oligarchic character.

It was, however, to be but a temporary arrangement. It has already been
pointed out that, months before his actual return to Holland, the prince
had received assurances from the British government that a strong
Netherland State should be created, capable of being a barrier to French
aggression. The time had now arrived for the practical carrying-out of
this assurance. Accordingly Lord Castlereagh in January, 1814, when on
his way, as British plenipotentiary, to confer with the Allied
Sovereigns at Basel, visited the Sovereign-Prince at the Hague. The
conversations issued in a proposal to unite (with the assent of Austria)
the Belgic provinces as far as the Meuse to Holland together with the
territory between the Meuse and the Rhine as far as the line
Maestricht-Dueren-Cologne. Castlereagh submitted this project to the
allies at Basel; and it was discussed and adopted in principle at the
Conference of Chatillon (February 3 to March 15), the Austrian Emperor
having renounced all claim to his Belgian dominions in favour of an
equivalent in Venetia. This was done without any attempt to ascertain
the wishes of the Belgian people on the proposed transference of their
allegiance, and a protest was made. An assembly of notables, which had
been summoned to Brussels by the military governor, the Duke of
Saxe-Weimar, sent a deputation to the allied headquarters at Chaumont to
express their continued loyalty to their Habsburg sovereign and to ask
that, if the Emperor Francis relinquished his claim, they might be
erected into an independent State under the rule of an Austrian
archduke. A written reply (March 14) informed them that the question of
union with Holland was settled, but assurances were given that in
matters of religion, representation, commerce and the public debt their
interests would be carefully guarded. Meanwhile General Baron Vincent, a
Belgian in the Austrian service, was made governor-general.

The idea, however, of giving to Holland a slice of cis-Rhenan territory
had perforce to be abandoned in the face of Prussian objections. The
preliminary Treaty of Peace signed at Paris on May 30, 1814, was
purposely vague, Art. VI merely declaring that "Holland placed under the
sovereignty of the House of Orange shall receive an increase of
territory--_un accroissement de territoire";_ but a secret article
defined this increase as "the countries comprised between the sea, the
frontiers of France, as