terests in Paris; but at the very close of the negotiation he was
succeeded by Monroe, whom Jefferson sent over as a special envoy. The
course of the negotiations was at first most baffling to the Americans.
[Footnote: In Henry Adams' "History of the United States," the account
of the diplomatic negotiations at this period, between France, Spain,
and the United States, is the most brilliant piece of diplomatic
history, so far as the doings of the diplomats themselves are concerned,
that can be put to the credit of any American writer.] Talleyrand lied
with such unmoved calm that it was impossible to put the least weight
upon anything he said; moreover, the Americans soon found that Napoleon
was the sole and absolute master, so that it was of no use attempting to
influence any of his subordinates, save in so far as these subordinates
might in their turn influence him. For some time it appeared that
Napoleon was bent upon occupying Louisiana in force and using it as a
basis for the rebuilding of the French colonial power. The time seemed
ripe for such a project. After a decade of war with all the rest of
Europe, France in 1802 concluded the Peace of Amiens, which left her
absolutely free to do as she liked in the New World. Napoleon thoroughly
despised a republic, and especially a republic without an army or navy.
After the Peace of Amiens he began to treat the Americans with
contemptuous disregard; and he planned to throw into Louisiana one of
his generals with a force of veteran troops sufficient to hold the
country against any attack.

Illusory Nature of Napoleon's Hopes.

His hopes were in reality chimerical. At the moment France was at peace
with her European foes, and could send her ships of war and her
transports across the ocean without fear of the British navy. It would
therefore have been possible for Napoleon without molestation to throw a
large body of French soldiers into New Orleans. Had there been no
European war such an army might have held New Orleans for some years
against American attack, and might even have captured one or two of the
American posts on the Mississippi, such as Natchez; but the instant it
had landed in New Orleans the entire American people would have accepted
France as their deadliest enemy, and all American foreign policy would
have been determined by the one consideration of ousting the French from
the mouth of the Mississippi. To the United States, France was by no
means as form