nd travelled swiftly and secretly eastwards until
he reached Teplitz, in Bohemia. The ignominy of this flight rested on
the brother who had made kingship a mockery. The refugee left behind
him the reputation of a man who, lovable by nature but soured by
domestic discords, sought to shield his subjects from the ruin into
which the rigid application of the Continental System was certain to
plunge them. That fate now befell the unhappy little land. On July 9th
it was annexed to the French Empire, and all the commercial decrees
were carried out as rigidly at Rotterdam as at Havre.

At the close of the year, Napoleon's coast system was extended to the
borders of Holstein by the annexation of Oldenburg, the northern parts
of Berg, Westphalia, and Hanover, along with Lauenburg and the Hanse
Towns, Bremen, Hamburg, and Luebeck. The little Swiss Republic of
Valais was also absorbed in the Empire.

This change in North Germany, which carried the French flag to the
shores of the Baltic, was his final expedient for assuring England's
commercial ruin. As far back as February, 1798, he had recommended the
extension of French influence over the Hanse Towns as a means of
reducing his most redoubtable foe to surrender, and now there were two
special reasons for this annexation. First, the ships of Oldenburg had
been largely used for conveying British produce into North
Germany;[228] and secondly, the French commercial code was so rigorous
that no officials with even the semblance of independence could be
trusted with its execution. On August 5th a decree had been
promulgated at the Trianon, near Versailles, which imposed enormous
duties on every important colonial product. Cotton--especially that
from America--sugar, tea, coffee, cocoa, and other articles were
subjected to dues, generally of half their value and irrespective of
their place of production.

[Illustration: CENTRAL EUROPE AFTER 1810]

Traders were ordered to declare their possession of all colonial wares
and to pay the duty, under pain of confiscation. Depots of such goods
within four days' distance from the frontiers of the Empire were held
to be clandestine; and troops were sent forthwith into Germany,
Switzerland, and Spain to seize such stores, a proceeding which
aroused the men of Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Berne to almost open
resistance. It is difficult to see the reason for this decree, except
on the supposition that the Continental System did not stop British
i