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Memoirs of Napoleon — Volume 10 by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
page 78 of 100 (78%)
resignation. Indeed, every day passed on the throne was a sacrifice made
by Louis.

He lived very quietly in Paris, and was closely watched by the police,
for it was supposed that as he had come against his will he would not
protract his stay so long as Napoleon wished. The system of espionage
under which he found himself placed, added to the other circumstances of
his situation, inspired him with a degree of energy of which he was not
believed to be capable; and amidst the general silence of the servants of
the Empire, and even of the Kings and Princes assembled in the capital,
he ventured to say, "I have been deceived by promises which were never
intended to be kept. Holland is tired of being the sport of France." The
Emperor, who was unused to such language as this, was highly incensed at
it. Louis had now no alternative but to yield to the incessant exactions
of Napoleon or to see Holland united to France. He chose the latter,
though not before he had exerted all his feeble power in behalf of the
subjects whom Napoleon had consigned to him; but he would not be the
accomplice of the man who had resolved to make those subjects the victims
of his hatred against England. Who, indeed, could be so blind as not to
see that the ruin of the Continent would be the triumph of British
commerce?

Louis was, however, permitted to return to his States to contemplate the
stagnating effect of the Continental blockade on every branch of trade
and industry formerly so active in Holland. Distressed at witnessing
evils to which he could apply no remedy, he endeavoured by some prudent
remonstrances to avert the utter, ruin with which Holland was threatened.
On the 23d of March 1810 he wrote the following letter to Napoleon:--

If you wish to consolidate the present state of France, to obtain
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