Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
constitution which I have given and guaranteed. Your Majesty may
negotiate on these bases with the Duc de Cadore, through the medium
of your Minister; but be assured that on the entrance of the first
packetboat into Holland I will restore my prohibitions, and that the
first Dutch officer who may presume to insult my flag shall be
seized, and hanged at the mainyard. Your Majesty will find in me a
brother if you prove yourself a Frenchman; but if you forget the
sentiments which attach you to our common country you cannot think
it extraordinary that I should lose sight of those which nature
created between us. In short, the union of Holland and France will
be of all things, most useful to France, to Holland, and the whole
Continent, because it will be most injurious to England. This union
must be effected willingly or by force. Holland has given me
sufficient reason to declare war against her. However, I shall not
scruple to consent to an arrangement which will secure to me the
limit of the Rhine, and by which Holland will pledge herself to
fulfil the conditions stipulated above.
--[Much of the manner in which Napoleon treated occupied
countries such as Holland is explained by the spirit of his
answer when Beugnot complained to him of the harm done to the
Grand Duchy of Berg by the monopoly of tobacco. "It is
extraordinary that you should not have discovered the motive
that makes me persist in the establishment of the monopoly of
tobacco in the Grand Duchy. The question is not about your
Grand Duchy but about France. I am very well aware that it is
not to your benefit, and that you very possibly lose by it, but
what does that signify if it be for the good of France? I tell
you, then, that in every country where there is a monopoly of
tobacco, but which is contiguous to one where the sale is free,
a regular smuggling infiltration must be reckoned on, supplying
the consumption for twenty or twenty-five miles into the
country subject to the duty. That is what I intend to preserve
France from. You must protect yourselves as well as you can
from this infiltration. It is enough for me to drive it back
more than twenty or twenty-five miles from my frontier."
(Beugnot, vol. ii. p. 26).]--
Here the correspondence between the two brothers was suspended for a
time; but Louis still continued exposed to new vexations on the part of
Napoleon. About the end of 1809 the Emperor summoned all the sovereigns
who might be called his vassals to Paris. Among the number was Louis,
who, however, did not show himself very willing to quit his States.
He called a council of his Ministers, who were of opinion that for the
interest of Holland he ought to make this new sacrifice. He did so with
resignation. Indeed, every day passed on the throne was a sacrifice made
by Louis.
He lived very quietly in Paris, and was closely watched by the police,
for it was supposed that as he had come against his will he would not
protract his stay so long as Napoleon wished. The system of espionage
under which he found himself placed, added to the other circumstances of
his situation, inspired him with a degree of energy of which he was not
believed to be capable; and amidst the general silence of the servants
of the Empire, and even of the Kings and Princes assembled in the
capital, he ventured to say, "I have been deceived by promises which
were never intended to be kept. Holland is tired of being the sport
of France." The Emperor, who was unused to such language as this, was
highly incensed at it. Louis had now no alternative but to yield to the
incessant exactions of Napoleon or to see Holland united to France. He
chose the latter, though not before he had exerted all his feeble power
in behalf of the subjects whom Napoleon had consigned to him; but he
would not be the accomplice of the man who had resolved to make those
subjects the victims of his hatred against England. Who, indeed, could
be so blind as not to see that the ruin of the Continent would be the
triumph of British commerce?
Louis was, however, permitted to return to his States to contemplate the
stagnating effect of the Continental blockade on every branch of trade
and industry formerly so active in Holland. Distressed at witnessing
evils to which he could apply no remedy, he endeavoured by some
prudent remonstrances to avert the utter, ruin with which Holland was
threatened. On the 23d of March 1810 he wrote the following letter to
Napoleon:--
If you wish to consolidate the present state of France, to obtain
maritime peace, or to attack England with advantage, those objects
are not to be obtained by measures like the blockading system, the
destruction of a kingdom raised by yourself, or the enfeebling of
your allies, and setting at defiance their most sacred rights and
the first principles of the law of nations. You should, on the
contrary, win their affections for France, and consolidate and
reinforce your allies, making them like your brothers, in whom you
may place confidence. The destruction of Holland, far from being
the means of assailing England, will serve only to increase her
strength, by all the industry and wealth which will fly to her for
refuge. There are, in reality, only three ways of assailing
England, namely, by detaching Ireland, getting possession of the
East Indies, or by invasion. These two latter modes, which would be
the most effectual, cannot be executed without naval force. But I
am astonished that the first should have been so easily
relinquished. That is a more secure mode of obtaining peace on good
conditions than the system of injuring ourselves for the sake of
committing a greater injury upon the enemy.
(Signed) LOUIS.
