Out of the blood and ashes of France a Man had arisen who moved real kings and queens on his chess-board--which was a large part of the world.The Man was Napoleon Buonaparte, at present, for lack of a better name, First Consul of the French Republic.The Man's eye, sweeping the world for a new plaything, had rested upon one which had excited the fancy of lesser adventurers, of one John Law, for instance.It was a large, unwieldy plaything indeed, and remote.It was nothing less than that vast and mysterious country which lay beyond the monster yellow River of the Wilderness, the country bordered on the south by the Gulf swamps, on the north by no man knew what forests,--as dark as those the Romans found in Gaul,--on the west by a line which other generations might be left to settle.
This land was Louisiana.
A future king of France, while an emigre, had been to Louisiana.This is merely an interesting fact worth noting.It was not interesting to Napoleon.
Napoleon, by dint of certain screws which he tightened on his Catholic Majesty, King Charles of Spain, in the Treaty of San Ildefonso on the 1st of October, 1800, got his plaything.Louisiana was French again,--whatever French was in those days.The treaty was a profound secret.But secrets leak out, even the profoundest; and this was wafted across the English Channel to the ears of Mr.Rufus King, American Minister at London, who wrote of it to one Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States.Mr.Jefferson was interested, not to say alarmed.
Mr.Robert Livingston was about to depart on his mission from the little Republic of America to the great Republic of France.Mr.Livingston was told not to make himself disagreeable, but to protest.If Spain was to give up the plaything, the Youngest Child among the Nations ought to have it.It lay at her doors, it was necessary for her growth.
Mr.Livingston arrived in France to find that Louisiana was a mere pawn on the chess-board, the Republic he represented little more.He protested, and the great Talleyrand shrugged his shoulders.What was Monsieur talking about? A treaty.What treaty? A treaty with Spain ceding back Louisiana to France after forty years.Who said there was such a treaty? Did Monsieur take snuff?
Would Monsieur call again when the Minister was less busy?
Monsieur did call again, taking care not to make himself disagreeable.He was offered snuff.He called again, pleasantly.He was offered snuff.He called again.The great Talleyrand laughed.He was always so happy to see Monsieur when he (Talleyrand) was not busy.He would give Monsieur a certificate of importunity.He had quite forgotten what Monsieur was talking about on former occasions.Oh, yes, a treaty.Well, suppose there was such a treaty, what then?
What then? Mr.Livingston, the agreeable but importunate, went home and wrote a memorial, and was presently assured that the inaccessible Man who was called First Consul had read it with interest--great interest.Mr.Livingston did not cease to indulge in his enjoyable visits to Talleyrand--not he.But in the intervals he sat down to think.
What did the inaccessible Man himself have in his mind?
The Man had been considering the Anglo-Saxon race, and in particular that portion of it which inhabited the Western Hemisphere.He perceived that they were a quarrelsome people, which possessed the lust for land and conquest like the rest of their blood.He saw with astonishment something that had happened, something that they had done.Unperceived by the world, in five and twenty years they had swept across a thousand miles of mountain and forest wilderness in ever increasing thousands, had beaten the fiercest of savage tribes before them, stolidly unmindful of their dead.They had come at length to the great yellow River, and finding it closed had cried aloud in their anger.What was beyond it to stop them? Spain, with a handful of subjects inherited from the France of Louis the Fifteenth.
Could Spain stop them? No.But he, the Man, would stop them.He would raise up in Louisiana as a monument to himself a daughter of France to curb their ambition.
America should not be all Anglo-Saxon.
Already the Americans had compelled Spain to open the River.How long before they would overrun Louisiana itself, until a Frenchman or a Spaniard could scarce be found in the land?
Sadly, in accordance with the treaty which Monsieur Talleyrand had known nothing about, his Catholic Majesty instructed his Intendant at New Orleans to make ready to deliver Louisiana to the French Commission.That was in July, 1802.This was not exactly an order to close the River again--in fact, his Majesty said nothing about closing the River.Mark the reasoning of the Spanish mind.The Intendant closed the River as his plain duty.And Kentucky and Tennessee, wayward, belligerent infants who had outgrown their swaddling clothes, were heard from again.The Nation had learned to listen to them.The Nation was very angry.Mr.Hamilton and the Federalists and many others would have gone to war and seized the Floridas.
Mr.Jefferson said, ``Wait and see what his Catholic Majesty has to say.'' Mr.Jefferson was a man of great wisdom, albeit he had mistaken Jacobinism for something else when he was younger.And he knew that Napoleon could not play chess in the wind.The wind was rising.
Mr.Livingston was a patriot, able, importunate, but getting on in years and a little hard of hearing.
Importunity without an Army and a Navy behind it is not effective--especially when there is no wind.But Mr.
Jefferson heard the wind rising, and he sent Mr.Monroe to Mr.Livingston's aid.Mr.Monroe was young, witty, lively, popular with people he met.He, too, heard the wind rising, and so now did Mr.Livingston.
The ships containing the advance guard of the colonists destined for the new Louisiana lay in the roads at Dunkirk, their anchors ready to weigh,--three thousand men, three thousand horses, for the Man did things on a large scale.
