tion which made Napoleon say, he was sure they were doubtful. The obstinacy of Louis and the imperious all safe and, in fact, Fouché afterwards sent the burnt temper of his brother, rendered the continuance of the letters to the emperor. For the present the duke independence of Holland impracticable. On the 29th retired from the public stage, and Savary, duke of of June, the French troops, under Oudinot, took posRovigo, was made minister of police.* "Fouché," session of Utrecht, and Oudinot demanded the surrensaid Napoleon, "is a man who meddles with every-der of Amsterdam. Louis would have surrounded thing; intrigue is as necessary for him as food; his rage is to be in everything; and to be always trying to shove his feet into other people's shoes."

dotte was soon mentioned. He was favourably known | Maas, and the Rhine; but this Sénatus-consulte added by his treatment of a corps of 1500 Swedes, who fell the mouths of the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, to the into his hands after the capture of Lübeck, in the empire, and the Hanseatic towns. The dominions of Prussian war, in 1806. Matters were in such a state Napoleon now extended from the Baltic to Terracina, at the end of July and in the beginning of August, the southern limit of the Roman states. The arrange1810, that it was quite uncertain who would be elected. ments as to the extension of the northern frontier The general Diet of Sweden was assembled at Orebro, affected the duke of Oldenburg, the brother-in-law of and an electoral committee of twelve members was the emperor Alexander; for the Sénatus-consulte of formed, to which the king presented three candidates the 13th of December enveloped the duchy in the new -the prince of Holstein, the king of Denmark, and acquisitions of France. "The annexation of Holland," marshal Bernadotte, prince of Ponte Corvo. The said the French minister for foreign affairs, "has prince of Holstein had eleven votes in the committee, brought on that of the Hanseatic towns; and as this and Bernadotte had one (14th of August). This annexation has enclosed Oldenburg within the limits choice was agreeable to all parties,-to the Swedish of the empire, it will of necessity be subjected to our king, the nation, and Napoleon; and yet the prince custom-house regulations." This affair gave great of Holstein was not elected by the Diet. A French dissatisfaction to the emperor Alexander; and he merchant, who had become a bankrupt at Gottenburg, issued a ukase on the 31st of December, which was was now in Sweden, under pretence of arranging his a great matter of complaint for Napoleon. This ukase, affairs, and he went to Orebro, where he assumed a which regulated the customs' duties on all articles kind of political character: at any rate, his meddling imported from foreign countries into Russia, prohibited made the Diet believe that he had some mission. This all articles which were not mentioned in it; and among man, whose name even is not mentioned by those who the articles not mentioned were most articles of French have stated the facts of the election with most par- manufacture, which were consequently prohibited. ticularity, gave Sweden a king. The Swedish ministry French brandies were excluded, and French wines were in some way persuaded by him that Napoleon were subjected to an enormous duty. But the ukase was in favour of Bernadotte, and the belief became allowed colonial produce to be imported in neutral general. The report of the electoral committee was vessels; and in this way English property would be annulled, and the king presented Bernadotte to the introduced. Thus, under a disguised form, Russia Diet in such terms as to render his election certain. renounced the continental system of Napoleon. The On the 17th of August, the electoral committee recom- duchy of Oldenburg, and the ukase of December 31, mended Bernadotte by ten votes out of twelve; and were henceforth two topics for mutual recrimination. a few days after, the Diet confirmed the recommenda- In the early part of 1810, Alexander had urged Napotion. Napoleon made no objection to Bernadotte's leon to agree, in formal terms, that the kingdom of accepting the reversion of the crown of Sweden, and Poland should never be re-established; and though he even advanced him money for his urgent expenses; Napoleon had no intention to restore the nationality but he declared distinctly that he had nothing to do of Poland, he objected to the formal terms which with the election, and he took every opportunity of Alexander insisted on. The negotiations had no other making this declaration public. Bernadotte conformed result than to leave the emperor Alexander dissatisfied, to the required condition of professing the Lutheran and to furnish matter for the future quarrel. faith, and took possession of his new title under the name of Charles John. He entered Stockholm on the 1st of November, 1810.*

The most formidable enemy of Napoleon was the helpless old man, whom he kept a prisoner at Savona, pope Pius VII. Deprived of his advisers and counIn 1810 the emperor gave up Hanover to the king sellors, whose loss he complained of, the pope only of Westphalia, and formed a grand duchy of Frankfort, became the more resolute in his opposition to the will which consisted of the duchy of Aschaffenburg, the of the emperor. In vain some of the cardinals and towns of Frankfort and Wetzlar, and a large part of the bishops, both French and Italian, urged the pope to principalities of Hanau and Fulda. This new duchy confirm the canonical institution of the bishops whom was given to the prince primate; and prince Eugène, the emperor had appointed to the vacant sees in France viceroy of Italy, was appointed his successor. In De- and in Italy. The pope addressed a brief to cardinal cember the republic of the Valais was annexed, by a Maury, who had been named archbishop of Paris by Sénatus-consulte, to France, under the name of the the emperor, and forbade him to accept the nomination, department of the Simplon; but the same Sénatus and to undertake the administration of this diocese: consulte of the 13th of December contained much more" Is this the way then," said the pope to the cardinal, extensive usurpations. The annexation of Holland" is this the way, after having so eloquently defended carried with it of course the outlets of the Schelde, the the cause of the Catholic church in the most stormy