Written remonstrances were no more to Napoleon's taste than verbal ones
at a time when, as I was informed by my friends whom fortune chained to
his destiny, no one presumed to address a word to him except in answer
to his questions. Cambacérès, who alone had retained that privilege in
public as his old colleague in the Consulate, lost it after Napoleon's
marriage with the daughter of Imperial Austria. His brother's letter
highly roused his displeasure. Two months after he received it, being on
a journey in the north, he replied from Ostend by a letter which cannot
be read without a feeling of pain, since it serves to show how weak are
the most sacred ties of blood in comparison with the interests of an
insatiable policy. This letter was as follows:
BROTHER--In the situation in which we are placed it is best to speak
candidly. I know your secret sentiments, and all that you can say
to the contrary can avail nothing. Holland is certainly in a
melancholy situation. I believe you are anxious to extricate her
from her difficulties: it is you; and you alone, who can do this.
When you conduct yourself in such a way as to induce the people of
Holland to believe that you act under my influence, that all your
measures and all your sentiments are conformable with mine, then you
will be loved, you will be esteemed, and you will acquire the power
requisite for re-establishing Holland: when to be my friend, and the
friend of France, shall become a title of favour at your court,
Holland will be in her natural situation. Since your return from
Paris you have done nothing to effect this object. What will be the
result of your conduct? Your subjects, bandied about between France
and England, will throw themselves into the arms of France, and will
demand to be united to her. You know my character, which is to
pursue my object unimpeded by any consideration. What, therefore,
do you expect me to do? I can dispense with Holland, but Holland
cannot dispense with my protection. If, under the dominion of one
of my brothers, but looking to me alone for her welfare, she does
not find in her sovereign my image, all confidence in your
government is at an end; your sceptre is broken. Love France, love
my glory--that is the only way to serve Holland: if you had acted as
you ought to have done that country, having becoming a part of my
Empire, would have been the more dear to me since I had given her a
sovereign whom I almost regarded as my son. In placing you on the
throne of Holland I thought I had placed a French citizen there.
You have followed a course diametrically opposite to what I
expected. I have been forced to prohibit you from coming to France,
and to take possession of a part of your territory. In proving
yourself a bad Frenchman you are less to the Dutch than a Prince of
Orange, to whose family they owe their rank as a nation, and a long
succession of prosperity and glory. By your banishment from France
the Dutch are convinced that they have lost what they would not have
lost under a Schimmelpenninek or a Prince of Orange. Prove yourself
a Frenchman, and the brother of the Emperor, and be assured that
thereby you will serve the interests of Holland. But you seem to be
incorrigible, for you would drive away the few Frenchmen who remain
with you. You must be dealt with, not by affectionate advice, but
by threats and compulsion. What mean the prayers and mysterious
fasts you have ordered? Louis, you will not reign long. Your
actions disclose better than your confidential letters the
sentiments of your mind. Return to the right course. Be a
Frenchman in heart, or your people will banish you, and you will
leave Holland an object of ridicule.
--[It was, on the contrary, became Louis made himself a
Dutchman that his people did not banish him, and that he
carried away with him the regret of all that portion of his
subjects who could appreciate his excellent qualities and
possessed good sense enough to perceive that he was not to
blame for the evils that weighed upon Holland.--Bourrienne.
The conduct of Bonaparte to Murat was almost a counterpart to
this. When Murat attempted to consult the interests of Naples
he was called a traitor to France.--Editor of 1836 edition.]--
States must be governed by reason and policy, and not by the
weakness produced by acrid and vitiated humours.
(Signed) NAPOLEON.
A few days after this letter was despatched to Louis, Napoleon heard of
a paltry affray which had taken place at Amsterdam, and to which Comte
de la Rochefoucauld gave a temporary diplomatic importance, being aware
that he could not better please his master than by affording him an
excuse for being angry. It appeared that the honour of the Count's
coachman had been put in jeopardy by the insult of a citizen of
Amsterdam, and a quarrel had ensued, which, but for the interference
of the guard of the palace, might have terminated seriously since it
assumed the character of a party affair between the French and the
Dutch. M. de la Rochefoucauld immediately despatched to the Emperor, who
was then at Lille, a full report of his coachman's quarrel, in which he
expressed himself with as much earnestness as the illustrious author of
the "Maxims" evinced when he waged war against kings. The consequence
was that Napoleon instantly fulminated the following letter against his
brother Louis:
BROTHER--At the very moment when you were making the fairest
protestations I learn that the servants of my Ambassador have been
ill-treated at Amsterdam. I insist that those who were guilty of
this outrage be delivered up to me, in order that their punishment