There may well have been other reasons for Bonaparte's change of front. If he read between the lines of a memoir which Pontalba, a wealthy and well-informed resident of Louisiana, sent to him, he must have realized that this province, too, while it might become an inexhaustible source of wealth for France, might not be easy to hold. There was here, it is true, no Toussaint L'Ouverture to lead the blacks in insurrection; but there was a white menace from the north which was far more serious. These Kentuckians, said Pontalba trenchantly, must be watched, cajoled, and brought constantly under French influence through agents. There were men among them who thought of Louisiana "as the highroad to the conquest of Mexico." Twenty or thirty thousand of these westerners on flatboats could come down the river and sweep everything before them. To be sure, they were an undisciplined horde with slender Military equipment--a striking contrast to the French legions; but, added the Frenchman, "a great deal of skill in shooting, the habit of being in the woods and of enduring fatigue--this is what makes up for every deficiency."
And if Bonaparte had ever read a remarkable report of the Spanish Governor Carondelet, he must have divined that there was something elemental and irresistible in this down-the-river-pressure of the people of the West. "A carbine and a little maize in a sack are enough for an American to wander about in the forests alone for a whole month. With his carbine, he kills the wild cattle and deer for food and defends himself from the savages. The maize dampened serves him in lieu of bread .... The cold does not affright him. When a family tires of one location, it moves to another, and there it settles with the same ease. Thus in about eight years the settlement of Cumberland has been formed, which is now about to be created into a state."
On Easter Sunday, 1803, Bonaparte revealed his purpose, which had doubtless been slowly maturing, to two of his ministers, one of whom, Barbs Marbois, was attached to the United States through residence, his devotion to republican principles, and marriage to an American wife. The First Consul proposed to cede Louisiana to the United States: he considered the colony as entirely lost. What did they think of the proposal? Marbois, with an eye to the needs of the Treasury of which he was the head, favored the sale of the province; and next day he was directed to interview Livingston at once. Before he could do so, Talleyrand, perhaps surmising in his crafty way the drift of the First Consul's thoughts, startled Livingston by asking what the United States would give for the whole of Louisiana. Livingston, who was in truth hard of hearing, could not believe his ears. For months he had talked, written, and argued in vain for a bit of territory near the mouth of the Mississippi, and here was an imperial domain tossed into his lap, as it were. Livingston recovered from his surprise sufficiently to name a trifling sum which Talleyrand declared too low. Would Mr. Livingston think it over? He, Talleyrand, really did not speak from authority. The idea had struck him, that was all.