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measure designed to protect France from a vengeful world and ensure that her satellites were in safe hands. This latter position was certainly that adopted by Napoleon himself in defence of his actions. If Joseph was placed on the throne of Naples, it was because Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina had proved themselves to be unreliable, treacherous and utterly lacking in gratitude: the peace settlements of 1796 and 1801 had cost them almost nothing in the way of territory, and in 1803 they had been allowed to remain on the throne when the emperor had had but to raise his little finger to sweep them aside. As Napoleon said in the proclamation announcing their downfall:

Soldiers! For ten years I have done all that I can to save the King of Naples, whereas he has done all that he can to secure his downfall . . . Should we show mercy for a fourth time? Should we for a fourth time trust a court without faith, honour or reason? The dynasty of Naples has ceased to reign: its existence is incompatible with the peace of Europe and the honour of my crown.36

Much the same reasoning is visible in the decision to transform the Batavian Republic into a kingdom under Louis Bonaparte. Politically, the Dutch were as unreliable as the Neapolitans. As Napoleon told Talleyrand, ‘If . . . French troops were to evacuate Holland, we would have an enemy government on our frontiers.’37 In addition to all this, the Dutch had been giving little support to the war effort: given the command of an invasion camp set up at Zeist in 1804, Marmont complained that he met ‘the greatest opposition from everybody’ and that the Dutch government saw his plans as ‘an object of expense’.38 Initially, an attempt had been made to find a domestic solution by instituting a version of the French constitution of 1800, complete with the leading politician, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, as ‘Grand Pensionary’. But Schimmelpenninck achieved next to nothing, and the fact that he was rapidly losing his sight was inclined to undermine confidence in him as a substitute Napoleon. In March 1806 the Dutch government was given a stark choice between annexation and becoming a monarchy, and on 5 June Louis Bonaparte was duly declared King of Holland. Louis, of course, owed his new position to the fact that he was loyal to Napoleon, but it carried a heavy price: no sooner had he arrived in The Hague than Louis was receiving letters from Napoleon informing him that he could expect no money from the French treasury and should therefore aim to meet all his requirements himself: ‘You must strip your council of all hope that I will send it money; unless you do this, it will not give you the means you need to get to grips with your affairs.’39 The Bonapartes, in short, were not just satraps whom Napoleon could rely on to defend the French empire; they were also satraps who could extract men, money and other useful resources at a rate that men like Schimmelpenninck would be most unlikely to go along with. There were always other issues - the family courts were a useful means of both disseminating French tastes throughout the empire and winning over the old aristocracies, while they were also an indication that Napoleon was the head of a dynasty like any other - but the conclusion is inescapable: at the heart of the satellite monarchies was the issue of, first, exploitation in the service of an aggressive foreign policy, and, second, the continued glorification of the emperor.

Inherent in this construction of an imperial dynasty was also the adoption of traditional methods of royal foreign policy. Thus in the aftermath of Austerlitz Napoleon embarked on a series of marriage alliances with the states of southern Germany. In January 1806 Eugène de Beauharnais married Augusta-Amalia, the daughter of the newly enthroned Maximilian-Joseph of Bavaria (in a story that is frequently extremely depressing, it is pleasant to note that this particular arranged marriage turned into a genuine love-match that gave both parties much happiness). Stéphanie de Beauharnais, a second cousin of Eugène and Hortense,