Written remonstrances were no more to Napoleon’s taste than verbal ones at a time when, as I was informed by my friends whom fortune chained to his destiny, no one presumed to address a word to him except in answer to his questions.  Cambaceres, who alone had retained that privilege in public as his old colleague in the Consulate, lost it after Napoleon’s marriage with the daughter of Imperial Austria.  His brother’s letter highly roused his displeasure.  Two months after he received it, being on a journey in the north, he replied from Ostend by a letter which cannot be read without a feeling of pain, since it serves to show how weak are the most sacred ties of blood in comparison with the interests of an insatiable policy.  This letter was as follows: 

Brother—­In the situation in which we are placed it is best to speak candidly.  I know your secret sentiments, and all that you can say to the contrary can avail nothing.  Holland is certainly in a melancholy situation.  I believe you are anxious to extricate her from her difficulties:  it is you; and you alone, who can do this.

When you conduct yourself in such a way as to induce the people of Holland to believe that you act under my influence, that all your measures and all your sentiments are conformable with mine, then you will be loved, you will be esteemed, and you will acquire the power requisite for re-establishing Holland:  when to be my friend, and the friend of France, shall become a title of favour at your court, Holland will be in her natural situation.  Since your return from Paris you have done nothing to effect this object.  What will be the result of your conduct?  Your subjects, bandied about between France and England, will throw themselves into the arms of France, and will demand to be united to her.  You know my character, which is to pursue my object unimpeded by any consideration.  What, therefore, do you expect me to do?  I can dispense with Holland, but Holland cannot dispense with my protection.  If, under the dominion of one of my brothers, but looking to me alone for her welfare, she does not find in her sovereign my image, all confidence in your government is at an end; your sceptre is broken.  Love France, love my glory—­that is the only way to serve Holland:  if you had acted as you ought to have done that country, having becoming a part of my Empire, would have been the more dear to me since I had given her a sovereign whom I almost regarded as my son.  In placing you on the throne of Holland I thought I had placed a French citizen there.  You have followed a course diametrically opposite to what I expected.  I have been forced to prohibit you from coming to France, and to take possession of a part of your territory.  In proving yourself a bad Frenchman you are less to the Dutch than a Prince of Orange, to whose family they owe their rank as a nation, and a long succession of prosperity and glory.  By your banishment from