Meanwhile he spent full eleven days at Valladolid, busy with all manner of desk-work, connected not merely with Spain, but with the affairs of the whole continent. He was evidently anxious to leave an impression of terror behind him: he hectored and bullied the unfortunate Spanish deputations that were compelled to come before him in the most insulting fashion. His harangues generally wound up with the declaration that if he was ever forced to come back to Spain in arms, he would remove his brother Joseph, and divide the realm into subject provinces, which should be governed by martial law. Some French soldiers (probably marauders) having been assassinated, he arrested and threatened to hang the whole municipality of Valladolid, finally releasing them only when three persons accused (rightly or wrongly) of the murders were delated to him and executed. He sent advice to King Joseph to deal in the same way with Madrid: nothing would keep the capital quiet, he wrote, but a good string of executions[26]. It was to be many years before he realized that hanging did no good in Spain, and was only repaid by additional assassinations. In return for this good advice to his brother, he extorted from him fifty of the choicest pictures of the royal gallery at Madrid; but in compensation Joseph was invited to annex all that he might choose from the private collections of the exiled Spanish nobility and the monasteries of the capital[27]. [26] ‘Faites donc pendre une douzaine d’individus à Madrid: il n’y manque point de mauvais sujets, et sans cela il n’y aura rien de fait.’ _Nap. Corresp._, 14,684. Compare Lecestre, _Lettres inédites de Napoléon_, i. 275, where orders are given that thirty persons, who had already been acquitted by the civil tribunals, should he rearrested, tried again before a court martial, and promptly shot! Napoleon to Joseph, Jan. 16, 1809. [27] ‘Je préfèrerais que vous prissiez tous les tableaux qui se trouvent dans les maisons confisquées et dans les couvents supprimés, et que vous me fissiez présent d’une cinquantaine de chefs-d’œuvre. Vous sentez qu’il ne faut que de bonnes choses.’ _Nap. Corresp._, 14,717.