There are various accounts of the election of Berna

dotte, of the promotion of a man who entered the French army as a volunteer in 1780, to a throne; but the statement most conformable to all undisputed facts is that given

in the text.

times, that you abandon the same church, now that you are loaded with its dignities and its favours? You do not blush to take part against us in the cause that we maintain in defence of the dignity of the church." The States of the church lost nothing by the suspen

no reason to dread an insufficient supply of a thing, if those who produce it are prevented from sending it out of the country; that is, are limited in the power of sale; a limitation which diminishes production as surely in degree as if all sales were prohibited. "But," continues Bignon, "when the system of licenses had given it more extension, it was soon perceived that if the exportation were entirely free, it was not without

sion of the pope's temporal power; and here, as in [tion of grain having been put under great restrictions." other conquered countries, the despotism of the em- Here is contained the absurd assumption that there is peror of the French made many valuable reforms. He suppressed the convents of monks and nuns, but four of the finest convents for females were preserved and re-organized, on the ground that these establishments for females might be useful to the community. Pensions were to be paid to all the religious of both sexes who should be restored to a secular life. Provision was made for the liquidation of the public debt, as had been done also in Holland. Useful works were under-danger: accordingly it was soon forbidden entirely for taken, and the drainage of the Pomptine marshes, for which Pius VI. had done a great deal, was continued under a commission, in which the chief members were the mathematician Prony, and Fossombrone of Florence. The French occupation of conquered countries was not in all respects injurious to them. The activity of the emperor and his enlarged and liberal views on most matters, where his personal authority was not concerned, made him in many respects a reformer. His fault was, that he did not lay the foundation of free institutions; but freedom was inconsistent with his system, which was to direct everything himself, both great and small. In Holland his administration embraced everything. Louis, though less prodigal than Joseph and Jerome, had made a great many dotations in Holland, and rather as a matter of favour than as a reward for services. The emperor annulled them without any ceremony: "Such things," he said, "cannot be allowed in a country which is loaded with debt the king had no right to give what did not belong to him, either out of the domains of the crown, or those of the State."

The fixed idea of Napoleon was the maintenance of his continental system,-the complete exclusion of English commerce from the continent. The English were now suffering from this system, and it was supposed that England must finally come to terms. There were men called scientific, who encouraged the emperor in the hope of success, by proving that the soil of Europe might be made to raise all the products of America, and thus Europeans could do without colonial produce. If his system were only intended as a means of compelling England to such a peace as he wished, or to submit to his own terms, we cannot value his sagacity in this matter very high. How could he hope to change the paths of commerce, and the industry and the habits of whole nations? If his views went further, as they appear to have done, we must charge him with being ignorant on one of the most vital questions, the freedom of commercial exchange between all parts of the earth. On the subject of trade he shared many of the vulgar errors of the French. One who has a favourable opinion of his administration, says of the year 1810, "The emperor, in the preceding years, had no uneasiness with respect to subsistence, the exporta

* This commission led to the publication, in 1823, of Prony's valuable and very interesting work, entitled Déscription Historique et Hydrographique des Marais Pontins,' with maps and plans.

rye, and rendered more difficult for wheat by doubling the duty." "If it were true," said the emperor (in 1810), as some would persuade me, that forty millions of grain have been exported to England since August last, that would be alarming." The ground of alarm to the emperor was, not that England would get what she wanted, but that France would have an insufficient supply; as if a country which exports its products could ever want them itself. It was part of his system to give money, and offer prizes and bounties for the production of sugar; for the discovery of some indigenous plant that could serve in place of indigo; for the cultivation of cotton in the Roman states, in Italy, and in Corsica, and the like. As he wished to know everything that was going on, he had plenty of reports and letters on all subjects, even the minutest; and he busied himself about all. In fact, his immense empire, constructed of such heterogeneous parts, was only held together by his incessant activity; but a state which requires superintendence like a household, is built on a foundation of sand. After excluding English goods from the continent, and confiscating them when they were seized, the next step was to burn them; which pleased the French manufacturers, because they expected to be sure of customers for their own goods. But they were disappointed: the emperor placed a heavy duty on several raw materials, cotton among the rest; the manufacturers raised the price of their articles, and found no sale. The emperor then resorted to the childish expedient of proposing to help them with discounts, when all that they wanted was

customers.

