He was also planning to reestablish the French colonial empire, the loss of which was still an unhealed wound.
Canada, Louisiana, and the Floridas were all in his mind.

In Louisiana, France regarded conditions as being so favorable that Genet was instructed to make special efforts in that quarter.

Spain, which had entered the coalition against republican France, held the lower Mississippi.

Spain was therefore the common enemy of France and of the American settlements west of the mountains.

Ought not then those two republican interests to work together to expel Spain and to seize Louisiana?
Moreover, there was a belief, not without grounds, that the older States which formed the American union were indifferent to the needs and interests of the country west of the Alleghenies and would be more relieved than afflicted if it should take its destinies into its own hands.