and giving all his change to beggars. He must always be spending, and giving, and running after women, and getting himself befuddled. He must be bountiful-on borrowed money. .

He was penniless, he was starving, he was freezing, he was proscribed, he was shunned except by a few acquaintances. In November, already, he had not heard from Theodosia for fifteen months; the letters had been lost. But in these darkest hours, in all this misery and graceless behavior-some of the pages of his diary are distressingly candid-there was always courage, there was always resignation, there was always humor. One frequently laughs over his journal.

CHAPTER III

THE OPEN DOOR

I

IMMEDIATELY upon his arrival in Paris, in February, 1810, Colonel Burr had called upon Count Volney, the Prince de Benevet and Mr. Adet—one time Minister to the United States-and obtained an interview with the Duke de Cadore, Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was not, however, permitted closer access to the Emperor than a sight of him one evening at the theatre; and Jerome Bonaparte and Mr. de Talleyrand, forgetful of Richmond Hill hospitalities, denied themselves to him. He turned, therefore, to the policeman Fouché, now Duke d'Otrante, with a request for an audience in which to explain to him the details of the project towards which the Emperor remained so indifferent. Mr. Fouché granted the audience-Mr. Fouché was always ready to listen-but Mr. Fouché did not help Colonel Burr. Another attempt to see Mr. de Talleyrand at his home brought from the latter to his visitor a suggestion that he look upon the portrait of Alexander Hamilton hanging on the wall,

should he be at any loss to understand Mr. de Talleyrand's refusal to receive him.

But some of the officials appeared to be interested, and were discussing Colonel Burr's long memorial to the Emperor, and exchanging reports which were eventually to vanish in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where Professor Isaac Cox, of Northwestern University, was to come upon them long years after and make possible the publication of the details of this hitherto obscure negotiation.

2

The plan outlined by Colonel Burr to Mr. Roux, Chief of the Division of Foreign Affairs, and reported by the latter on March 1 to the Duke de Cadore, involved the occupation of the Bahamas by an army of five hundred French, Danish and German volunteers, to be transported in American ships; the seizure of the Floridas, on behalf of the United States, by a force to be recruited by Colonel Burr from the provinces themselves and from the Western States; and, if the Emperor so desired, the raising in the Floridas of some ten thousand men, chiefly Louisianans, to cooperate with a French army in the liberation of Louisiana and Mexico. In such an event, Colonel Burr would be disposed to lead a contingent from Florida to Halifax, through Canada-which was also eager for liberation-across the Great Lakes, and down into the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, to join the detachments raised in the American Southwest in an attack on Upper Louisiana, while another expedition crossed Lower Louisiana and pro

ceeded along the coast. Colonel Burr was assured of an enthusiastic reception in Louisiana and Mexico, but if the Emperor preferred, these troops could be used against Jamaica.

On March 12, the French Foreign Office was again examining the project of liberating the Spanish colonies, with especial reference to a Canadian base as opposed to one on the Isthmus. Ten or twelve thousand men should be taken from Florida to Nova Scotia, and it was quite possible that the United States would assist in the enterprise. But first the Floridas must be severed from Spain, or there would be no chance of success in Jamaica, Mexico and Nova Scotia. On March 19, they were writing about it again. Then, four months later, on July 24, Mr. Roux had another interview with Colonel Burr, which assumed the Emperor's interest in the emancipation of the Spanish dominions. The Floridas, he was positive, were discontented under Spanish rule and would place themselves under the protection of the United States if France did not come to their assistance. Mexico, with French support, would close its ports to British and Spanish

commerce.

As for Louisiana, according to Colonel Burr, the spirit of independence in that region was more lively even than in Mexico. The inhabitants were almost wholly French, and disliked the American Government. The same was true, with regard to England, in Lower Canada, which would have rebelled in 1778 had there existed any local representative government as in the American Colonies. .

Such was the character of the proposals which Colonel Burr was making to the Emperor's Ministers, and which they seem to have considered for a while in solemn credulity. Proposals reported from Paris to Mr. Madison, in an anonymous document dated December 10, 1810, as envisaging the conquest by one hundred thousand French troops of the northern portion of the United States, coincident with insurrections in Mexico, Texas and the Floridas under the leadership of Colonel Burr— from which it would appear that some of Mr. Madison's agents were doing their best to earn their salaries.

3

It is not necessary to indulge in exclamations over these French archives, to point out the inconsistencies which manifest themselves, to underline the fantastic aspects of their contents. It was the old story-the liberation of the Spanish dominions, all the Miranda aspirations brought to life, with a touch of Genêt for French eyes, the harmonious repetition of two fond names, Canada and Louisiana, for French ears. It was such a project as that other which had not insulted Mr. Merry's intelligence, nor seemed extravagant to the Marquis Yrujo. It was Colonel Burr at his old money raising stratagems.

How much of this project was the expression of any serious intention of his own is, perhaps, a matter of greater concern, since the recovery by France of Louisiana was included in his aims. Hitherto, in these pages, one has vigorously denied any motive of