monroe then helped lafayette and her three children and flee france to safety. together, elizabeth and james monroe saved the lives of lafayette's wife and family. it's truly a thrilling story that i hope he will read. on his next mission to france a decade later, this time for president jefferson, monroe went with $9 million from congress to negotiate the purchase of the island of new orleans. that's all he was supposed to do. so the farmers west of the appalachians could float their grain doubt the mississippi to new orleans for shipment overseas markets. instead of buying an island, monroe borrowed 6 million more dollars from an english bank on his own signature and doubled the size of the nation, by an almost 1 million acres, the largest territory ever acquired by any nation in history from another peacefully without war. 1 million acres, and at a bargain price of 2 cents an acre. even in those days the average price for wilderness, land was $2 an acre. the louisiana purchase stretched the nation's boundaries to the rocky mountains and gave ownership of the