Pierre Clement de Laussat
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Pierre Clement de Laussat was told by Napoleon to be governor of Louisiana in 1803. He arrived in the colony on March 26, 1803. This was just two weeks before Napoleon had made his decision to sell the Louisiana colony to the United States. For several months Laussat ruled as a normal governor and first he abolished the Cabildo and then he published the Napoleonic Code in the colony. Several months had gone by and Laussat was hearing that the colony had been sold to the U.S. but he did not believe it. On July 28, 1803, Laussat wrote to the French government that a rumor that the colony had been sold was going around New Orleans. On May 18, 1803 Laussat received word from Napoleon that France had declared war on England and that he was to transfer the colony to the United States. On December 20, 1803 he transferred the colony to James Wilkinson and William Charles Cole Claiborne. On April 21, 1804 he left the colony and retired to the ancestral chateau in France and died in 1835.
