Though Louis had obtained military promotion, he certainly had no talents for the field, so that the duties required from him were chiefly of a civil nature. He was at one time sent to Turin, to preside over the Electoral College of the Po; at another, he was made Constable of France, and Councillor of State. In 1807 he reached his highest elevation, -- he was called to the throne of Holland.

Of all the sceptred relations of Napoleon, this king was by far the most popular with his subjects. The dignity was not of his seeking; he would, in fact, much rather have dispensed with it; and he even went so far as to allege the delicacy of his constitution, and the unfavourableness of the climate, as reasons for declining it: "It is better to die a king than to live a prince!" was the reply, and Louis entered on his regal duties. He administered justice with the strictest impartiality; lived in a frugal style; -- relieved the wants of his people; -- redressed complaints; and diminished as much as possible the weight of the public taxes. Add to this, his unaffected simplicity and ever-active kindness, and we need not be surprised that the Dutch regarded him with favour. When two boats laden with gunpowder exploded at Leyden, and killed or maimed many of the inhabitants, no one hastened to the spot more promptly than Louis; no one was more liberal of money to the surviving victims, or more ready to testify an affectionate sympathy with their sufferings. When, in 1809, a sudden inundation overspread several districts, laid waste the labours of industry, and deprived numbers of their habitations, he was there exercising the same beneficence.

But his popularity was entirely of a personal nature: he was compelled to be the instrument of measures at which he inwardly grieved. The immense sums drawn by Napoleon from the country, and the continuance of the Continental System, called forth the indignant murmurs of the Dutch. Louis did all he could to relieve them: he connived at their intercourse with the English, for he saw well that the nation depended for its very existence on commerce, the far greater portion of which was carried on with this country. He was thwarted in all these matters by his wife, the beautiful Hortense de Beauharnois, daughter to the Empress Josephine. This unprincipled woman, a great favourite with Napoleon, systematically ridiculed and opposed her goodnatured husband, and was, in fact, at the head of the French party in Amsterdam.

Napoleon became furious at the pertinacity with which the king evaded his rigorous commercial prohibitions. About the time of his marriage with Maria Louisa, he summoned Louis to Paris, called him a smuggler, upbraided him severely for his toleration, and threatened to occupy Holland with French troops to enforce the tyrannical system. Louis replied that, in ascending the throne of that country, he considered himself no longer a Frenchman, but a Dutchman; and added that if the imperial troops invaded Holland, he should no longer regard himself as king. Both brothers kept their resolution. The French troops were soon pour into the country; and Louis, too independent to submit foreign dictation, but too weak to make any effectual resistance, abdicated in favor of is son, and fled to Gratz in Styria. The kingdom was soon annexed to the French empire; and an indemnity of two millions of francs decreed the ex-monarch; but his wife gained possession of the whole sum, and refused to give him a sous.

At Gratz, Louis led the life of a private gentleman, renouncing every title of distinction, and subsisting on a very moderate pension granted him by his brother. There he passed three tranquil years, which he valued the more from the absence of his wife. Such was the propriety of his conduct, that, when Austria, in 1813, declared war against France, he might have remained at Gratz in perfect security; but he preferred retiring to Rome. He did not return to Paris during the Hundred Days -- probably because Hortense was there, and was supposed to have had a hand in the revolution which preceded. He remains in the papal territories, where he is known as Count of St. Leu.

The attachment of the ex-king to literature is as ardent as Lucien's. In 1808 he published a novel under the title of "Maria, or the Torments of Love." Of this work a new edition appeared in 1814, entitled "Maria, or the Dutch Women" (les Hollandaises). It is said to describe very naturally the manners and customs of the Dutch, and to express strongly the interest with which the author regarded that simple and honest nation. In 1820 a much more important work issued from the press -- "Historic Documents, and Reflections on the Government of Holland, by Louis Bonaparte, Ex-king of Holland," in five volumes octavo. It contains a detailed account of his own administration, and is well worth consulting by the historian.

More recently the Count of St. Leu has lowered himself in the opinion of the judicious by an intemperate attack on Sir Walter Scott's "Life of Napoleon Buonaparte." The errors which he discovers are, with one or two exceptions, so unimportant, as considerably to raise the character of that work for general accuracy. This attack occasioned the more surprise from the uniformly honourable mention made of himself in Sir Walter Scott's pages.