Baltic, public
confidence was further shaken. A year before, the French nation had
been startled by the premature demand for more French youth; the new
call to anticipate the conscription filled them with consternation.
These were grave matters, and the roads from Paris to Osterode and
Finkenstein continually resounded under the hoofs of horses and the
roll of wheels as messengers sped back and forth with questions and
replies. The nature of this correspondence shows how perfectly the
government of France was centralized in Napoleon's person, even in his
absence at such a distance: the whole gamut of administration was run,
from state questions of the gravest importance down to the disposition
of trivial affairs connected with the opera and its coryphees. As to
reviving the finances, the Emperor was at his wit's end, and in a sort
of blind helplessness he ordered the state to lend five hundred
thousand francs per month to such manufacturers as would keep at work
and deposit their wares in a government storehouse as collateral; nor
did he disdain such measures as the founding of one or two factories
of military supplies, or even the refurnishing of the Tuileries, in
which he requested the women of his family to spend their money
freely.

Of course he was absurdly unsuccessful; scarcely less so than he was
in his attempts to restore general confidence by the publication of
inspired articles in the newspapers. The censorship was more rigid
than ever, and Fouche was instructed to stop indiscreet private
letters from the army. Nevertheless, with no great difficulty the
senate was bullied into approving the new conscription, and the
volatile people soon listened without alarm to the siren voice of
their Emperor, which said these boys would be only a national guard,
children obeying the law of nature, the objects of his own paternal
care. Louis, who was governing Holland with reference to its own best
interests, and ordering the affairs of his family rigidly but
admirably, received a severe and passionate reprimand from the Emperor
for his economy. What was wanted was pay for the troops, plenty of
conscripts, encouragement for the Dutch Catholics, and a giddy court
where men would forget more serious things, and where the gay young
Queen Hortense could make a display. "Let your wife dance as much as
she wants to; it is proper for her age. I have a wife forty years old,
and from the field of battle I recommend her to go to ba