France -- Civilization; France -- Politics and government; France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
[Footnote 12120: We are familiar with the Spanish affair. His treatment
of Portugal is anterior and of same order.-" Correspondance." (Letter to
Junot, Oct.31, 1807):--'I have already informed you, that in authorizing
you to enter as an auxiliary, it was to enable you to possess
yourself of the (Portuguese) fleet, but my mind was made up to take
Portugal."--(Letter to Junot, Dec. 23, 1807): "Disarm the country. Send
all the Portuguese troops to France.... I want them out of the country.
Have all princes, ministers, and other men who serve as rallying points,
sent to France."--(Decree of Dec. 23, 1807): "An extra contribution
of 100 million francs shall be imposed on the kingdom of Portugal, to
redeem all property, of whatever denomination, belonging to private
parties... All property belonging to the Queen of Portugal, to the
prince-regent, and to princes in appanage;.... all the possessions of
the nobles who have followed the king, on his abandoning the country,
and who had not returned to the kingdom before February 1, shall be put
under sequestration."--Cf. M. d'Haussonville, "L'Église Romaine et le
premier Empire," 5 vols. (especially the last volume). No other work
enables one to see into Napoleon's object and proceedings better nor
more closely.]
[Footnote 12121: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," p.143. (As a
specimen of steps taken in time of war, see the register of Marshal
Bessières' orders, commandant at Valladolid from April 11 to July 15,
1811.)--"Correspondance du Roi Jérome," letter of Jerome to Napoleon,
Dec. 5, 1811. (Showing the situation of a vanquished people in times of
peace): "If war should break out, all countries between the Rhine and
the Oder will become the center of a vast and active insurrection. The
mighty cause of this dangerous movement is not merely hatred of the
French, and impatience of a foreign yoke, but rather in the misfortunes
of the day, in the total ruin of all classes, in over-taxation,
consisting of war levies, the maintenance of troops, soldiers traversing
the country, and every sort of constantly renewed vexation.... At
Hanover, Magdebourg, and in the principal towns of my kingdom, owners of
property are abandoning their dwellings and vainly trying to dispose
of them at the lowest prices.... Misery everywhere presses on families;
capital is exhausted; the noble, the peasant, the bourgeois, are crushed
with debt and want.... The despair of populations no longer having
anything to lose, because all has been taken away, is to be feared."--De
Pradt, p.73. (Specimen of military proceedings in allied countries.) At
Wolburch, in the Bishop of Cujavie's chateau, "I found his secretary,
canon of Cujavie, decorated with the ribbon and cross of his order, who
showed me his jaw, broken by the vigorous blows administered to him the
previous evening by General Count Vandamme, because he had refused to
serve Tokay wine, imperiously demanded by the general; he was told that
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