaty of London (1827), following the emancipation of that country from the Ottoman Empire in 1825. With the accession of Count Ioannis Kapodistrias as the first sovereign of the Hellenic State, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Auguste de La Ferronnays, announced to the Greek government on May 7, 1828 the appointment of Baron Antoine Juchereau de Saint-Denys, Eustache's uncle, as French consular agent to Greece, taking with him the young Saint-Denys as consular attaché. The Saint-Denys remained in the First Hellenic Republic until the Baron's replacement in 1829.
Eustache Juchereau de Saint-Denys entered the French consular service on April 1, 1834. He was appointed consul at Tarsus on March 20, 1834 and promoted to consul of the second class in July 1839. On January 17, 1843 he took up the post of consul at Bilbao, Spain.
Diplomacy in Hispaniola Sponsorship of independence On July 25, 1843, he was appointed consul to Haiti, a former French colony that had undergone the a few months earlier, a rebellion that deposed dictator Jean-Pierre Boyer (1818–1843). This uprising had repercussions in neighboring Santo Domingo, the eastern part of Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic), then occupied by Haiti since 1822. The new Haitian government led to the formation of a Constituent Assembly in which both Haitian and Dominican representatives participated.
The sudden appointment to this new post was no coincidence. Auguste Levasseur, former Consul General of the Kingdom of France in Haiti – a position he would return to in August 1843 – informed the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, François Guizot, in June of that year, how essential it was to appoint a consul of the kingdom in the city of Santo Domingo, taking advantage of the notorious cultural and religious differences between Dominicans and Haitians, influencing them to separate from Haiti and, at the same time, seek the protectorate of France, which would receive in exchange control or possession of the Samaná Peninsula.
Saint-Denys arrived in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, on November 28, 1843. He traveled on the frigate La Aurora, accompanied by Adolphe Barrot, France's plenipotentiary in that country. Officially, his mission was to assume the consulate in Cap-Haïtien, a city that had been almost destroyed by an earthquake on May 7, 1842. This circumstance provided an argument for claiming accommodation difficulties. Therefore, it was decided to transfer him to Santo Domingo, in the eastern part of the island.
Before leaving, Saint-Denys became involved in Dominican politics for the first time by associating with several deputies of the Haitian Assembly and, at the urging of André Levasseur, launched an ambitious project for a French protectorate over Santo Domingo, named after the Consul General as the Levasseur Plan. The initiative proposed transforming the Dominican territory into an independent republic under the protection of France and administered by a governor general appointed by the French crown, provided that the Dominicans themselves accepted the established conditions.
The project was negotiated by Saint-Denys, Barrot and Consul General Levasseur himself. It was presented to the Dominican deputies in Port-au-Prince on December 15, 1843. Among those who supported it were prominent figures such as Buenaventura Báez, Manuel María Valencia, Francisco Javier Abreu, Remigio del Castillo, Juan Nepomuceno Tejera, Manuel Ángel Rojas and the priest José Santiago Díaz de Peña.
This plan did not emerge from nowhere. Since 1840, Father Tomás de Portes e Infante, who was Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo —since 1830, sede vacante due to the exile of Archbishop Pedro Valera y Jiménez (1757–1833)—had already been in contact with Consul Levasseur. This was because the French king Louis Philippe I (1830–1848) had ordered the return to the Catholic Church of the property that had been taken from it during the French Revolution. The matter was of particular importance in Santo Domingo, where the Church had lost its properties during the Haitian occupation. For this reason, the France of the July Monarchy presented itself as a closer interlocutor than Isabelline Spain, which, while maintaining rights on the island according to the Treaty of Paris (1814), had embraced an anti-clerical policy under the regency of Espartero.
Dominican deputies approved the Levasseur Plan, however the project was leaked prematurely, being discovered not by the Haitian authorities, but by the Dominican conspirators known as filorios—followers of Juan Pablo Duarte, also known as duartistas—and independentists linked to them. One of them, José María Serra de Castro, discovered the project and learned that the supporters of the Levasseur Plan would declare the independence of the eastern part of the island under the auspices of France by April 25, 1844; which prompted the filorios—who would not allow anyone to get ahead of them in this purpose—to advance the independence declaration, setting the date of February 25, 1844, although it finally occurred on February 27.
Meanwhile, on January 1, 1844, supporters of the Levasseur Plan in the city of Azua distributed a manifesto justifying Haiti's separation under French protection. Later, on January 16, the conservative lawyer, Tomás Bobadilla, with the support of his group and the Trinitarios, published the Dominican Act of Independence (1844), in which he set forth the reasons for making emancipation necessary and alluded in veiled terms to the Levasseur Plan, noting that, in addition to Haiti's own resources, they would resort to "those that foreigners could provide us in such a case."
While all this was happening, Saint-Denys set sail from Port-au-Prince on December 31, 1843, on the corvette La Naiade. He arrived in Santo Domingo on January 13, 1844. The following day, he disembarked and was received by two Haitian generals: Pablo Alí, governor of the department of Ozama, and Henri Étienne Desgrottes, commander of the city. His presence raised expectations among the Dominican independence fighters, who hoped that France might support their cause.
As Consul in Santo Domingo, he played a pivotal role during the independence revolt of 1844. On the night of February 27, 1844, when the first shots of the uprising were heard, numerous women and children sought refuge in his residence, carrying valuables to protect them from the feared Haitian troops, known for their excesses. Despite the Consul's efforts to reassure the terrified neighbors, the panic was such that many preferred to remain in the neighboring houses, prepared to return in case their lives were in danger.
The Casa de la Argolla, former seat of the French consulate in Santo Domingo, was the site of the negotiated surrender of the Haitians on February 28, 1844. It was previously housed there by French Governor Jean-Louis Ferrand during the Era de France. Later, it was occupied by his victor at Palo Hincado, Spanish Governor Juan Sánchez Ramírez, hero of the War of the Reconquista. At dawn on February 28, 1844, brothers Pedro and Ramón Santana entered Santo Domingo with a large army. Colonel Pedro Santana immediately visited the French consul's residence to express his support for the Levasseur Plan. According to Saint-Denys, he maintained "a true friendship" with Pedro Santana, whose conduct, he affirmed, "earned his complete trust."
That same day, the Haitian military commanders stationed in the city surrendered bloodlessly at the Casa de la Arroga—then the seat of the French consulate—where they signed their surrender. The following day, General Desgrottes, following Saint-Denys' instructions, formally handed the Ozama Fortress to the command of the Dominican forces.
Attempt of a French protectorate On March 3, 1844, Saint-Denys informed the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican governmental body's sympathy for his country. With the consummation of independence, a provisional Governing Junta was formed, composed mostly of Filorians—five of its members—with Tomás Bobadilla as the sole exception. The Central Governing Junta soon expanded beyond that initial circle: on March 1, it had twelve members, of whom four were Filorians and seven belonged to other factions, including Francisco Abreu, former Dominican deputy in the Haitian Constituent Assembly and supporter of the Levasseur Plan.