In 1801, relations between the world's only two republics, the United
States and France, were at a low ebb. American merchants had just lost
millions of dollars to French privateers in the "Quasi-War" of the late
1970s, and Napoleon was scheming to acquire the Louisiana Territory from
Spain and create a "wall of brass" that would halt America's westward
expansion. Yet a few years later, Napoleon agreed to sell Louisiana to
the United States for $15 million. How did America manage to double its
territory and end French colonial ambitions in the New World--without
firing a shot?
Taking us behind the scenes in Thomas Jefferson's raw "federal village"
of Washington, D.C., and inside the duplicitous world of Napoleonic
Paris, Fleming shows how Bonaparte haters in Spain, the French army's
disastrous failure in Haiti, some wily American negotiating, and
napoleon's resolve to renew his was the "perfidious Albion" led to the
momentous French decision to sell Louisiana--and cede 838,000 square
miles of land to the United States. We meet a host of fascinating
characters as they attempt to advance their nations' interests through
diplomacy, threats, lies, bribery, and treachery.