The document has been published in the Official Bulletin of Martinique under the title "Report of the mission exploring the craters of mount Pelée".

At that time, mount Pelée was not considered as a potential threat for the inhabitants of the Northern region.

(...)

A strong tradition, without any historic foundation, since it has its origins far before the settlement of Europeans in the West-Indies, used to say that mount Pelée had been the center of a volcano. The shape of a cone, so particular at other volcanoes where eruptions have occurred, the term Pelée (French meaning bald) which applies to its summit, the presence of a lake there, seen as an old crater, the pumice nature of the ground in a radius of several leagues, everything converged to ascertain the tradition and then wrapped mount Pelée with the respect man owes to the things that frighten him. We also knew that in one the mountain's gorges, there was a place where we could find sulfur, and for that reason the neighboring inhabitants called it the Soufrière (From French "soufre" meaning sulfur).



The awakening of mount Pelée on August 5th 1851 raised a great deal of concern in the Northern region. People from the countryside in Prêcheur and St. Pierre fled towards the churches in town.

(…)
On August 5th, St. Pierre calmly fell asleep, the city was in that deep and quiet sleep resulting from its daily activities and the monotony of its day to day life. If someone in St. Pierre was dreaming of a volcano, there was no way it could have been mount Pelée volcano!

(…)

There was no visible sign of the impending convulsion from the eruption of a volcano At around 11:00 pm, a dull, distant and sinister noise could be heard ; at first, everybody mistook it for some noise they were familiar with. This one with the thunder, that one with the vapor bellowing when the valve of a steamer engine is opened, this other one with the rumble of a flooding river. But as the noise was persisting, and even increasing, many woke up and started to worry about it.