THE TRIP TO HOLLAND.
A short time after Wagram Napoleon had been heard, in a levee at which his generals were present, to lament the bloody campaigns in which he always lost some of his early companions. "I have been a soldier long enough," he went on; "it's time for me to be a king." During 1811 he seemed faithful to this new programme. The soldier had become a monarch, and the hero of so many battles seemed to be desirous of the glories of peace. He determined to make a trip in Belgium and Holland and along the banks of the Rhine, where he should see for himself what the happiness of the people required. The Empress made the journey with him, but Napoleon started from Compiègne without her, September 19; she was to join him on the 30th at Antwerp. At this time she was so attached to him that she could not endure a separation of only a few days, and she wrote to her father: "My husband has left to-night to go to the island of Walcheren, which has the worst climate in the world, so that I could not go with him, for which I am extremely sorry." While the Emperor was visiting Boulogne, Ostend, and Flushing, the Queen made her way, with a magnificent court, to Belgium. She left Compiègne, September 22, and took up her residence at the castle at Laeken, near Brussels. She often visited the Belgian capital, which then was only the chief town of a French department,—the department of the Dyle. Napoleon made a great point of her appearing in all splendor in the provinces which had previously been governed by the house of Austria. She went to the theatre, where she was warmly greeted, and purchased a hundred and fifty thousand francs' worth of lace to revive the manufactures of the city. September 30 she joined her husband at Antwerp. The Moniteur thus spoke of the way the Emperor had transformed this city: "Antwerp may be considered as a fortress of the rank of Metz and Strasbourg. The work which has been done there is enormous. On the left bank of the Scheldt, where two years ago there was only a redoubt, there has risen a city twelve thousand feet long, with eight bastions…. The view from the dockyard is unparalleled; twenty-one men-of-war, eight of them three-deckers, are building. The arsenal is fully provided with provisions of all sorts brought down the Rhine and the Meuse.
"Seven years ago," continues the Moniteur, "there was not a single quay in Antwerp, and the houses came down to the river's edge. To-day, in the place of these houses, are superb quays, of service to the commerce and to the defence of the place. Six years ago there was no basin, but only a few canals where boats drawing ten or twelve feet could scarcely enter. To-day there is a basin twenty-six feet deep at the bank, able to hold ships-of-the-line, with a lock for the admission of ships carrying a hundred and twenty guns."
The formal entrance into Amsterdam took place October 9, 1811. The former capital of Holland was merely the chief town of a French department,—the department of the Zuyder Zee. The Dutch were suffering a good deal from the Embargo, and sorely missed King Louis Bonaparte, who had in vain tried to alleviate their sufferings. When they came under the dominion of the Emperor, he had appointed Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza, their governor general. Of him, Count Beugnot says in his Memoirs, "He was doubtless a superior man, but he found it easier to translate Homer and Tasso, and to treat with wonderful ease the most difficult questions of political economy, than to console a Dutchman for the loss of ten florins."
The discontent of the Dutch only strengthened Napoleon's desire to please and win them. "It seemed at that time," M. Beugnot goes on, "as if Heaven had given him every means of securing happiness. A son had just been born to him, whose future the poets were justified in foretelling in their own way. The child who inspired the Mantuan poet with the idyl, or rather with the magnificent prophecy, Sicelides Musae, etc., was but an humble creature by the side of this infant, who to the most impressive pride of race added enormous, newly acquired glory, such as the world had never seen." The happy Emperor fancied that by showing himself with the mother of the King of Rome to the Dutch and Germans, he should silence their complaints, wipe out their memories of national independence, and arouse an enthusiasm that would make them forget their sufferings and losses. Their welcome was of a sort to confirm him in this belief. The peaceful populace of Amsterdam forgot their usual phlegm, and cheered the mighty monarch and his young wife. The Empress entered the city in a gilded carriage with glass sides, and she was met by a guard of honor composed of young men belonging to the first families of Holland. The Emperor followed on horseback, surrounded by a brilliant staff. Their stay at Amsterdam was marked by extraordinary pomp; the company of the Théâtre Français was brought thither from Paris, and Talma appeared as Bayard and as Orosmane. The court made a stay of a fortnight, the Emperor making short excursions to Helder, one of his creations, to Texel, and to the dykes of Medemblik, which protect the country against the Zuyder Zee.
General de Ségur, who went on the journey, thus describes it: "It might naturally be supposed, that in going through Holland, after the last two attempted assassinations, Napoleon would have taken precautions against such frequent attacks; but, far from it, he was full of confidence, and went about alone among these worst victims of the continental system, mingling every day with the dense crowd that gathered about him. His sole thought was to study their needs, their manners, and habits, anxious to see for himself and trusting thoroughly in them. These northern people hide warm hearts beneath a cold exterior; they are impressed by greatness, and give it their confidence. Their feelings are slow, but for that reason surer when once aroused. The Emperor's enormous fame had preceded him; and the appearance among them of this genius, all fire and flame, who had come, as he said, to adopt them, warmed their phlegmatic nature. They were at once filled with admiration; his presence, his trust in them, his consoling and encouraging words, the good works at once begun by his active and able administration, filled them with enthusiasm."
