In June 1806 the Batavian Republic became the Kingdom of Holland and Louis Bonaparte received its crown. Napoleon expected a crowned prefect: a king who would apply the Blockade, raise conscripts and pay. Louis, sickly, scrupulous and stubborn, did exactly the opposite — he took seriously the job of being that country's king.
He learned Dutch, had himself called Lodewijk, tolerated the smuggling that kept the ports alive, refused general conscription, and gave massive relief to the victims of a powder ship explosion at Leiden in 1807 and of the flood of 1809. The Dutch, who had received him as an occupier, ended up calling him the good king. In 1808 he moved his court to Amsterdam and turned the town hall on the Dam into a royal palace.
The break with Napoleon was continuous and public. The imperial letters grew insulting; he was accused of betraying France out of weakness for his subjects. On 1 July 1810 Louis abdicated in favour of his son and fled to Bohemia. On 9 July a decree annexed Holland outright: the Empire then reached a hundred and thirty departments and the North Sea.
The annexation lasted three years and cost dearly: conscription, customs, the collapse of colonial trade. In November 1813, after Leipzig, the country rose and recalled the Orange family. Louis died at Livorno in 1846; his third son, Louis-Napoleon, would become Napoleon III. The royal palace on the Dam has remained a royal palace.
