Thus, at thirty-nine, leaving behind him the prestige of his family connections and his own career, he turned toward Louisiana, then the Promised Land, and set forth for New Orleans. There he immediately took high rank in his profession, established a lucrative practice, and soon acquired valuable real estate abutting the river which promised a fortune. The story of how he was deprived of this through the incomprehensible spite of President Jefferson constitutes one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of American litigation.[329] But Livingston was sustained by infinite patience, a happy philosophy, and natural buoyancy of temperament, and he soon found other matters to enlist his interest. When Jackson reached New Orleans to defend the town, it was Livingston who aroused the militant spirit of the people with his martial eloquence, and served as the soldier’s aid, translator, and adviser. It was in these days amidst the barking of the English guns that Jackson discovered [Illustration: _Edw Livingston_] in Livingston the man he could trust as a patriot and fighter in two of the bitterest battles of his Presidency.[330] It was soon after this that Livingston began the greatest undertaking of his life--one so far-reaching in its effect on humanity as to carry his name to the thinkers, philosophers, and philanthropists of every land. The “Livingston Code” alone entitles him to a place high on the scroll of humanitarians who have served mankind. Victor Hugo declared that he would be “numbered among the men of this age who have deserved most and best of mankind.” Jeremy Bentham was tremendously impressed. Dr. H. S. Maine, author of the “Ancient Laws,” pronounced him “the first legal genius of modern times.” Villemain, of the Paris Sorbonne, described his work as “a work without example from the hand of any one man.” From the Emperor of Russia and the King of Sweden came autograph letters, from the King of the Netherlands a gold medal and a eulogy, and statesmen and philosophers of Europe vied with kings and emperors in paying homage. The Government of Guatemala, not content with translating his “Code on Reform and Prison Discipline,” and adopting it without the change of a word, bestowed upon a new city and district the name of Livingston. Jefferson wrote: “It will certainly array your name with the sages of antiquity”; Kent and Story, Madison and Marshall joined in the common praise, and he was elected a member of the Institute of France. Such was the prestige he took to Washington, when, in his fifty-ninth year, he again entered the House as a Representative from New Orleans.