The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom by Hendrik van Loon (ereader android .txt) 📕

The Batavian army was proud of itself and was praised by others. The men had stood the test of the war much better than people had dared to hope.

But what good, apart from a little glory, had all their bravery done them? On land they had beaten the English, but in far-away Asia the British fleet had taken one Dutch colony after the other, until of the large colonial empire there remained but the little island of Decima, in Japan. Upon a strip of territory of a few hundred square feet the old red, white, and blue flag of Holland continued to fly. Everywhere else it had been hauled down.

On the 9th of November, 1799, Citizen Bonaparte, the successful commander-in-chief of the armies of the Directorate of France, decided that his employers had done enough talking and that the time had come to send them about their business. The Jacobin rabble in the street protested. Citizen Bonaparte put up two cannon. The rabble jeered at his toy guns. Citizen Bonaparte fired. The rabble fled whence it came. The next day the legislative body was summarily dismissed. The French Revolution was over.

Biologically speaking, Citizen Bonaparte was the second son of Madame Laetitia Bonaparte, née Ramolino, the wife of a Corsican lawyer of some small local importance. His spiritual mother, however, sat on the Place de la Concorde, knitted worsted stockings, and counted the heads which the guillotine chopped off. When his day of glory came, Bonaparte did not forget his faithful mother, and surrounded her with his signs of love and affection. But the foster-mother who had helped him directly to his glory, without whom he never might have been anything but the husband of the attractive Madame Josephine, he neglected, and when she seemed to stand between him and his success he dispatched her into the desert of oblivion, a region which during revolutionary times is never very far distant from the scene of momentary action.

What Napoleon Bonaparte knew about Holland cannot have been very much. Geography, in a general sense, was not his strong point. Like everybody else in Paris, he must have known something about the Batavian Republic, and, like everybody else, he must have received vague notions of the dilatory methods, the insignificant acts, and the clumsiness of the different Batavian missions which sporadically appeared in Paris. Ginstokers who prepared parliamentary revolutions as delegates from private political clubs, generals who left their posts and went trotting to Paris to arrange another upheaval in the assembly of their native country, were not the type of men in whom the future emperor delighted.

Of any sentiment or liking for the Dutch trait and character we find no vestige in Napoleon. There were one or two Dutch generals who won his favour, and one admiral even gained his friendship. He appreciated Dutch engineers because they could build good fortifications and excellent pontoon bridges. In general, however, the slow and deliberate Hollander greatly annoyed the man of impulsive deeds, and the tenacity with which these futile people defended their petty little rights and prerogatives, when actual and immense honours were in store for all men with devotion and energy, filled Napoleon with an irritation and a contempt which he never tried to conceal.

The French Dictator felt but one interest in the Dutch Republic—a material one. In the first place, he wanted the Dutch gold to use for his expeditions against all his near and distant neighbours. In the second place, he contemplated using the strategic position of the republic in his great war upon the British Kingdom. And as soon as he had been elected First Consul he approached the republic with demands for loans and voluntary donations, which were both flatly refused. The Amsterdam bankers were not willing to consider any French loan just then, and the Dutch assembly declared that it could not produce the 50,000,000 guilders which the Consul wanted. It was simply impossible. The Consul retaliated by a very strict enforcement of the terms of the French treaty by which the republic was bound to equip and maintain 25,000 French soldiers. This, in turn, so greatly increased the expenses of the republic that many citizens paid more than half of their income in taxes. It was indeed a very unfortunate moment for such an experiment. The second constitution was by no means a success. Of the many promised reorganizations of the internal government not a single one had as yet been instituted. The reform of the financial system existed on paper but had not yet come nearer to realization than had the proposed reorganization of the militia. The new system of legal procedure was still untried, and the new national courts had not yet been established. The codification of civil and penal law had not yet been begun. Public instruction was under a minister of its own, but it remained as primitive as ever before. The reform of the municipal government had not yet been attempted. The central government of the different departments had been put into somewhat better shape than before, but everything about it was still in the first stages of development. The constitution which had promised to be all things to all men was nothing to any one. The system of government which it provided was too complicated. It looked as if there must be a third change in the management of the Batavian Republic. General Bonaparte was asked for his opinion. General Bonaparte at that moment was going through one of the sporadic changes in his nature. He began to have his hair cut and pay attention to the state of his linen. He commenced to understand that a revolution might be all very well, but that a firm and stable government had enormous advantages. And if the rich people in Holland wished to drop some of their former revolutionary notions and make their government more conservative, they certainly were welcome to the change.

This time there was not even a coup d'état. The legislative assembly—the combined meeting of both houses—convened solemnly, like a house of bishops, and proposed a revision of the constitution.

On the 16th of March, 1801, a committee was appointed to draw up a more practical constitution, one more in accord with the historical development of the people. The committee went to work with eagerness, and with the French ambassador as their constant adviser. General Bonaparte was kept informed of all the proceedings, and everything went along as nicely as could be desired. But when the work was done the legislative assembly, after a very complicated discussion, suddenly rejected the new constitution five to one.

What the assembly could not do, the Dutch directors could do. Yes, but the difficulty was that two of the five directors seemed to be against revision. "Three directors are better than five," came back from Paris. The two opposing directors were informed that their opinion would no longer be asked for, and the three others hired a second-class newspaper man who had seen better days and ordered him to draw up a new constitution. Our distinguished colleague, who used to make a living writing political speeches for the members of the different assemblies, set to work to earn his extra pennies, and in less than the time which had been allowed him, his constitution, neatly copied, was in the hands of the three directors. They sent it to Paris. Napoleon changed a few minor articles, but approved of the document as a whole. Now, according to the rules of the old constitution, the document should have been sent to the members of the assembly for their approval. The directors, however, did not bother about such small details, and had the constitution printed and sent directly to the voters. The two discarded directors and the assembly protested. But this time there was not even a chance for defiance or for a heroic stand in parliament. The doors of the assembly were locked and were kept locked. The assemblymen could protest in the street, but for all practical purposes they had ceased to exist.

On the 1st of October, 1801, the vote of the people was taken. It appeared that there were five times as many nays as yeas. Therefore the nays had it?

Not while Consul Bonaparte resides in the Tuilleries.

How many voters were there in the republic? 416,419.

How many had voted in all? 68,990.

Well, count all those who did not vote among the yeas and see how the sum will come out then? A very ingenious method. The count was made, and then the yeas had it.

He new constitution was reduced to only 106 articles. The sovereign people, with all due respect for their votes, were deprived of most of their former power. The chief executive and legislative power was vested in a body of twelve men. They were appointed by the different provinces,