"Without doubt," says Bignon,*"Napoleon pushed to extremes the rage for directing everything, administering everything, in France: if he often said, like Louis XIV., The State, it is I,' the State was in him much more than in Louis XIV.: the government was himself; the administration was himself; and not only the general administration, but that of every department, of every town, of every commune." Unless this fact is clearly apprehended, we can have no idea of what the imperial government was. But we ought not to do Napoleon the wrong of comparing him with so insignificant a personage as Louis XIV. His mind was comprehensive and powerful, but his ideas of His adminigovernment were fundamentally false. stration, simply as such, was excellent: in method,

* Vol. iii., c. 8; Brussels edit.

punctuality, decision, and sagacity, he had no equal. mained to France,-Guadaloupe in the West Indies, But difficulties were crowding round him. Both the and, in the Indian Ocean, the islands of Bourbon and union of Holland and the war of Spain produced France, now called the Mauritius. The conduct of the financial difficulties. Spain was quite a novelty, war in Spain, under lord Wellington, showed England a country which did not produce enough to pay for the that she had at last found both a general and a battleexpense of subjugating it. In 1810, while Napoleon ground; a position from which the colossal empire was adding to his continental dominions by the annex- of Napoleon could be assailed by the attacks of a ation of Holland and the Hanseatic towns, England | regular army, and by a nation in insurrection. was taking the few foreign possessions that yet re

exceeded the estimates; and besides this, there were the sums expended out of the secret revenue of the police, and out of the domaine extraordinaire. The budget of the Legislative body, as it was called, was not, therefore, the measure of the real expenditure. It was further stated, that France had 800,000 men under arms, of whom 350,000 were employed in Spain. The conscription was rigorously enforced. One hundred and twenty thousand men were demanded for the year 1811. The session closed on the 25th of July.

ON the 20th of March, 1811, the empress Maria- sions. For several years past the expenditure had Louisa gave birth to a male child, who was baptized by cardinal Maury, now archbishop of Paris. His name was Napoléon-François-Charles-Joseph, and his title on the day of his birth was king of Rome. The birth of an heir to the emperor was a subject for rejoicing and felicitation, in which flattery exhausted all its resources. The constituted authorities, with the Senate and the Council of State, paid their respects to the king in his cradle, made addresses to him, to which the chief nurse replied, and then defiled past his majesty with humble reverences. This ridiculous scene furnished amusement for the Parisians. Those whose fortunes were attached to the existence of the empire rejoiced at the prospect of the dynasty of Napoleon being secured on the throne of France.

The session of the Legislative body was opened by the emperor on the 16th of June, who told them, in reply to their address, that his son would answer to the expectation of France; that he would have for their children the same feelings that he had: "The French," he said, "will never forget that their happiness and their glory are attached to the prosperity of this throne which I have founded, consolidated, and aggrandized with them and for them; I desire this to be understood by all the French; in whatever position Providence and my will have placed them, the bond, the love of France, is their first duty." This insolent language was now familiar both to Napoleon and his subjects. The Legislative body contained some new members, who were called the deputies of the departments of Holland, of the Hanseatic towns, of the Roman states, and of the Valais. These new members were named by the Senate, though no list of candidates had been made by the electoral colleges of the departments; for these electoral colleges were not yet organized. It appeared, from a report on the state of the empire, that France had received an accession of sixteen departments, five millions of people, and 100 millions of revenue. The expenditure of this year was fixed at 954 millions, of which 148 millions went to the payment of the interest on the debt, and of pen

It was part of the emperor's system of administration to spend largely; and he who spends largely, and pays, must receive largely; and the source of the receipts of government is the industry of the people. There were few important towns within his dominions which did not receive some benefit from the emperor's active spirit of improvement: he demolished and built, established hospitals, theatres, and schools, made canals, roads, and bridges. But if these things were good in themselves, the means of producing them were not. He took people's money from them to spend, instead of letting them expend it their own way. Against the impulse given by the emperor to improvement, and the undoubted advantages that he conferred on many places, we must set the heavy taxation that he imposed directly and by his prohibitory system, and the suppression of the vital energies of all society, the free development of industrial, intellectual, and moral power. He wished to conquer mendicity, and he thought that it could be subdued by dépôts de mendicité. Forty-two of these dépôts were established in the empire, and funds were set apart for their support; that is, the industrious paid for them. The scheme failed: it was one of the innumerable failures of Napoleon, which are forgotten amidst the external splendour of his reign. He heard that Bordeaux was suffering; and he proposed to remedy the evil by ateliers de travail, workshops for those who were able and willing to work. As if the want of work was not itself a sufficient indication of want of means to give employment in Bordeaux, he would diminish the means still further,

