While Hortense was compelled to attend the festivities given in honor of the new empress in Paris, a dark storm-cloud was gathering over her husband’s head, that was soon to threaten his life and his crown.

When Louis, at the emperor’s command, accepted the crown of Holland, he had solemnly sworn to be a faithful ruler to his new people, and to devote his whole being to their welfare.  He was too honest a man not to keep this oath sacredly.  His sole endeavor was to make such arrangements, and provide such laws, as the welfare and prosperity of Holland seemed to require, without in the least considering whether these laws were conducive to the interests of France or not.  He would not regard Holland as a province dependent upon France, of which he was the governor, but as an independent land that had chosen him to be its free and independent king.  But Napoleon did not view the matter in the same light; in his eyes it was sacrilege for the kingdom of Holland to refuse to conform itself in every respect to the interests of its powerful neighbor, France.

When Napoleon invested his brother with the crown of Holland, he had charged him “to be a good king to his people, but at the same time to remain a good Frenchman, and protect the interests of France.”  Louis had, however, endeavored to become a good Hollander; and when the interests of France and Holland came into conflict, the king took the side of his new country, and acted as a Hollander.  He was of the opinion that the welfare of Holland depended on its commerce and industry only, and that it could only be great through its commercial importance; he therefore reduced the army and navy, making merchantmen of the men-of-war, and peaceful sailors of their warlike seamen.

Napoleon, however, regarded this conversion with dismay, and angrily reproached the King of Holland for “disarming whole squadrons, discharging seamen, and disorganizing the army, until Holland was without power, both on land and water, as though warehouses and clerks were the material elements of power.”  Napoleon reproached the king still more bitterly, however, for having re-established commercial relations with England, for having raised the blockade for Holland which France had established against England, and for having permitted the American ships, that had been banished from the ports of France, to anchor quietly in those of Holland.

The emperor demanded of the King of Holland that he should conform himself to his will and to the interests of France unconditionally; that he should immediately break off all commercial relations between Holland and England; that he should re-establish a fleet, of forty ships-of-the-line, seven frigates, and seven brigs, and an army of twenty-five thousand men, and that he should abolish all the privileges of the nobility that were contrary to the constitution.

King Louis had the courage to resist these demands, in the name of Holland, and to refuse to obey instructions, the execution of which must necessarily have affected the material interests of Holland most injuriously.