for their own security, to form an alliance with England; this leads him
to break down all the old monarchies that are still intact, to conquer
Naples, to mutilate Austria the first time, to dismember and cut up
Prussia, to mutilate Austria the second time, to manufacture kingdoms
for his brothers at Naples, in Holland and in Westphalia.--At this same
date, all the ports of his empire are closed against the English, which
leads him to close against them all the ports of the Continent, to
organize against them the continental blockade, to proclaim against them
an European crusade, to prevent the neutrality of sovereigns like
the Pope, of lukewarm subalterns like his brother Louis, of doubtful
collaborators or inadequate, like the Braganzas of Portugal and the
Bourbons of Spain, and therefore to get hold of Portugal, Spain, the
Pontifical States, and Holland, and next of the Hanseatic towns and the
duchy of Oldenburg, to extending along the entire coast, from the
mouths of the Cattaro and Trieste to Hamburg and Dantzic, his cordon of
military chiefs, prefects, and custom-houses, a sort of net of which he
draws the meshes tighter and tighter every day, even stifling not alone
his home consumer, but the producer and the merchant.[12118]--And all
this sometimes by a simple decree, with no other alleged motive than
his interest, his convenience, or his pleasure,[12119] brusquely
and arbitrarily, in violation of international law, humanity, and
hospitality. It would take volumes to describe his abuses of power, the
tissue of brutalities and knaveries,[12120] the oppression of the ally
and despoiling of the vanquished, the military brigandage exercised over
populations in time of war, and by the systematic exactions practiced on
them in times of peace.[12121]

Accordingly, after 1808, these populations rise against him. He has so
deeply injured them in their interests, and hurt their feelings to such
an extent,[12122] he has so trodden them down, ransomed, and forced them
into his service. He has destroyed, apart from French lives, so many
Spanish, Italian, Austrian, Prussian, Swiss, Bavarian, Saxon, and Dutch
lives, he has slain so many men as enemies, he has enlisted such numbers
at home, and slain so many under his own banners as auxiliaries, that
nations are still more hostile to him than sovereigns. Unquestionably,
nobody can live together with such a character; his genius is too vast,
too baneful, and all the more because