This contradiction was due to no change in Bonaparte’s opinions; these remained what they were. At the moment when talking to Marbois about “those republicans whose friendship I seek,” he was calculating on the chance that his gift would one day prove their ruin. “Perhaps it will also be objected to me,” he said,[49] “that the Americans may in two or three centuries be found too powerful for Europe; but my foresight does not embrace such remote fears. Besides, we may hereafter expect rivalries among the members of the Union. The confederations that are called perpetual last only till one of the contracting parties finds it to its interest to break them.... It is to prevent the danger to which the colossal power of England exposes us that I would provide a remedy.” The colossal power of England depended on her navy, her colonies, and her manufactures. Bonaparte proposed to overthrow it by shattering beyond repair the colonial system of France and Spain; and even this step was reasonable compared with what followed. He expected to check the power of England by giving Louisiana to the United States,—a measure which opened a new world to English commerce and manufactures, and riveted England’s grasp on the whole American continent, inviting her to do what she afterward did,—join hands with the United States in revolutionizing Mexico and South America in her own interests. As though to render these results certain, after extending this invitation to English commerce and American democracy, Bonaparte next invited a war with England, which was certain to drive from the ocean every ship belonging to France or Spain,—a war which left even the United States at England’s mercy.

Every detail that could explain Bonaparte’s motives becomes interesting in a matter so important to American history. Certain points were clear. Talleyrand’s colonial and peace policy failed. Resting on the maintenance of order in Europe and the extension of French power in rivalry with the United States and England in America, it was a statesmanlike and honorable scheme, which claimed for the Latin races what Louis XIV. tried to gain for them; but it had the disadvantage of rousing hostility in the United States, and of throwing them into the arms of England. For this result Talleyrand was prepared. He knew that he could keep peace with England, and that the United States alone could not prevent him from carrying out his policy. Indeed, Madison in his conversation with Pichon invited such action, and Jefferson had no means of resisting it; but from the moment when St. Domingo prevented the success of the scheme, and Bonaparte gained an excuse for following his own military instincts, the hostility of the United States became troublesome. President Jefferson had chiefly reckoned on this possibility as his hope of getting Louisiana; and slight as the chance seemed, he was right.

This was, in effect, the explanation which Talleyrand officially wrote to his colleague Decrès, communicating a copy of the treaty, and requesting him to take the necessary measures for executing it.[50]

“The wish to spare the North American continent the war with which it was threatened, to dispose of different points in dispute between France and the United States of America, and to remove all the new causes of misunderstanding which competition and neighborhood might have produced between them; the position of the French colonies; their want of men, cultivation, and assistance; in fine, the empire of circumstances, foresight of the future, and the intention to compensate by an advantageous arrangement for the inevitable loss of a country which war was going to put at the mercy of another nation,—all these motives have determined the Government to pass to the United States the rights it had acquired from Spain over the sovereignty and property of Louisiana.”

Talleyrand’s words were always happily chosen, whether to reveal or to conceal his thoughts. This display of reasons for an act which he probably preferred to condemn, might explain some of the First Consul’s motives in ceding Louisiana to the United States; but it only confused another more perplexing question. Louisiana did not belong to France, but to Spain. The retrocession had never been completed; the territory was still possessed, garrisoned, and administered by Don Carlos IV.; until actual delivery was made, Spain might yet require that the conditions of retrocession should be rigorously performed. Her right in the present instance was complete, because she held as one of the conditions precedent to the retrocession a solemn pledge from the First Consul never to alienate Louisiana. The sale of Louisiana to the United States was trebly invalid: if it were French property, Bonaparte could not constitutionally alienate it without the consent of the Chambers; if it were Spanish property, he could not alienate it at all; if Spain had a right of reclamation, his sale was worthless. In spite of all these objections the alienation took place; and the motives which led the First Consul to conciliate America by violating the Constitution of France were perhaps as simple as he represented them to be; but no one explained what motives led Bonaparte to break his word of honor and betray the monarchy of Spain.

Bonaparte’s evident inclination toward a new war with England greatly distressed King Charles IV. Treaty stipulations bound Spain either to take part with France in the war, or to pay a heavy annual subsidy; and Spain was so weak that either alternative seemed fatal. The Prince of Peace would have liked to join England or Austria in a coalition against Bonaparte; but he knew that to this last desperate measure King Charles would never assent until Bonaparte’s hand was actually on his crown; for no one could reasonably doubt that within a year after Spain should declare an unsuccessful war on France, the whole picturesque Spanish court—not only Don Carlos IV. himself and Queen Luisa, but also the Prince of Peace, Don Pedro Cevallos, the Infant Don Ferdinand, and the train of courtiers who thronged La Granja and the Escorial—would be wandering in exile or wearing out their lives in captivity. To increase the complication, the young King of Etruria died May 27, 1803, leaving an infant seated upon the frail throne which was sure soon to disappear at the bidding of some military order countersigned by Berthier.

In the midst of such anxieties, Godoy heard a public rumor that Bonaparte had sold Louisiana to the United States; and he felt it as the death-knell of the Spanish empire. Between the energy of the American democracy and the violence of Napoleon whom no oath bound, Spain could hope for no escape. From New Orleans to Vera Cruz was but a step; from Bayonne to Cadiz a winter campaign of some five or six hundred miles. Yet Godoy would probably have risked everything, and would have thrown Spain into England’s hands, had he been able to control the King and Queen, over whom Bonaparte exercised the influence of a master. On learning the sale of Louisiana, the Spanish government used language almost equivalent to a rupture with France. The Spanish minister at Paris was ordered to remonstrate in the strongest terms against the step which the First Consul had taken behind the back of the King his ally.[51]

“This alienation,” wrote the Chevalier d’Azara to Talleyrand, “not only deranges from top to bottom the whole colonial system of Spain, and even of Europe, but is directly opposed to the compacts and formal stipulations agreed upon between France and Spain, and to the terms of the cession in the treaty of Tuscany; and the King my master brought himself to give up the colony only on condition that it should at no time, under no pretext, and in no manner, be alienated or ceded to any other Power.”

Then, after reciting the words of Gouvion St.-Cyr’s pledge, the note continued:—

“It is impossible to conceive more frankness or loyalty than the King has put into his conduct toward France throughout this affair. His Majesty had therefore the right to expect as much on the part of his ally, but unhappily finds himself deceived in his hopes by the sale of the said colony. Yet trusting always in the straightforwardness and justice of the First Consul, he has ordered me to make this representation, and to protest against the alienation, hoping that it will be revoked, as manifestly contrary to the treaties and to the most solemn anterior promises.”