This was, in effect, the explanation which Talleyrand officially wrote to his colleague Decrès, communicating a copy of the treaty, and requesting him to take the necessary measures for executing it.[50] “The wish to spare the North American continent the war with which it was threatened, to dispose of different points in dispute between France and the United States of America, and to remove all the new causes of misunderstanding which competition and neighborhood might have produced between them; the position of the French colonies; their want of men, cultivation, and assistance; in fine, the empire of circumstances, foresight of the future, and the intention to compensate by an advantageous arrangement for the inevitable loss of a country which war was going to put at the mercy of another nation,--all these motives have determined the Government to pass to the United States the rights it had acquired from Spain over the sovereignty and property of Louisiana.” Talleyrand’s words were always happily chosen, whether to reveal or to conceal his thoughts. This display of reasons for an act which he probably preferred to condemn, might explain some of the First Consul’s motives in ceding Louisiana to the United States; but it only confused another more perplexing question. Louisiana did not belong to France, but to Spain. The retrocession had never been completed; the territory was still possessed, garrisoned, and administered by Don Carlos IV.; until actual delivery was made, Spain might yet require that the conditions of retrocession should be rigorously performed. Her right in the present instance was complete, because she held as one of the conditions precedent to the retrocession a solemn pledge from the First Consul never to alienate Louisiana. The sale of Louisiana to the United States was trebly invalid: if it were French property, Bonaparte could not constitutionally alienate it without the consent of the Chambers; if it were Spanish property, he could not alienate it at all; if Spain had a right of reclamation, his sale was worthless. In spite of all these objections the alienation took place; and the motives which led the First Consul to conciliate America by violating the Constitution of France were perhaps as simple as he represented them to be; but no one explained what motives led Bonaparte to break his word of honor and betray the monarchy of Spain.