My story does not claim to be history, but in every important historical detail it is absolutely faithful to the records of the times as I have found them. Every word of the debate in Congress, every word of Marbois, Livingston, Decr s, Napoleon, and his two brothers on the subject of the Louisiana Cession is verbatim from the most authentic accounts. I am indebted for the historical part of my story to Gayarr 's "History of Louisiana," to Martin's "History of Louisiana," to James K. Hosmer's "History of the Louisiana Purchase," to Lucien Bonaparte's "Memoirs," to numerous lives of Napoleon, Jefferson, Talleyrand, and others, and particularly to Marbois himself, whose account of the negotiations on the subject of the cession is preserved in his own handwriting in the St. Louis Mercantile Library.