Napoleon responded to this refusal with a declaration of war.  The ambassador of Holland received his passport, and a French army corps was sent to Holland, to punish the king’s insolence.

But the misfortune that threatened Holland had called the king’s whole energy into activity, and Napoleon’s anger and threats were powerless to break his resolution.  As the commander of the French troops, the Duke of Reggio, approached Amsterdam, to lay siege to that city and thereby compel the king to yield, Louis determined rather to descend from his throne than to submit to the unjust demands of France.  He, therefore, issued a proclamation to his people, in which he told them that he, convinced that he could do nothing more to promote their welfare, and, on the contrary, believing that he was an obstacle in the way of the restoration of friendly relations between his brother and Holland, had determined to abdicate in favor of his two sons, Napoleon Louis and Charles Louis Napoleon.  Until they should attain their majority the queen, in conformity with the constitution, was to be regent.  He then took leave of his subjects, in a short and touching address.  He now repaired, in disguise, and under the name of Count de St. Leu, through the states of his brother Jerome, King of Westphalia, and through Saxony to Toeplitz.

Here he learned that Napoleon, far from respecting and fulfilling the conditions of his abdication, had united the kingdom of Holland with the empire.  The king published a protest against this action of the emperor, in which, in the name of his son and heir, Napoleon Louis, he denounced this act of the emperor as a totally unjustifiable act of violence, and demanded that the kingdom of Holland should be re-established, in all its integrity, declaring the annexation of Holland to France to be null and void, in the name of himself and his sons.

Napoleon responded to this protest by causing the king to be informed by the French ambassador in Vienna that unless he returned to France by the 1st of December, 1810, he should be regarded and treated as a rebel, who dared to resist the head of his family and violate the constitution of the empire.

Louis neither answered nor conformed to this threat.  He repaired to Graetz, in Styria, and lived there as a private gentleman, beloved and admired, not only by those who came in contact with him there, but enjoying the esteem of all Europe, which he had won by the noble and truly magnanimous manner in which he had sacrificed his own grandeur to the welfare of his people.  Even his and Napoleon’s enemies could not withhold from the King of Holland the tribute of their respect, and even Louis XVIII. said of him:  “By his abdication, Louis Bonaparte has become a true king; in renouncing his crown, he has shown himself worthy to wear it.  He is the first monarch who has made so great a sacrifice but of pure love for his people; others have also relinquished their thrones, but they did it when weary of power.  But in this action of the King of Holland there is something truly sublime—­something that was not duly appreciated at first, but which will be admired by posterity, if I mistake not, greatly[19].”