"I have established in each province a president, or prefect, who is entirely independent of the military commandant. I have decreed the formation in each province of a legion whose organization I will soon send to your Majesty. It is not paid. It is commanded by those men who are the most opulent, the most respectable, and the most attached to the present order of things. In each province I form a company of gendarmerie, composed of Frenchmen and Neapolitans. It is with some pride that I see that all the measures which your Majesty has prescribed to me I have adopted in advance. "Whatever I may say, your Majesty can form no conception of the state of oppression, barbarism, and debasement which existed in this realm. And I can assure your Majesty that the Neapolitan officers returning to their homes become well pleased in witnessing the spirit which animates their fellow-citizens. I derive much advantage from the knowledge I have of the language, the manners, and customs of the country. The inhabitants of the mountains and of the villages resemble closely those of Corsica. And I do not think that I can be mistaken when I assure your Majesty that the people regard themselves as happy in being governed by a man who is so nearly related to your Majesty, and who bears a name which your Majesty rendered illustrious before he became an emperor, and which has for them the advantage of being Italian." On the 22d of June, 1806, Napoleon wrote to Joseph, "MY BROTHER--the Court of Rome is entirely surrendered to folly. It refuses to recognize you, and I know not what sort of a treaty it wishes to make with me. It thinks that I can not unite profound respect for the spiritual authority of the Pope, and at the same time repel his temporal pretensions. It forgets that Saint Louis, whose piety is well known, was almost always at war with the Pope, and that Charles V., who was a very Christian prince, held Rome besieged for a long time, and seized it, with every Roman state." On the 28th of February, 1806, M. de Meneval, the Emperor's secretary, had written to Joseph, "The Emperor works prodigiously. He holds three or four councils every day, from eight o'clock in the morning, when he rises, until two or three o'clock in the morning, when he goes to bed."