corrigible as before. He refused the perfect obedience demanded,
and even treated the French diplomatic agent in Holland with
indignity. Napoleon's scorn burst its bounds. "Louis," he wrote in a
letter carefully excluded from the authorized edition of his
correspondence, "you do not want to reign long; your actions reveal
your true feelings better than your personal letters. Listen to one
who has known those feelings longer than even you yourself. Retrace
your steps, be French at heart, or your people will drive you out, and
you will leave Holland, the object of pity and ridicule on the part of
the Dutch. Men govern states by the exercise of reason and the use of
a policy, and not by the impulses of an acid and vitiated lymph." Two
days later, on hearing of a studied insult from his brother to the
French minister, he wrote again: "Write no more trite phrases; you
have been repeating them for three years, and every day proves their
falseness. This is the last letter I shall write you in my life." In a
short time French troops were marching on Amsterdam. Louis summoned
his council and advised resistance; but the councilors convinced him
how useless such a course would be. The dispirited King at once
abdicated and fled.

For some days Louis's whereabouts were unknown. There was much talk,
and Napoleon was agitated. He wrote beseeching Jerome to learn where
the fugitive was and send him to Paris, that he might withdraw to St.
Leu and cease to be the laughing-stock of Europe. In ten days it was
known that Louis was at Teplitz in Bohemia. A circular was at once
addressed to the French diplomatists abroad, explaining that the King
of Holland must be excused for his conduct on the ground of his being
a chronic invalid. Inasmuch as about the same time Lucien found the
air of the French department of Rome not altogether to his liking, and
besought his brother's leave to expatriate himself to the United
States, the family relations of the Emperor were published throughout
Europe in a most unbecoming light. The ship in which Lucien sailed was
captured by an English frigate, and he was taken to England, where he
remained in an agreeable captivity until 1814.

The "Moniteur" of July ninth, 1810, published a laconic imperial
decree stating that Holland was henceforth a portion of the Empire.
"What was I to do?" the Emperor exclaimed at St. Helena. "Leave
Holland to the enemy? Nominate a new king?" It is difficult from his
standpoint