Schimmelpenninck was offered the speakership of the assembly for life, but he refused. Van Hogendorp was offered a seat in the council of state, but he declined. The members of the council and the ministers were then elected from among the able men belonging to the different parties. They were called upon to forget all former partisanship and to unite in one common cause, the resurrection of the poverty-stricken fatherland.
Theoretically, King Louis was much in favour of rigid economy. In practice, however, he proved to be a very costly monarch. It is true that he gave the people their money's worth. There were parades and elaborate coaches and gorgeous uniforms and fine outriders and all the other paraphernalia so dear to the heart of the gaping multitude. But soon the restlessness of a man who is miserably unhappy at home, and who will give anything for diversion, took hold of the poor king. He began to dislike his palace in The Hague, and moved to the house in the woods. Then he moved to Haarlem. Then he discovered that Haarlem was not central enough, and he moved to Utrecht. But Utrecht was too small and too dull, and he tried Amsterdam. Now all this moving on a regal scale cost enormous sums of money. Besides that, the king wished to furnish his palaces with costly furniture, hang splendid tapestries upon the walls, surround himself with fine works of art.
But these thousands were insignificant compared to the millions which were being spent upon the army and the navy. Verhuell, the man after Napoleon's heart, had received orders to make the navy into a good one. He had obeyed his orders promptly, but it had cost a pretty penny. And the army, now that Napoleon was fighting everybody on the European continent, had to be kept up to an ever-increasing standard of efficiency. The revenues, on the other hand, fell below the disheartening average of former years. For Holland, as a dependency of France, had to obey the absurd rules against English goods with which Napoleon hoped to starve Great Britain into submission.
Together with King Louis there had appeared in the republic a veritable army of French spies. They were under orders to prevent smuggling, and to see that the laws against British goods be strictly enforced. Rotterdam and several cities which had prolonged their economic existence through wholesale smuggling were now ruined. Every year it became more difficult to raise the extraordinary taxes for the army and navy. The secretary of the treasury at his first audience with King Louis had been able to inform the monarch that the state of the country's finances was as follows: In cash, 205,000 guilders. Deficit on this year's debt, 35,000,000. The secretary of the treasury thereafter became a nightmare to the poor king. Every month he appeared with a more doleful story. Every so many weeks he approached the king with new and involved plans to bring about some improvements in the finances of the kingdom. Louis, who shared his brother's dislike for economics, was terribly bored. At last, in self-defence, he dismissed his minister of finances, the very capable Gogel, who had begun life as a clerk in a bookstore and had worked his way up through sheer ability. The new secretary of the treasury was less of a persistent bore, but the economic condition of the country grew worse instead of better.
1807. Kingdom of Holland.
What more can we say of the rule of this well-meaning monarch? He was the receiver appointed in a bankrupt business. It was a wonder that he could maintain himself for four whole years. He was not a man who made friends easily. A rapidly developing sense of his own dignity gradually isolated him from those men who meant well with the king and the country. He tried to improve the arts and sciences by founding an academy. But painters and poets cannot be made to order, and his academy did not flourish.
Agriculture and commerce were encouraged by the construction of a number of excellent roads and the making of several important polders. But with all foreign markets, except the French, closed to them, the products of the farmer and the manufacturer could not be exported. The good intentions were all there, but the adverse circumstances were too powerful. The king was tender-hearted. When there was a national calamity, a fire, or an inundation, the king might be seen on the nearest dike trying to fish people out of the flood. But with Christian charity alone a nation cannot be made prosperous.
The king tried to get rid of the French influence. His wife, who intrigued against him with her cousin, the French minister, opposed his independent plans. The king then tried to get rid of his wife; but brother Napoleon, who contemplated divorcing his own wife, in order to marry into a better family, did not like the idea of two separations in the family at the same time, and Louis was obliged to stay married. He then tried to get rid of the French minister, but Napoleon supported his envoy and refused to recall so devoted and useful a servant.