The fastest and easiest method to emancipate the enslaved. Before leaving Madagascar, French Resident General Hippolyte Laroche promulgated the law of September 26, 1896, abolishing slavery in Madagascar. Immediately, "truncated quotations from authors who never read his decree beyond its title and first article, make him either an irresponsible man or, conversely, magnify him beyond measure, by indulging their own imagination that the simple notion of slavery, forged by knowledge acquired outside the Malagasy context, is enough to inflame…" (Bakoly Domenichini-Ramiaramanana and Jean-Pierre Domenichini, "Aspects of Slavery under the Merina Monarchy according to Legislative and Regulatory Texts," Historical Studies Review "Omaly sy Anio" No. 15, first semester 1982). These authors, carried away by their fantasy, ignore that previously, Hippolyte Laroche observed and had a local commission study the situation of slavery in Imerina as an institution. This allowed him to make various findings, such as the fact that "slaves were not all destitute and their masters were not all odious characters"… (see previous Note). Thus many freed slaves, instead of separating from their former masters, remained attached to them and continued to live with them (circular from Prime Minister Rasanjy of November 2, 1896). It is therefore likely that liberated slaves, if they had good relations with their former masters, could find themselves sheltered from want. At the time of slavery's abolition, the Domenichini couple explains, "at 100 francs per piece on average, all the slaves of Imerina, as they were counted in 1896, represented at current market rates a capital of approximately 22 million francs". The general residence estimated it could compensate for the loss by declaring that "France forbids itself from imposing any extraordinary war contribution on the people of Madagascar". The two researchers nevertheless indicate that for many people, the essence of their fortune consisted of slaves and "it could be presumed that the abolition of the institution would put some in need, but without this posing insoluble problems". The confiscation of the property of Menalamba insurgents allowed the government to recover lands and consider that "relief, in the form of territorial concessions, could be granted to dispossessed owners recognized as being in need". All the more easily since slaves apparently were not judged indispensable to land exploitation. As a reminder, at that time, there was a full-scale insurrection against French occupation. The decision to confiscate the property of rebels was "made" in May 1896 by Queen Ranavalona III, at the same time as the emancipation of their slaves. This second measure, in fact, allowed the resident general to prepare the ground for the abolition of this ancient institution. In his last fortnightly report of October 8, 1896, after he had already handed over his powers to General Joseph Simon Gallieni since September 28, Hippolyte Laroche proudly declared to his minister: "No trouble, however slight, occurred following the publication in Tananarive and in the provinces of the emancipation decree at the bottom of which the natives read my signature." According to the Domenichinis, even the "implementation texts" conceived under Governor General Gallieni, when they reveal unforeseen disorders, only report facts quite curious, either in themselves or by the reactions they provoke, "but which one hesitates a priori to qualify as disorders". The Domenichini couple evokes the troubles reported by Prince Ramahatra in his kabary of October 2. The governor general of the Ambatomanga Military Circle was notably shocked by what he called "inappropriate celebrations" held by certain freed slaves. According to the two authors of the study, the speaker's attitude is simply revealing "the weight of contempt that accompanies slave status and which seems to participate in a representation of the world that founds social order on a powerfully symbolic opposition between the enslaved man, occupying the lowest degree of the hierarchy, and the noble woman, occupying the summit." An opposition which, still according to the speaker, must not and cannot be challenged by the abolition of slavery. For it must simply be accepted, "because it is not good for Malagasy to remain outside the progress of civilized nations". Pela Ravalitera