526 Chapter XXI
that efficiency was not such a government’s strongest point. Democrats fell out
with one another. “True” democrats denounced “false” ones. Gogel, the radical
democrat, finance minister under the new constitution, complained that all sorts of
people—druggists, organists, notaries’ clerks, and policemen—were trying to tell
the government what to do.^39 People began to send anonymous letters to Talley-
rand in Paris, describing the horrors in Holland; Talleyrand sent them back for
comment to Delacroix, who was able to expose many gross misrepresentations. To
refute the allegation, for example, that the country was ruled by riffraff and
fortune- hunters he reviewed the five- man Directory: “As to the dilapidation of
their fortunes, this is perhaps a matter on which a republican should keep silence,
but I will reply: Pieter Vreede is a millionaire, head of one of the finest manufacto-
ries in the republic. Van Langen is hardly less rich; he enjoys large credit, and does
an extensive business with Spain. Fynje was on the old East Indies Commission,
with a 12,000 guilder salary. This is not rich for this country, but his affairs are in
good order. The same can be said for Fokker and Wildrik, who enjoy a comfort in
this country that would be called wealth in ours.”^40
It is probably true that the Dutch regime set up on January 22 did not offer a
basis on which the politically significant classes could reach stable agreement. The
men who controlled the Dutch finances and the Dutch navy withheld their sup-
port. The French government still wanted an effectual ally. Delacroix, the old Jaco-
bin, earnestly defended the military usefulness of the Dutch regime to France.
Where the preceding Dutch rulers had done nothing but get the fleet knocked to
pieces at Camperdown, the present Dutch government, he wrote in May 1798,
maintained twelve ships of the line and transport for 15,000 troops and had as-
sembled 230 vessels at Dunkirk to embark the right wing of the French Armée
d ’Angleterre.^41
But, unknown to Delacroix, in May Bonaparte sailed for Egypt to assail Britain
in the East. The French, while still needing Dutch power in northern waters, post-
poned the invasion of the British Isles. In May, also, the French government veered
in an antidemocratic direction; the French elections of 1798, having shown a re-
vival of democratic agitation, were quashed by the so- called coup d’état of Floréal.
Talleyrand and the French Directors allowed Gogel, Daendels, and other Dutch
leaders, in agreement with the French military commander in Holland, to form a
conspiracy against Delacroix and the existing Dutch regime. Dutch politics, if not
dictated, were certainly shaped by the French: the Dutch Fructidor was followed
by the Dutch Floréal, which, in turn, foreshadowed the French Brumaire.
On June 12, 1798, by a second coup d’état, General Daendels arrested the lead-
ing members of the Batavian government and dissolved the chambers. Delacroix
left Holland a week later. He submitted to Talleyrand a final report on his mission,
justifying his own and the Dutch democrats’ actions. The coup of June 12 looked
to him like military dictatorship. “May the excessive ease with which it was carried
out not persuade some obscure centurion that to win all he need only dare all!”^42
39 Ibid., 761–62; see also 796, n. 2, and 807, n. 1.
40 Ibid., 203, n. 2.
41 Ibid., 218, n. 2.
42 Ibid., 245.