The elevation of Napoleon's brother Joseph to the throne of Naples was the first of a series of appointments now made by Napoleon in the character of Emperor of the West. He began to style himself the new Charlemagne; his thoughts and his language were filled with pictures of universal sovereignty; his authority, as a military despot who had crushed his neighbours, became strangely confused in his own mind with that half-sacred right of the Cæsars from which the Middle Ages derived all subordinate forms of power. He began to treat the government of the different countries of Western Europe as a function to be exercised by delegation from himself. Even the territorial grants which under the Feudal System accompanied military or civil office were now revived and the commander of a French army-corps or the chief of the French Foreign Office became the titular lord of some obscure Italian principality. [123] Napoleon's own family were to reign in many lands, as the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs had reigned before them, but in strict dependence on their head. Joseph Bonaparte had not long been installed at Naples when his brother Louis was compelled to accept the Crown of Holland. Jerome, for whom no kingdom was at present vacant, was forced to renounce his American wife, in order that he might marry the daughter of the King of Würtemberg. Eugène Beauharnais, Napoleon's step-son, held the office of Viceroy of Italy; Murat, who had married Napoleon's sister, had the German Duchy of Berg. Bernadotte, Talleyrand, and Berthier found themselves suzerains of districts whose names were almost unknown to them. Out of the revenues of Northern Italy a yearly sum was reserved as an endowment for the generals whom the Emperor chose to raise to princely honours. [Federation of the Rhine.]