 This act of defiance sealed the fate of yet another of the Batavian regimes . Napoleon had long been dissatisfied with what he viewed as the foot @-@ dragging and inefficiency of the Dutch . As a matter of fact , since the Spring of 1804 informal talks , mediated by Talleyrand , had been under way with the Batavian envoy in Paris , Schimmelpenninck , who had a good personal rapport with Napoleon ( by now emperor ) . Schimmelpenninck was a power in the Batavian Republic by himself . He had played an important role as the leader of the federalist opposition in the " revolutionary " States @-@ General of 1795 , and the first Assembly . Though an opponent of the radicals , he had politically survived the coups of 1798 , and served as ambassador to France , and as plenipotentiary to the Amiens negotiations . Now Napoleon saw him as the person to clean the Augean stables of the Dutch client state . 
