232 ANNUAL REGISTEU, 1810. 



C II A P. XV. 



Marriage of Buonaparte toith the Archduchess Maria Louisa of Austria^ 

 — Addresses from all Quarters, and Festivities on this occasion. — Cha- 

 racter of the 7ie'u} Etnpress. — French troops pour into Holland. — Treaty 

 between Napoleon and Lewis Buonaparte. — Infringed by the former. — 

 Lewis abdicates the Throne of Holland in favour of his eldest Son. — 

 Farewell Address of Lewis to the Dutch. — The Character and Conduct 

 of Lewis contrasted with that of his Brother Lucien. — Conference 

 between a Commissioner from Holland and the Marquis Wellesley, 

 British Secretary of State, on the Subject of a Maritime Peace.— - 

 Annexation of Holland, and all the Territories between the Elbe and 

 the Ems to the French Empire— And of the Valais. — New Measure 

 for recruiting the Naval Force of France. — Population of the French 

 Empire. — Annexation of Hanover to Westphalia. — Extension of the 

 French Conscription Laws. — Various Modes in which Buonaparte 

 rivetted the Chains in which he had bound the French.^-And Means 

 by which he provides for his personal safety. — His Rage against 

 ■English Commerce— Curbs the Priesthood at Rome. 



THE divorce of Josephina from 

 the emperor Napoleon, 

 wliich was conducted with great 

 dignity and decorum, * was a pre- 

 lude, as might well be imagined, 

 to a second marriage. Buona- 

 parte, on the 27th of February, 

 announced, by a message to the 

 senate, that he had dispatched on 

 the 25th his cousin, the prince 

 of Neufchatel, to Vienna, to de- 

 mand for him the hand of the 

 archduchess Louisa Maria, daugh- 

 ter of the emperor Francis II. ac- 

 cording to a contract that had 

 been made, and of which the con- 

 ditions were to be laid before 

 them. The ceremony of mar- 

 riage, in which the archduke 

 Charles received the hand of his 

 niece, as the representative of 



Buonaparte, was performed on the 

 11th of March. This was a grand 

 source of amusement in a great 

 variety of ways, both to the volaT 

 tile French, and the stiff and 

 formal German nations : the feasts, 

 the balls, the shows, the poetry, 

 and the addresses and other pieces 

 in prose, to which it gave birth, 

 were endless.. From Vienna to 

 Compiegne, the road by which 

 the princess passed, seemed to be 

 strewed with flowers. Parisleaped 

 for joy. It was at first generally, 

 indeed almost universally ima- 

 gined, that she was an unwilling, 

 though resigned victim to the pre- 

 servation of her family from far- 

 ther humiliation, if not total ruin. 

 Another virgin of Gilcadjfobedient 

 to the call of filial reverence and 



* Sec Vol. LI. (1809) pp 805— 811. 



t Daughter of Jcphtha. Judges, diap. xi. 



