d feelings of domestic life now
weighed with him in the scale against ambition. His brother Louis, a
weak, but benevolent man, had in vain been cautioned by Napoleon, on his
promotion to the Dutch throne, that, in his administration of this
subaltern monarchy, "the first object of his care must ever be _the
Emperor_, the second _France_, and the third _Holland_." Louis,
surrounded by native ministers, men of great talents and experience, and
enlightened lovers of their country, had his sympathies ere long
enlisted on the side of those whom he might be pardoned for wishing to
consider as really his subjects. His queen, on the other hand, the
daughter of Josephine, and the favourite of Napoleon, made her court, as
far as she could, a French one, and was popularly regarded as heading
the party who looked in all things to the Tuileries. The meek-spirited
Louis, thwarted by this intriguing woman, and grossly insulted by his
brother, struggled for some time with the difficulties of his situation;
but his patience availed nothing: his supposed connivance at the
violations of the Berlin and Milan decrees, in the same proportion as it
tended to raise him more and more in the affections of the Dutch, fixed
and heightened the displeasure of Napoleon. He was at length summoned to
Paris, and without a moment's hesitation obeyed. On arriving there he
took up his residence in the house of his mother, and next morning found
himself a prisoner. Having abdicated his throne, Louis retired to Gratz,
in Styria, and to that private mode of life for which his character
fitted him: his name continues to be affectionately remembered in
Holland. His beautiful wife, despite the fall of her mother, chose to
fix her residence in Paris, where she once more shone the brightest
ornament of the court. On the 9th of July, 1810, the kingdom of Holland
was formally annexed to the French empire; Amsterdam taking rank among
the cities next after Rome.

In pursuance of the same stern resolution to allow no consideration to
interfere with the complete and effectual establishment of the
"continental system," Buonaparte shortly afterwards annexed the Hanse
towns, Oldenburg, and the whole sea-coast of Germany, from the frontier
of Holland to that of Denmark, to the French empire. The King of Prussia
was as yet in no condition to remonstrate against this new act of
rapacity: opposition from any other German state was wholly out of the
question.

In truth there