impression. The former was irresistibly drawn to revisit the country;
the latter recalled his impressions in some of his noblest verse.

CHAPTER XXIII

BIRTH OF THE KING OF ROME[38]

[Footnote 38: References as before, and Helfert: Marie
Louise. Welschinger: La censure sous le premier empire.
Wertheimer: Die Heirat der Erzherzogin Marie Louise mit
Napoleon I. Montbel: Le duc de Reichstadt. Welschinger: Le
roi de Rome.]

England Under the Continental System -- End of Constitutional
Government in France -- Napoleon's Personal Rule -- Wealth of his
High Officials -- Literature and the Empire -- Mme. de Stael's
Aspirations -- Her Attempts to Win Napoleon -- Her Genius Saved
by Defeat -- The Decennial Prizes -- Pregnancy of Maria Louisa --
The Heir of the Napoleon Dynasty.

[Sidenote: 1810-11]

It would be idle to suppose that during the winter of 1810-11 the
Spanish situation was not thoroughly appreciated by the imperial
bridegroom at Paris, or that he underrated the ultimate effects of
what was taking place in the Iberian peninsula if the process were to
go on. Still less is it probable that with the direction of all his
energy toward that quarter he could not have quenched the uncertain
and spasmodic efforts of Spanish patriotism, either by arts of which
he was a master, or by making a desert to call it a peace. No; every
indication is that his eye was still fixed on England at her vital
point, and that he took his measures in the North to deal her such a
thrust that the life-blood which sustained the Peninsular war would
either flow inefficacious, or be turned away altogether from Spain,
and change the ever-doubtful success of Wellington into assured
disaster. Wealthy as England was, it was certain that her credit could
not long hold out in view of the lavish subsidies she was constantly
granting to continental powers, while the expeditions to Spain,
Holland, and Sicily were even more costly, inconclusive as they had so
far been. In 1810 English bank-notes were twenty per cent. below par,
and the sovereign could be exchanged on the Continent for only
seventeen francs instead of the twenty-five it usually brought.
Business failures were becoming ominously frequent in London, and
panic was stalking abroad. What must be the necessary result if the
continental embargo were more thoroughly enforced? The enormous
contraband trade of the