Monroe, as it happened, arrived on this very day. On the following day Livingston learned casually from Marbois, a minister who stood very close to the First Consul, that Napoleon had named a hundred million francs and the payment of the American spoliation claims as the price of Louisiana. Further conversation elicited the information that Napoleon would consider an offer of sixty million francs with claims amounting to twenty millions more. For a fortnight the two envoys, at the risk of losing everything, sought to secure better terms. But the First Consul would not abate his demands. On May 2, 1803, Livingston and Monroe set their signatures to a treaty by which Napoleon agreed to sell a province of which he was not in possession and which he had contracted never to alienate. The price to be paid was the sum last named, amounting in American figures to $11,250,000. The amount of outstanding claims which the United States agreed to assume was estimated at $3,750,000. After signing his name to the treaty, Livingston rose and shook hands with Monroe and Marbois. "We have lived long," he said with emotion, "but this is the noblest work of our lives." In less exalted moments, Livingston and Monroe may well have experienced some disquietude at what they had done. The instructions given to Monroe contemplated no more extensive purchase than New Orleans and West Florida, at a sum not exceeding $10,000,000. The envoys had set out to purchase a tract of land which controlled the delta of the Mississippi they had acquired an empire beyond the Mississippi whose limits they did not know, at a price which exceeded their allowance by $5,000,000. Besides, it was not at first believed that West Florida was included in this purchase. Livingston was keenly disappointed, until on narrower examination he found, in the words of the treaty, evidence which satisfied him that France--to quote Mr. Henry Adams--"had actually bought West Florida without knowing it and had sold it to the United States without being paid for it." The words on which he founded his theory were those which retroceded Louisiana "with the same extent as it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be according to the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and the other States." Monroe soon adopted Livingston's view and pressed it upon the President.