to the constitution which I have given and guaranteed.  Your Majesty may negotiate on these bases with the Due de Cadore, through the medium of your Minister; but be assured that on the entrance of the first packetboat into Holland I will restore my prohibitions, and that the first Dutch officer who may presume to insult my flag shall be seized, and hanged at the mainyard.  Your Majesty will find in me a brother if you prove yourself a Frenchman; but if you forget the sentiments which attach you to our common country you cannot think it extraordinary that I should lose sight of those which nature created between us.  In short, the union of Holland and France will be of all things, most useful to France, to Holland, and the whole Continent, because it will be most injurious to England.  This union must be effected willingly or by force.  Holland has given me sufficient reason to declare war against her.  However, I shall not scruple to consent to an arrangement which will secure to me the limit of the Rhine, and by which Holland will pledge herself to fulfil the conditions stipulated above.

—­[Much of the manner in which Napoleon treated occupied countries such as Holland is explained by the spirit of his answer when Beugnot complained to him of the harm done to the Grand Duchy of Berg by the monopoly of tobacco.  “It is extraordinary that you should not have discovered the motive that makes me persist in the establishment of the monopoly of tobacco in the Grand Duchy.  The question is not about your Grand Duchy but about France.  I am very well aware that it is not to your benefit, and that you very possibly lose by it, but what does that signify if it be for the good of France?  I tell you, then, that in every country where there is a monopoly of tobacco, but which is contiguous to one where the sale is free, a regular smuggling infiltration must be reckoned on, supplying the consumption for twenty or twenty-five miles into the country subject to the duty.  That is what I intend to preserve France from.  You must protect yourselves as well as you can from this infiltration.  It is enough for me to drive it back more than twenty or twenty-five miles from my frontier.”  (Beugnot, vol. ii. p. 26).]—­

Here the correspondence between the two brothers was suspended for a time; but Louis still continued exposed to new vexations on the part of Napoleon.  About the end of 1809 the Emperor summoned all the sovereigns who might be called his vassals to Paris.  Among the number was Louis, who, however, did not show himself very willing to quit his States.  He called a council of his Ministers, who were of opinion that for the interest of Holland he ought to make this new sacrifice.  He did so with resignation.  Indeed, every day passed on the throne was a sacrifice made by Louis.