Abstract
During the reign of Louis Bonaparte (1806–10) the Kingdom of Holland suffered three major catastrophes: the explosion in the city of Leiden (1807) and floods in the provinces of Zeeland (1808) and Gelderland (1809). This paper will illustrate the close relationship between crisis, collective identity and politics during these years and show how these crises were used as political tools by rivalling parties. On the one hand, the king took the opportunity to present himself as a caring and loving father of the Dutch people by offering them emotional and financial support. On the other hand, writers used these occurrences to express their feelings of fear and discomfort concerning the foreign regime: in their opinion the series of disasters was directly related to the loss of sovereignty and the general decline of the fatherland.
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