In the late spring of 1799, there came bad news from Saint-Domingue: Generals Hédouville and Roume, the "Directoire's" emissaries, reverting to the discredited policy of stirring up trouble between blacks and mulattoes, succeeded in starting a war between pro-French André Rigaud's mulattoes, and separatist Toussaint Louverture's blacks. It was so savage that it became known as the "War of Knives". Hearing of it affected St. Georges, already suffering from a painful condition which he refused to acknowledge. Two of his contemporary obituaries reveal the course of his illness and death.