by the forced production of something which nobody gone there to conduct it in person; for he alone could wanted. Many of the emperor's notions were foolish have given unity to the operations of the French comand puerile; but, as is often the case, the energy of manders. He still continued sending in his troops, his action was mistaken for wisdom. He was more just as if he were giving aid to a foreign power. The successful in combating the mendicity of the highest classes, because the numbers were comparatively few. It is within the powers of government, by pensions and places, to provide for a limited number, even on a handsome scale; but a general invitation to live at the expense of the industrious, produces a host of guests who only increase by being fed. Napoleon provided against the mendicity of literature and science, by pensions derived from the profits of the 'Journal de l'Empire' and 'Journal de Paris.' His system did not allow free scope to the industry of journalists; and those journals, which he permitted to be published, had to give up part of their profits, to be employed by the emperor in acts of munificence. And such munificence-less than a hundred a year to Laporte du Theil, the translator of Strabo; the same to Gosselin and Corai; and about £120 a year to Legendre. Monge had double of what Legendre had. But Fouché had an income of about £4,000 a year, simply as duke of Otranto, besides other things. The same rule of proportion is observed in all countries in which the public money is given away.

marriage of Napoleon appears to have rendered him
less active for a time, and more disposed to indulge in
repose. In fact, he had enjoyed no rest since the
18th of Brumaire. In 1812, the Legislative body was
not called together. The emperor was too busy with
preparing for a war with Russia, which everybody
expected, to trouble himself about this idle formality.
The duchy of Oldenburg and the evasion by Russia
of the strict rule of the continental blockade, were two
matters that could not be settled. Napoleon, in order
to secure Alexander, had let him take Finnland from
Sweden, and deal with the Turks as he pleased.
Russia had a large army on foot; and after obtaining
some advantages over the Turks, Alexander opened
negotiations for peace with Turkey at Bucharest, in
order to have all his troops at his disposal.
In 1811,
Prussia, placed between the two powers, feared to be
crushed in the shock, and would have formed an alli-
ance with either of them; but neither of the emperors
would take any step that might betray his designs.
Early in 1812, it was clear that these two powers
could not agree, that there was no way of settling their
differences, except by the sword; and Napoleon now
required Prussia to decide between them. Davoust was
instructed to seize the Prussian states, if the king did
not come to the terms of Napoleon; and Davoust could
easily have done this, as the most important places
were still occupied by French garrisons. On the 24th
of February, 1812, the king of Prussia signed a treaty
for a defensive alliance; but there were secret articles,
one of which bound him to furnish a contingent to act
with the French troops against Russia, in case of war
between Russia and France. In the preceding month,
the emperor had ordered Swedish Pomerania to be

The quarrel with the pope was still a cause of great uneasiness to Napoleon. After taking the opinion of an ecclesiastical commission upon various matters relating to the pope's authority, and what was best to be done for the interests of religion, he resolved to convoke a council. This council, consisting of the bishops and archbishops of France, and of those parts of Italy and Germany which were subjected to the empire, met at Paris on the 17th of June, 1811, and went in solemn procession to Notre Dame. The council were not unanimous, and a great part of the members maintained that the acts of councils were not valid, unless they were accepted by the head of the church. The emperor occupied by Davoust,* which had become an entrepôt being informed of these discussions and of the opinions for English wares. This brought on a negotiation of the council, dissolved it by a decree, and put three with Sweden, and Bernadotte offered the alliance of of the bishops in prison. After dissolving the council, Sweden on condition of being allowed to take Norway the minister of worship got together as many of the from Denmark, and of a subsidy but this was refused bishops as he could, to the number of about eighty, by Napoleon, who would not abandon his faithful and a decree was drawn up and sent to Savona to the ally, Denmark, nor give a subsidy. On the 24th of pope, who approved of it by a brief dated the 20th of March, a treaty, offensive and defensive, was made September. The most important article was, that between Sweden and Russia, by which Sweden agreed within six months after the nomination to a bishopric, to furnish troops for a diversion in Germany, in case his holiness should give institution conformably to of a war with France; and Alexander, less scrupulous the concordats. The pope approved of the decree, but than Napoleon, agreed to secure Norway to Sweden. his brief contained certain words which displeased Napoleon, and he rejected it. He had in fact obtained from the holy father very considerable concessions; and it is doubtful if he rejected the brief for the reasons alleged, or because he did not yet wish to release the pope from his state of dependence. Negotiations again commenced, but the emperor soon had other affairs on his hands.

The war in Spain continued. It seems to have been an error on the part of the emperor, not to have

:

The bad faith of Bernadotte is manifest in this transaction. An alliance with France or with Russia was indifferent to him, if he could only secure Norway. Even after the 24th of March, he proposed to Napoleon to form a treaty of alliance with him, if the emperor would consent to Sweden seizing Norway; but Napoleon refused.

* Davoust and Bernadotte hated one another; a circumstance which probably contributed to the quarrel between Sweden and France.