Jefferson was the least warlike of presidents, and he loved the French with a servile devotion.  But his party was strongest in precisely those parts of the country where the mouth of the Mississippi was held to be of right the property of the United States; and the pressure of public opinion was too strong for Jefferson to think of resisting it.  The South and the West were a unit in demanding that France should not be allowed to establish herself on the lower Mississippi.  Jefferson was forced to tell his French friends that if their nation persisted in its purpose America would be obliged to marry itself to the navy and army of England.  Even he could see that for the French to take Louisiana meant war with the United States sooner or later; and as above all things else he wished peace, he made every effort to secure the coveted territory by purchase.

    Beginning of Negotiations with France.

Chancellor Robert R. Livingston of New York represented American interests 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