Transcription: Let the Louisianans know that we separate ourselves from them with regret, that we stipulate in their favor everything that they can desire, and let them hereafter, happy in their independence, recollect that they have been Frenchmen, and that France, in ceding them, has secured for them advantages which they could not have obtained from a European power, however paternal it might have been. Let them retain for us sentiments of affection, and their common origin, descent, language and customs perpetuate the friendship." Napoleon, 1803.
