and under his various provocations.
Jefferson, despite his predilections for France, was compelled to
forbid the occupation of Louisiana: he accordingly sent Monroe to
Paris with instructions to effect a compromise, or even to buy
outright the French claims on that land. Various circumstances
favoured this mission. In the first week of the year 1803 Napoleon
received the news of Leclerc's death and the miserable state of the
French in St. Domingo; and as the tidings that he now received from
Egypt, Syria, Corfu, and the East generally, were of the most alluring
kind, he tacitly abandoned his Mississippi enterprise in favour of the
oriental schemes which were closer to his heart. In that month of
January he seems to have turned his gaze from the western hemisphere
towards Turkey, Egypt, and India. True, he still seemed to be doing
his utmost for the occupation of Louisiana, but only as a device for
sustaining the selling price of the western prairies.

When the news of this change of policy reached the ears of Joseph and
Lucien Bonaparte, it aroused their bitterest opposition. Lucien plumed
himself on having struck the bargain with Spain which had secured that
vast province at the expense of an Austrian archduke's crown; and
Joseph knew only too well that Napoleon was freeing himself in the
West in order to be free to strike hard in Europe and the East. The
imminent rupture of the Peace of Amiens touched him keenly: for that
peace was his proudest achievement. If colonial adventures must be
sought, let them be sought in the New World, where Spain and the
United States could offer only a feeble resistance, rather than in
Europe and Asia, where unending war must be the result of an
aggressive policy.

At once the brothers sought an interview with Napoleon. He chanced to
be in his bath, a warm bath perfumed with scents, where he believed
that tired nature most readily found recovery. He ordered them to be
admitted, and an interesting family discussion was the result. On his
mentioning the proposed sale, Lucien at once retorted that the
Legislature would never consent to this sacrifice. He there touched
the wrong chord in Napoleon's nature: had he appealed to the memories
of _le grand monarque_ and of Montcalm, possibly he might have bent
that iron will; but the mention of the consent of the French deputies
roused the spleen of the autocrat, who, from amidst the scented water,
mockingly bade his brother go into mourning fo