Louis Napoleon
XXI
KING LOUIS OF HOLLAND
The new king was twenty-eight years old, not especially good looking, kind-hearted, not specially clever, a little vain (as who would not be who was made a king overnight), filled with the best of intentions toward his new subjects, and none too fond of his brother. The difference between the two Bonapartes was great. Louis was a gentleman, Napoleon tried to be.
The wife of the new king, whose morals were diametrically opposed to her looks (she was very handsome), was a stepdaughter of the Emperor. She hated her new country and its unelegant inhabitants. She was thoroughly indifferent about her husband's fortunes, and she spent most of her time in Paris and far away from her husband's court.
The new king made a tour of inspection of his possessions, and then settled down to rule. First of all, he tried to learn a little Dutch and to understand something of the history of his adopted country. These attempts were not brilliantly successful, but the patient people heard of them and were happy. "At last," so they said, "we have a nice, good man to be our king, and his brother will leave us alone."
The regents, meanwhile, who had been invisible as long as they were governed by one of their own people, now began to appear out of their hiding-places. They accepted this new imported Majesty with much better grace than they had received plain Mr. Schimmelpenninck. The son of an obscure lawyer and notary public in a little semi-barbarous island, of royal blood by the grace of his brother, could command the respect which had been refused the member of an old and honourable Dutch family. The palace of his Majesty King Louis became the centre to which flocked all those who desired to become groom of the bedchamber or assistant master of the horse. Louis was not averse to gold lace, and encouraged these high aspirations, created nobles, gave orders, and filled his brother's heart with amusement, mixed with contemptible scorn, by the creation of Dutch marshals. A few among the old families, notably our former friend Van Hogendorp, preferred obscurity to the reflected splendour of a Bonapartistic throne. But they were the exceptions, not the rule.
The new constitution which King Louis had brought along with him somewhere in his luggage was unpacked and was put into practice. It proved to be a concise little document, written with Napoleonic brevity. It contained only seventy-nine articles. All power was invested in the king, who was assisted by a cabinet consisting of a council of state and a number of ministers. The legislative chamber of thirty-eight members was to convene once a year for two months, and, like its predecessors, it could only veto or accept bills. It could not propose or amend the laws.