Madison sent for Pichon, then in charge of the French legation at Washington pending the appointment of a minister. Pichon was a relic of the French republic; he had been long in the United States, and felt little apparent sympathy with the consular _régime_ or its plans. At Madison’s request, Pichon undertook to interfere, and wrote to Leclerc letter upon letter of remonstrance.[156] America, he said, could either feed or famish the French army: “Experience proves it; our colonies were brought into revolt only by our unlucky misunderstanding with her; through her alone can we raise them up again.” Leclerc resented the tone of these letters, and wrote to Bonaparte that Pichon was a scoundrel and a wretch, with whom he would hold no further relations;[157] but before Leclerc’s letter could have arrived, the First Consul had already ordered[158] Talleyrand to rebuke the _chargé_ at Washington for his American officiousness. Pichon’s diplomatic career was closed; he retired into private life as soon as the new minister arrived, but meanwhile his remonstrances were not without effect upon Leclerc, whose anger rarely became vindictive. The conduct of Leclerc in expelling Lear and imprisoning American shipmasters because munitions of war were found among the cargoes lying in the ports of Toussaint, first opened President Jefferson’s eyes to the situation into which he was drifting; but other evidences were not wanting that Bonaparte was no friend of the United States. Talleyrand’s conduct was almost as exasperating as when he provoked reprisals four years before. Chancellor Livingston reached France about Nov. 10, 1801, just in time to see Leclerc’s expedition sail. He was met by private assurances that Louisiana and the Floridas had been bought by France, and he went to Talleyrand with inquiries.[159] The imperturbable Talleyrand looked him in the face and denied the fact. “It had been a subject of conversation,” he said, “but nothing concluded.” At that moment Rufus King was sending from London the text of Lucien Bonaparte’s treaty, dated eight months before, which fixed the details of the retrocession. President Jefferson received at the same instant Talleyrand’s explicit denial and the explicit proof that Talleyrand was trying to deceive him. Jefferson soon satisfied himself that Talleyrand’s conduct rested on a system; and he became angrier with every act of the French foreign minister. Livingston, naturally somewhat suspicious and fretful, soon became restive under the treatment he received; for his notes and remonstrances were left equally without answer or attention, whether they related to Louisiana or to the debts due by the Government of France to American citizens. As Livingston grew hot, and Leclerc’s temper burst into violence, Madison became irritable, and by the month of May had reached the point of saying that if such conduct should continue, “the worst events are to be apprehended.”[160]