or,
Rochambeau, in spite of strong reinforcements of troops from France
and a policy of the utmost rigour, succeeded no better. In the island
of Guadeloupe the rebels openly defied the authority of France; and,
on the renewal of war between England and France, the remains of the
expedition were for the most part constrained to surrender to the
British flag or to the insurgent blacks. The island recovered its
so-called independence; and the sole result of Napoleon's efforts in
this sphere was the loss of more than twenty generals and some 30,000
troops.

The assertion has been repeatedly made that the First Consul told off
for this service the troops of the Army of the Rhine, with the aim of
exposing to the risks of tropical life the most republican part of the
French forces. That these furnished a large part of the expeditionary
force cannot be denied; but if his design was to rid himself of
political foes, it is difficult to see why he should not have selected
Moreau, Massena, or Augereau, rather than Leclerc. The fact that his
brother-in-law was accompanied by his wife, Pauline Bonaparte, for
whom venomous tongues asserted that Napoleon cherished a more than
brotherly affection, will suffice to refute the slander. Finally, it
may be remarked that Bonaparte had not hesitated to subject the
choicest part of his Army of Italy and his own special friends to
similiar risks in Egypt and Syria. He never hesitated to sacrifice
thousands of lives when a great object was at stake; and the
restoration of the French West Indian Colonies might well seem worth
an army, especially as St. Domingo was not only of immense instrinsic
value to France in days when beetroot sugar was unknown, but was of
strategic importance as a base of operations for the vast colonial
empire which the First Consul proposed to rebuild in the basin of the
Mississippi.

* * * * *

The history of the French possessions on the North American continent
could scarcely be recalled by ardent patriots without pangs of
remorse. The name Louisiana, applied to a vast territory stretching up
the banks of the Mississippi and the Missouri, recalled the glorious
days of Louis XIV., when the French flag was borne by stout
_voyageurs_ up the foaming rivers of Canada and the placid reaches of
the father of rivers. It had been the ambition of Montcalm to connect
the French stations on Lake Erie with the forts of Louisiana; but that
warrior-