During the three days of the Emperor's absence Marie Louise visited the neighborhood of Amsterdam. She went to the village of Broek, which lies a league from the port, on the shores of a little basin surrounded with flowers and grass, and is in communication with the Zuyder Zee by means of a small canal. This village is famous as a perfect model of the attractive luxury and the over-zealous neatness of the Dutch. It is of a circular shape. The houses, of wood and one story high, are built around and upon a lake, and are decorated outside with frescoes. Through the window-glass, which is remarkably clear, it is easy to see the curtains of Chinese figured silk or of Indian stuff. Within the houses are large Gothic sideboards, full of costly Japanese porcelain. There are no signs of use or of wear upon the furniture; every house looks as if it were the house of the Sleeping Beauty. There are no barns, or stables, or granaries, or kitchens. Everything connected with animals is banished from this fairy-like enclosure. Posts at the ends of every street bar the way against carriages. The pavement is in mosaic, and is covered with a fine sand, on which are designs of flowers. The inhabitants carry their sense of neatness so far that they compel every visitor to take off his shoes and put on slippers on entering a house. One day, when the Emperor Joseph II. happened to appear in a pair of boots before one of these curious houses, he was told that he would have to take them off before he could go in. "I am the Emperor," he said. "Well, if you were the burgomaster of Amsterdam, you couldn't come in with boots on," was the reply. Another time Hortense, then Queen of Holland, was not allowed to enter one of the houses, and King Louis approved, because the Queen had not sent word that she was coming.
When Marie Louise visited this famous village, the burgomaster, in view of the importance of the occasion, consented to break the rigid rules and to permit the Imperial carriage to drive over the mosaic pavement to his house, where he presented his respects to the Empress. At this house, as in every one in the village, there are two doors,—one for daily use, the other opened only for baptisms, marriages, and funerals. This door, which is called the fatal door, opens into a room which is always kept shut except on these three occasions. "The Empress," says M. de Bausset, "asked to have the fatal door opened. We crossed the threshold with gratified vanity, in the presence of many inhabitants, who feared to follow us, but who were almost tempted to admire the ease and courage with which we went in and out. After visiting, admiring, and praising everything, we left these worthy people delighted with the touching graces and amiable kindness of their young sovereign."
The Emperor and Empress visited Saardam, where Peter the Great spent ten months as a workman, to study shipbuilding. Napoleon fell into meditation before the hut of the famous Czar, as he had done before the tomb of Frederick the Great. "That is the noblest monument in Holland!" he said; and in memory of Peter the Great he ordered Saardam to be made a city.
Napoleon and Marie Louise also spent a few hours at Harlem, a half-Gothic, half-Japanese town, celebrated by the passion of its inhabitants for flowers, especially for tulips. October 26, they arrived at Rotterdam, at Loo on the 27th, and spent the night of the 28th at The Hague, whence they went to visit the banks of the Rhine. The Emperor carried away with him a most favorable impression of the Dutch, whose seriousness, morality, love of order, and industry had continually struck him, so that he shared his brother Louis's partiality for a nation as interesting in the present as in the past.
November 2, Napoleon and his wife reached Düsseldorf. This pretty town, which is picturesquely placed at the junction of the Düssel with the Rhine, was at that time the capital of the Grand Duchy of Berg, and had been under the rule of Murat before he was appointed King of Naples; on this visit the Emperor assigned it to the oldest son of Louis Bonaparte. Count Beugnot was then ruling the principality, which contained less than a million inhabitants. He it was who said in his curious and witty Memoirs: "How easy it would have been to secure the allegiance of the Germans, who are unable to withstand the attraction of military glory, for whom an oath of allegiance is a mere nothing, and who felt for France an affection which we cruelly drove out of them!… Germany, which always admires the marvellous, long preserved its admiration for the Emperor. At that time this was so general, that a breath would have blown over the Prussian monarchy, which neither the armies nor the memories of the great Frederick, together with the invincible legion of the successor of Peter the Great, could defend."
At Düsseldorf, Napoleon, in accordance with his usual custom, received all the authorities, civil and military, as well as representatives of all sects. Among these last was an old white-bearded rabbi a hundred years old, who was so anxious to see the Emperor that he had himself carried to the reception. He entered, supported on one side by the parish priest, on the other, by the Protestant clergyman. This union of the three creeds in homage to their sovereign did not displease the Emperor, strange as it was. Count Beugnot's Memoirs must be consulted for a full account of the activity, the interest in details, the minuteness of the administrative investigations which, at Düsseldorf as everywhere else, characterized Napoleon in these laborious journeys, on which, under pretext of seeking distraction, he kept himself in almost as active movement as if he were at war. The Count who once played whist at Düsseldorf with Marie Louise for his partner, against the Duchess of Montebello and the Prince of Neufchâtel, says in speaking of the occasion: "As often happens, the game was carelessly played; all watched the cards only with their eyes, and gave their attention to what was going forward about the table, to which the Emperor came every few minutes to say a few pleasant words to the Empress or to joke with the Prince of Neufchâtel and me. I was too busy, both during the dinner and while we were playing, to make any study of the Empress's tastes or to form from them a judgment about her character. The journey had been long; she seemed tired and out of sorts. She answered the Emperor only in monosyllables, and the other by a somewhat monotonous nod of the head. I may be mistaken, but I am inclined to believe that Her Majesty is not free from the awe which her August husband inspires in all who approach him."
After resting for two days at Düsseldorf, Napoleon and Marie Louise went on to Cologne, when they visited the Chapel of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, and a grand Te Deum was sung in the famous Cathedral, They returned by Liège, Givet, Mézières, and Compiègne, reaching Saint Cloud after an absence of nearly three months,—the longest visit that the Emperor had made in the provinces of either the old or the new France. Everywhere he had met with the expression of two distinct but somewhat different sentiments: for the Empress, an affectionate respect; for himself, the sort of violent sensation that a man who is a living wonder always produces. XXIV.