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.
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.
[Illustration: 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.
It was England which finally spoiled King Louis' last chances. After a
long preparation, during which Napoleon had frequently taken occasion to
warn his brother, the English fleet crossed the North Sea and attacked
the Dutch island of Walcheren preparatory to an assault upon Antwerp,
Napoleon's great naval base. The strong town of Flushing, after a
bombardment which incidentally destroyed every house in that city, was
taken by the British forces, and the advance against Antwerp was begun.
The French, however, had been able to make full preparations for
defence. Bernadotte had inundated the country surrounding the Belgian
fortress, and the British were obliged to stay where they were, on the
Zeeland Islands. As usual, Holland paid the expenses. When finally the
malarial fever had driven the English out of the country, the plundered
provinces had to be kept alive by public charity.
Napoleon was furious. His pet scheme, the glorious harbour of Antwerp,
had almost fallen into English hands. Why had not his brother taken
measures to prevent such a thing? "Holland was merely a British
dependency where the English deposited of their wares in perfect safety.
The Emperor's own brother was an ally of England. Why does he not equip
an army strong enough to resist such British aggressions? The Kingdom of
Holland says that it is too poor to pay more for an army. Lies, all
lies. Holland is rich. It is the richest nation on the continent. But
every time the pockets of their High and Mightinesses are touched they
make a terrible noise and plead poverty. Don't listen to their
complaints. Make them pay! Do you hear? Make them pay!" And so on, and
so on. There exists an entire correspondence to this effect. Louis
answered as best he could. The Emperor was not satisfied. He sent for
his brother to come to Paris. Louis went. When he arrived, Napoleon
scolded him openly before his entire court, before the new wife which
his armies had obtained for him in Vienna. The humiliation was great,
but still Louis refused to resign and deliver the country of which he
had grown fond to the tender mercies of his august brother. Even when,
in March of the year 1810, Napoleon, by a sudden decree, annexed part of
the south of the kingdom, Louis refused to give in and depart. For a
while he contemplated armed resistance to the French armies. Krayenhoff
worked on a plan for the inundation of Amsterdam. A number of generals
who were suspected of French sentiments were dismissed. The idea,
however, was given up as altogether too impossible. The Dutch ministers
would not follow their king. The council of state refused to give him
money for such purposes. And Napoleon gathered a large army and began to
move his troops in the direction of Amsterdam.
Louis, despairing of everything for the future of himself and his
country, would not continue to rule under such circumstances. On the 1st
of July, 1810, he abdicated in favour of his small son. The child, just
seven years old, was to be king under the guardianship of his mother,
the admiral, Verhuell, and a number of the leading members of the
cabinet.
On the night of the 2nd of June Louis, under the incognito of a Count of
Leu, left his palace in Haarlem and departed forever from his kingdom.
In the year 1846 he died in Livorno. Six years later his son ascended
the French throne as Napoleon III.
News of the abdication reached Paris at the very moment that the troops
of Napoleon took possession of Amsterdam. One week later, on the 9th of
July, Napoleon signed the decree of annexation. The little bit of mud
deposited upon the shores of the North Sea by the French rivers, and for
some years known as the Dutch Republic, ceased to be an independent
state and became a minor French province.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON VISITS AMSTERDAM]