Mari Sanders
Film maker and documentary maker
Do what must be done, and do not look back, you thought, as you tearfully held your tricorn hat in trembling hands and exchanged the French cockade for the Dutch one, becoming the first king of a crippled country, a patchwork of impoverished provinces. Limping and dragging your feet, racked with rheumatic pain – no one was allowed to know, even your walking stick was erased from your portrait – you resolutely endeavoured to bring grandeur to the land of merchant and minister.
Your big brother thought you should be a regent for France. He wanted tax revenue, troops, ships of the line, a vassal state ruled with his iron fist. But you refused to speak French, seeing yourself only as a servant of your subjects. You cleared the rubble after the gunpowder explosion, raised the dykes – with grim determination, detached from the stormy reality.
History is often unkind to gentle leaders. Your brother ousted you from the throne. The House of Orange rewrote history and pushed you to the margins. No longer Louis the Good, you became ‘that lame king’.
Jetta Klijnsma
Chair of the Foundation for the 2028 Special Olympics National Games
During the period of French rule, Louis Napoleon was King of the Netherlands for four years, from 1806 to 1810. Napoleon Bonaparte, his brother, had installed him there. King Louis Napoleon was popular with the Dutch people. He granted city rights to Assen, for example, something we in Drenthe are still pleased about.
Louis Napoleon is known as ‘the good king’, but also as ‘the lame king’! It seems he had a disability, but we do not know exactly what condition it was, and this portrait does not make that any clearer. Louis is wearing a glove on his right hand, but that does not necessarily mean that he had difficulty using that hand. Public officials with a disability generally preferred not to have it brought to light, because they might then be labelled as ‘weak’. Fortunately, that is much less the case nowadays. I was born with spastic legs, which regularly appear in photographs, as do my walking frame or wheelchair. It is wonderful that effective aids have been developed and that they can help people with disabilities make their contribution to public office (and, of course, to other sections of society).
Louis Napoleon apparently walked with a stick – it would not have looked out of place in this portrait.
Mayken Jonkman
Curator of 19th-Century Paintings
Louis Napoleon is dressed here in a fashionable white suit. The epaulettes on his shoulders and the gold buttons bring to mind a military uniform and refer to his illustrious career in the French army. On his chest are the Dutch Order of the Union and the French Legion of Honour, representing two countries to which he pledged his loyalty. The suit is closely tailored and reveals rather more than it conceals.
Particularly striking is the glove with which he is so often depicted. Why is he wearing it? And where is the other one? Louis Napoleon is said to have suffered from rheumatism; keeping the hand warm can sometimes help to relieve the pain . Technical analysis reveals that he was originally holding a cane. Perhaps it was a fashionable accessory at the time, though he might also have used it as a support. The cane was later painted over—we do not know why. If you look closely, you can still see traces of it.
