"I venture to affirm that it is the love of truth which leads me to undertake this writing. _It is a sentiment of justice which I owe to the man who was my friend, and whom human feebleness has disfigured in a manner so unworthy. Napoleon was, above all, a friend of the people, and he was a just and good man, even more than he was a great warrior and administrator. It is my duty, as his elder brother, and one who has not always shared in his political opinions, to speak of that which I know, and to express convictions which I profoundly cherish._ I am now in a better situation to appreciate what were the causes foreign to his nature, which forced him to assume a factitious character--a character which made him feared by the instruments which he had to employ, in order to sustain against Europe the war which the oligarchy had declared against the principles of the revolution, and which the British Cabinet waged against that France whose supremacy it could prevent only by exciting against her Continental wars and civil dissensions, and those despotic principles of government which no longer belonged to the nation or the age in which we lived." CHAPTER VI THE SPANISH PRINCES. 1807-1808 Letter to Julie.--Victories of the Emperor.--Joseph and Napoleon meet at Venice.--Joseph returns to Naples.--Lucien Bonaparte.--Letter from Eliza Bonaparte.--Letter from Joseph to Napoleon.--Interchange of Letters. --Attempt to assassinate Salicetti.--Napoleon complains of Roederer. --Queen Julie and her Children repair to Naples.--Treachery of Spain. --Plan of Napoleon.--Testimony in Favor of Joseph.--Joseph's Journey to Bayonne.--Forebodings of Joseph.--The Brigands.--Queen Julie leaving Naples.--Summary of Joseph's Benefactions to Naples.--Hostility of the British Government.--Condition of Europe.--Measures of the Bourbons of Spain.--Character of the Royal Family of Spain.--The Spanish Princes. Toward the close of the year 1807 brigandage was entirely suppressed, all traces of insurrection had disappeared, and tranquillity and prosperity reigned throughout the kingdom of Naples. In July Joseph wrote from Capo di Monte to Queen Julie, who was then at Mortfontaine, as follows: