The Spanish monarch, as if making the best of
a bad bargain, took it with many excuses for his seemingly poor judgment.
But though Louis's minister, Choiseul, chuckled outwardly over the
embarrassment to England of his compulsory cession of Canada, New France,
Illinois, and Louisiana (instead of Guadeloupe) and made a show of
magnanimity in thrusting the other half of the Mississippi upon Spain, and
though Turgot's simile between colonies and ripe fruit was often repeated
for justification and consolation, the loss of these possessions was
undoubtedly keenly felt and the dream of their recovery cherished; at any
rate, the recovery of that part which lay beyond the Mississippi.
But that possession had become more precious to the sovereign of Spain,
who refused the proffers that France was able to make in the next thirty
years. The dream of repossession became fonder to the French republic.
Talleyrand, who had spent a year in travel in the United States, urged the
acquisition not merely for France's own sake but to curb the ambitions of
the Americans, "whose conduct ever since the moment of their independence
is enough to prove this truth: the Americans are devoured by pride,
ambition, and cupidity.
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