This provision must be interpreted in the light of preceding treaties, especially of that which had occupied so much attention. They are all _in pari materia_, and therefore, according to a familiar rule of jurisprudence, must be taken together. But the Convention of 1800, by the proviso of the First Consul at its ratification, _liberated France completely_ from all liability for the claims now in question, so that they ceased to be valid against her. Therefore these claimants could not be “among those _entitled_” under the later Convention. This interpretation is confirmed by the judgment of the French Government, and also by the judgment of our own Commissioners under the Convention. Mr. Rives, our minister at Paris, writing to Mr. Van Buren, the Secretary of State at the time, under date of February 18, 1831, says: “From what I have been able to learn of ----’s report, it is favorable throughout to the principle of our claims. It excludes, however, the claims of American citizens in the nature of debt or of supplies, as being alien to the general scope of the controversy between the two Governments,--and also American claims of every description originating previous to the date of the Louisiana arrangement, in 1803, which has been invariably alleged by this Government to be in full satisfaction of all claims then existing.”[238] Our own Commissioners, sitting at Washington, reported to the Secretary of State, under date of December 30, 1835, that they had required every person seeking _to entitle_ himself under the Convention to show that his “claim remained unimpaired and in full force against France at the date of the Convention of 1831.”[239] But the claims in question did not come within this category. Clearly, they were not “unimpaired and in full force against France.”