A week was next passed in haggling over the price.[33] Livingston did his utmost to beat Marbois down, but without success. Meanwhile he ran some risk of losing everything; for when Bonaparte offered a favor suitors did well to waste no time in acceptance. A slight weight might have turned the scale; a divulgence of the secret, a protest from Spain, a moment of irritation at Jefferson’s coquetry with England or at the vaporings of the American press, a sudden perception of the disgust which every true Frenchman was sure sooner or later to feel at this squandering of French territory and enterprise,--any remonstrance that should stir the First Consul’s pride or startle his fear of posterity, might have cut short the thread of negotiation. Livingston did not know the secrets of the Tuileries, or he would not have passed time in cheapening the price of his purchase. The voice of opposition was silenced in the French people, but was still so high in Bonaparte’s family as to make the Louisiana scheme an occasion for scenes so violent as to sound like the prelude to a tragedy. One evening when Talma was to appear in a new _rôle_, Lucien Bonaparte, coming home to dress for the theatre, found his brother Joseph waiting for him.[34] “Here you are at last!” cried Joseph; “I was afraid you might not come. This is no time for theatre-going; I have news for you that will give you no fancy for amusement. The General wants to sell Louisiana.” Lucien, proud of having made the treaty which secured the retrocession, was for a moment thunderstruck; then recovering confidence, he said, “Come, now! if he were capable of wishing it, the Chambers would never consent.” “So he means to do without their consent,” replied Joseph. “This is what he answered me, when I said to him, like you, that the Chambers would not consent. What is more, he added that this sale would supply him the first funds for the war. Do you know that I am beginning to think he is much too fond of war?” History is not often able to penetrate the private lives of famous men, and catch their words as they were uttered. Although Lucien Bonaparte’s veracity was not greatly superior to that of his brother Napoleon, his story agreed with the known facts. If his imagination here and there filled in the gaps of memory,--if he was embittered and angry when he wrote, and hated his brother Napoleon with Corsican passion, these circumstances did not discredit his story, for he would certainly have told the truth against his brother under no other conditions. The story was not libellous, but Napoleonic; it told nothing new of the First Consul’s character, but it was honorable to Joseph, who proposed to Lucien that they should go together and prevent their brother from committing a fault which would rouse the indignation of France, and endanger his own safety as well as theirs.