CHAPTER XXVII
A Broken Friendship and what it Brought (1810–1812)
Napoleon now entered with renewed zest upon the work of perfecting his Continental System, and in so doing he quarrelled with his brother Louis, King of Holland. The young monarch had followed a liberal policy, devoting his time and energy to the interests of his people, and earning their respect if not their love. Napoleon always regarded the land of dykes and wind-mills as scarcely more than a province of France; Louis was determined that his country should be independent. He was no believer in the Emperor’s plan to keep out British goods, so profitable a source of revenue, and as a consequence an extensive business was carried on between Holland and England. Napoleon threatened, Louis temporised, until the former, holding the trump card, finally settled to annex the Kingdom which so openly defied his wishes and commands. Louis was aware that this would probably be the end of the quarrel, for on the 21st September 1809, Napoleon had written a letter to him setting forth his many grievances. He charged the King with favouring Dutchmen who were well disposed towards England, with making speeches containing “nothing but disagreeable allusions to France,” with allowing “the relations between Holland and England to be renewed,” with violating “the laws of the blockade which is the only means of efficaciously injuring this Power,” and so on.
“To sum up,” he concluded, “the annexation of Holland to France is what would be most useful to France, to Holland, and to the Continent, because it is what would be most harmful to England. This annexation could be carried out by consent or by force. I have sufficient grievance against Holland to declare war; at the same time I am quite ready to agree to an arrangement which would yield to me the Rhine as a frontier, and by which Holland would emerge to fulfil the conditions stipulated above.”
The Emperor began by annexing the island of Walcheren. Gradually the encroachments were extended until the left bank of the Rhine was wholly French. Troops were drafted to Holland, the Dutch bitterly resenting the interference of Napoleon in affairs which they held were no concern of his. There was talk of an insurrection, of arming the country to resist the arbitrary claims of the despot. Finally the unhappy Louis abdicated in favour of his son, and retired to the confines of Bohemia. Little more than a week later Holland was definitely annexed to the Empire, thereby adding nine departments to France. In the following month Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia, was offended by the appearance of French troops at the mouths of the Elbe and Weser. Indeed, it would appear as if Napoleon was intent upon alienating the affection of the members of his own Imperial family. Perhaps the most tried brother was Joseph, who deserved all pity in the far from enthusiastic reception his new Spanish subjects were according him. Lucien had long since quarrelled with the Emperor, and although the latter attempted a reconciliation he was unsuccessful. On obtaining Napoleon’s permission to retire to America, the ship on which he sailed was captured by an English frigate, and for several years he lived the life of a country gentleman in the land he had been brought up to hate. The hapless Josephine was in retirement at Malmaison; Murat failed to see eye to eye with his brother-in-law, so much so that later the Emperor threatened to deprive him of his throne. In 1810 Napoleon also lost the services and support of Bernadotte by his election as Crown Prince of Sweden.
But while his brothers and friends were thus falling away from him Napoleon felt amply compensated in March 1811 by the birth of a son, who was given the high-sounding title of King of Rome. It will be remembered that Charlemagne, founder of the Holy Roman Empire, was styled “King of the Romans.” “Glory had never caused him to shed a single tear,” says Constant, the Emperor’s valet, “but the happiness of being a father had softened that soul which the most brilliant victories and the most sincere tokens of public admiration scarcely seemed to touch.”
Supreme in war, Napoleon was also one of the greatest administrators of whom we have record. As the story of his life has progressed we have noted how he set about the reformation of the governments of the various countries he had conquered or where his word was regarded as law. “The State—it is I,” said Louis XIV., and Napoleon summed up his own mode of life on one occasion by quoting the remark, which was no mere figure of speech. He seldom took recreation; when he was tired of thinking of battalions he thought of fleets, or colonies, or commerce. As Emperor he sometimes hunted, but more from a matter of policy than because he loved sport, just as he went to Mass to set a good example, and to the first act of a new play to gratify public curiosity. M. Frédéric Masson, the eminent Napoleonic historian, is authority for the statement that the Emperor once promised to attend a magnificent ball, and the most elaborate preparations had been made in his honour. Unfortunately the Imperial guest remained closeted with the Minister of Finance from eight o’clock in the evening until he heard a clock strike and was surprised to find that it was 3 A.M. The so-called pleasures of the table were miseries to him, and he ate his food with no regard whatever for convention or the menu. He would begin with an ice and finish with a viand.
The “Memoirs” of Napoleon’s three private secretaries, Bourrienne, Méneval, and Fain, afford us intimate views of the great man at work. Those of Bourrienne are the least authentic because they are not entirely his writing. The Emperor had an unfortunate habit from his secretary’s point of view of dictating his correspondence in full, and he spoke at such a rate that it was almost impossible to note what he said in its entirety. To interrupt him was a breach of etiquette. Fain found it necessary to leave blanks, which he filled up when he was transcribing with the help of the context.
M. Masson thus describes the Emperor’s work-room at the Tuileries:—