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“...MARTINIQUE 309
One of the principal hotels overlooks the Savane, an
open park in the centre of which is a statue of the
Empress Josephine in her coronation robes from the
chisel of Vital Debray. It is surrounded by tall royal
palms. The Empress has her head turned towards
Trois Ilets across the Bay where she was born on June
23rd, 1763. Her father, M. de la Pagerie, a planter,
was practically ruined by a terrible hurricane in 1767
through which 1,600 persons perished.
Martinique was also the home of Fran$oise d’Aubigné,
who first married Scarron the dramatist and afterwards
became the wife of Louis XIV.
iUso overlooking the Savane are the Government
Offices, the Post Office and the Bibliothèque Schoelcher.
The latter, a curiously Eastern-looking building with a
dome and overhanging roof, contains a library and a
museum of plaster casts, ceramics, etc., bequeathed by
Victor Schoelcher (1804-1893), who was mainly respon-
sible for securing the emancipation of the slaves in
1848. In Place...”
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