Quarterly Bulletin in command, Henri Christophe, was now chief, but though independence and freedom from slavery had been won the republic of Haiti was bankrupt. A currency was the first need and Christophe created one — gourdes. They grew everywhere, were used as bowls, spoons, etc., the same as pottery, and he gathered them from far and near all he could, placing a value of twenty sous upon each and depositing them in his treasury. With the ripening of the coffee crop, he purchased it, paying in gourdes and reselling to the European market for gold. In that way he soon established metal currency giving the name gourde to the standard coin which still remains. By this time Christophe had grown in stature, demonstrated his strength and administrative ability so that in March, 1811, the members of the State Council met and subscribed unanimously to a motion to make him King. Henri Christophe the slave, the stable boy, the waiter, became Henri I, King of Haiti. On a Sunday in June, they placed a crown upon his head and he took over the office with a dignity never surpassed. Nobility was established, four princes, eight dukes, twenty-two counts, etc., a black aristocracy. That night a great reception was held with Henri I garbed in peacock blue embroidered with gold, white satin vest, patent leather shoes, and white silk stockings, presiding in great splendor. The Queen, daughter of Coidovic, Henri's former owner, sat beside him, and the festivities lasted until early morn. The building of the King's palace, "Sans Souci," next on the program, was started in August, and finished in September of the following year, 1812. It was built upon a scale of grandeur that outshone anything on this hemisphere, and it was from here that the imprints of the Royal Press1 were issued in 1817, 1818, and 1819, under the auspices of Christo- phe's closest confident and adviser, Baron de Vastey. The baron was the illegitimate son of a white father and a mulatto mother, 1Ralph T. Esterquest, "L'Imprimerie Royale d'Hayti (1817-1819). A Little Known Royal Press of the Western Hemisphere," in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, XXXIV (1940), 171-184.