Researching Martinique, I have come across many different events in history including the tragedy of the eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902. Saint Pierre, located to the north of Martinique, suffered a terrible eruption which would completely wipe out the town and most of its 28,000 inhabitants (higher estimates say that over 30,000 people perished from the volcano’s eruption).
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| Remains of St. Pierre after the eruption [Wikipedia.com] |
What I found interesting was that only two people survived (some say three) the eruption on the night of May 8th, 1902. The two main survivors of this event known as the worst volcanic event in 20th century were Léon Compère dit Léandre and Louis-Auguste Cyparis. Some say that the third survivor was a young girl named Havivra Da Ifrile- but I want to focus mainly on Louis-Auguste Cyparis because of his story.
A Man
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| Louis-August Cyparis [Wikipedia.com] |
During the eruption of Mount Pelée, it was Louis-Auguste’s drunken stay in a jail cell that is credited for saving his life. Some reports say that he was put in the solitary cell after a drunken fight with a friend whom he attempted to stab. The cell he was placed in was “a single-cell, partially underground, bomb-proof magazine with stone walls. His cell was without windows, ventilated only through a narrow grating in the door facing away from the volcano. His prison was the most sheltered building in the city, and it was this fact that saved his life. The cell in which he survived still stands today” (Wikipedia). After surviving four days in the cell, he was finally rescued and despite being burned Louis-Auguste was able to survive the eruption. You can read more in the Wiki article or research more about him and how he survived, he apparently urinated his shirt and wrapped it around his face to prevent himself from breathing in much of the ashes. Interestingly enough, he later joined the Barnum & Baily Circus as Ludger Sylbaris retelling the tale of his survival. Here is a picture of his jail cell:
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| Cachot de Cyparis [Wikipedia] |
A Typo?
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| 1902 letter mentioning Louis Cyparis [stpierre1902.org] |
Searching through the birth indexes of Le Prêcheur in the 1870s I didn’t come across any “Cyparis” or even Ciparis but interestingly I did come across the birth of two “Cypriani” children in the late 1870s. Both were the children of a Marie Etiennette Cypriani, who lived in Saint Pierre and was working as a “marchande” or a trades woman, however no father is listed for the children. The first child was born in 1878 and was named Louis Marie Alphonse Cypriani, and their first and last names no doubt have a resemblance! I even checked in the Saint-Pierre 1870s birth indexes but didn’t find any name closely resembling “Louis-Auguste Cyparis”. There is however also the slight possibility that he was born as Louis-August and later picked up “Cyparis” as a last name but being that former slaves had already acquired last names by 1848 I don’t know how likely this option is.
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| Louis Marie Alphonse Cypriani- Birth Record |
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| Louis Marie Alphonse Cypriani- Birth Record |
I do wonder if this is the same man, Cyparis and Cypriani are very close in spelling and there were no other last names that could be clumped with “Cypriani” as a possibility from what I have seen. We do know he went to jail once, so could he have changed his last name slightly to avoid the law? Or did they simply write his name wrong by mistake? I can’t find anywhere an actual birthdate or year for him, all of them seem to be estimates, so it could be because there is no actual “Cyparis” but this was his birth record? Or maybe he was born in another town altogether and just said he was born in Le Prêcheur because he spent most of his time there? As we can see there are a lot of questions surrounding Louis-Auguste Cyparis before the eruption!