George Clinton t'houglit the Presidency would come to him, and Hamilton inspired Jay with a similar notion ;but Livingston, sanguine of better treatment, was willing, for the sake of undertaking it, voluntarily to withdraw from the professional path along which he had moved to great distinction. The personal qualities which seemed to unfit Livingston for political leadership in New York did not strengthen his usefulness in France. It was the breadth of view wihicli distinguished him in the formation of the Union that brought him success as a diplomat. With the map of America spread out before him he handled the Louisiana problem as patriotically as he had argued for a stronger national life, and when, at last, he signed the treaty, he had forever enlarged the geography of his country. As the American minister to the court of Napoleon, Livingston reached France in November, 1801. President Jefferson had already heard a rumor of the retrocession of Lou'isiana by Spain to France, and had given it little heed. He had cheerfully acquiesced in Spain's occupation of New Orleans, and after its retrocession to France he talked pleasantly of securing West Florida through French influence. " Such proof on the part of France of good will toward the United States," he wrote Livingston, in September, 180 1, " would contribute to reconcile the latter to France's possession of New Orleans." But when, a year later, a French army, commanded by Leclerc, Napoleon's brother-in-law, had devastated St. Domingo and aroused the hostility of American merchants and shipmasters by his arbitrary treatment, Jefferson sensed the danger of having Napoleon for a next-door neiglibor on the Mississippi. In a moment his tone changed from one of peace to a threat of war. " The cession of Louisanan to France," he declared, in a letter to Livingston, April 16, 1802, " works most sorely on the United States.