Not stopping there, the note also insisted that Tuscany should be evacuated by the French troops, who were not needed, and had become an intolerable burden, so that the country was reduced to the utmost misery. Next, King Charles demanded that Parma and Piacenza should be surrendered to the King of Etruria, to whom they belonged as the heir of the late Duke of Parma. Finally, the note closed with a complaint even more grave in substance than any of the rest:—
“The King my master could have wished also a little more friendly frankness in communicating the negotiations with England, and especially in regard to the dispositions of the Northern courts, guarantors of the treaty of Amiens; but as this affair belongs to negotiations of another kind, the undersigned abstains for the moment from entering into them, reserving the right to do so on a better occasion.”
Beurnonville, the French minister at Madrid, tried to soothe or silence the complaints of Cevallos; but found himself only silenced in return. The views of the Spanish secretary were energetic, precise, and not to be met by argument.[52] “I have not been able to bring M. Cevallos to any moderate, conciliatory, or even calm expression,” wrote Beurnonville to Talleyrand; “he has persistently shown himself inaccessible to all persuasion.” The Prince of Peace was no more manageable than Cevallos: “While substituting a soft and pliant tone for the sharpest expressions, and presenting under the appearance of regret what had been advanced to me with the bitterness of reproach, the difference between the Prince’s conduct and that of M. Cevallos is one only in words.” Both of them said, what was quite true, that the United States would not have objected to the continued possession of Louisiana by Spain, and that France had greatly exaggerated the dispute about the entrepôt.
“The whole matter reduces itself to a blunder (gaucherie) of the Intendant,” said Cevallos; “it has been finally explained to Mr. Jefferson, and friendship is restored. On both sides there has been irritation, but not a shadow of aggression; and from the moment of coming to an understanding, both parties see that they are at bottom of one mind, and mutually very well disposed toward each other. Moreover, it is quite gratuitous to assume that Louisiana is so easy to take in the event of a war, either by the Americans or by the English. The first have only militia,—very considerable, it is true, but few troops of the line; while Louisiana, at least for the moment, has ten thousand militia-men, and a body of three thousand five hundred regular troops. As for the English, they cannot seriously have views on a province which is impregnable to them; and all things considered, it would be no great calamity if they should take it. The United States, having a much firmer hold on the American continent, should they take a new enlargement, would end by becoming formidable, and would one day disturb the Spanish possessions. As for the debts due to Americans, Spain has still more claim to an arrangement of that kind; and in any case the King, as Bonaparte must know, would have gladly discharged all the debts contracted by France, and perhaps even a large instalment of the American claim, in order to recover an old domain of the crown. Finally, the intention which led the King to give his consent to the exchange of Louisiana was completely deceived. This intention had been to interpose a strong dyke between the Spanish colonies and the American possessions; now, on the contrary, the doors of Mexico are to stay open to them.”
To these allegations, which Beurnonville called “insincere, weak, and ill-timed,” Cevallos added a piece of evidence which, strangely enough, was altogether new to the French minister, and reduced him to confusion: it was Gouvion St.-Cyr’s letter, pledging the First Consul never to alienate Louisiana.
When Beurnonville’s despatch narrating these interviews reached Paris, it stung Bonaparte to the quick, and called from him one of the angry avowals with which he sometimes revealed a part of the motives that influenced his strange mind. Talleyrand wrote back to Beurnonville, June 22, a letter which bore the mark of the First Consul’s hand.
“In one of my last letters,” he began,[53] “I made known to you the motives which determined the Government to give up Louisiana to the United States. You will not conceal from the Court of Madrid that one of the causes which had most influence on this determination was discontent at learning that Spain, after having promised to sustain the measures taken by the Intendant of New Orleans, had nevertheless formally revoked them. These measures would have tended to free the capital of Louisiana from subjection to a right of deposit which was becoming a source of bickerings between the Louisianians and Americans. We should have afterward assigned to the United States, in conformity to their treaty with Spain, another place of deposit, less troublesome to the colony and less injurious to its commerce; but Spain put to flight all these hopes by confirming the privileges of the Americans at New Orleans,—thus granting them definitively local advantages which had been at first only temporary. The French government, which had reason to count on the contrary assurance given in this regard by that of Spain, had a right to feel surprise at this determination; and seeing no way of reconciling it with the commercial advantages of the colony and with a long peace between the colony and its neighbors, took the only course which actual circumstances and wise prevision could suggest.”
These assertions contained no more truth than those which Cevallos had answered. Spain had not promised to sustain the Intendant, nor had she revoked the Intendant’s measures after, but before, the imagined promise; she had not confirmed the American privileges at New Orleans, but had expressly reserved them for future treatment. On the other hand, the restoration of the deposit was not only reconcilable with peace between Louisiana and the United States, but the whole world knew that the risk of war rose from the threat of disturbing the right of deposit. The idea that the colony had become less valuable on this account was new. France had begged for the colony with its American privileges, and meaning to risk the chances of American hostility; but if these privileges were the cause of selling the colony to the Americans, and if, as Talleyrand implied, France could and would have held Louisiana if the right of deposit at New Orleans had been abolished and the Americans restricted to some other spot on the river-bank, fear of England was not, as had been previously alleged, the cause of the sale. Finally, if the act of Spain made the colony worthless, why was Spain deprived of the chance to buy it back?
The answer was evident. The reason why Bonaparte did not keep his word to Don Carlos IV. was that he looked on Spain as his own property, and on himself as representing her sovereignty. The reasons for which he refused to Spain the chance to redeem the colony, were probably far more complicated. The only obvious explanation, assuming that he still remembered his pledge, was a wish to punish Spain.
After all these questions were asked, one problem still remained. Bonaparte had reasons for not returning the colony to Spain; he had reasons, too, for giving it to the United States,—but why did he alienate the territory from France? Fear of England was not the true cause. He had not to learn how to reconquer Louisiana on the Danube and the Po. At one time or another Great Britain had captured nearly all the French colonies in the New World, and had been forced not only to disgorge conquests, but to abandon possessions; until of the three great European Powers in America, England was weakest. Any attempt to regain old ascendency by conquering Louisiana would have thrown the United States into the hands of France; and had Bonaparte anticipated such an act, he should have helped it. That Great Britain should waste strength in conquering Louisiana in order to give it to the United States, was an idea not to be gravely argued. Jefferson might, indeed, be driven into an English alliance in order to take Louisiana by force from France or Spain; but this danger was slight in itself, and might have been removed by the simple measure of selling only the island of New Orleans, and by retaining the west bank, which Jefferson was ready to guarantee. This was the American plan; and the President offered for New Orleans alone about half the price he paid for all Louisiana.[54] Still, Bonaparte forced the west bank on Livingston. Every diplomatic object would have been gained by accepting Jefferson’s projet of a treaty, and signing it without the change of a word. Spain would have been still in some degree protected; England would have been tempted to commit the mistake of conquering the retained territory, and thereby the United States would have been held in check; the United States would have gained all the stimulus their ambition could require for many years to come; and what was more important to Bonaparte, France could not justly say that he had illegally and ignobly sold national territory except for a sufficient and national object.