nd. And even while his Empire was crumbling
away after that disaster, he wrote to his mother: "Holland is a French
country, _and will remain so for ever_."[394]

Russia, Prussia, and Britain were equally determined that the Dutch
should be independent; and if Metternich wavered on the subject of
Dutch independence, his hesitation was at an end by the middle of
December, for a memorandum of the Russian diplomatist, Pozzo di Borgo,
states that Metternich then regarded the Rhine boundary as ending at
Duesseldorf: "after that town the river takes the name of Waal."[395]
Such juggling with geography was surely superfluous; for by that time
the Frankfurt terms had virtually lapsed, owing to Napoleon's belated
acceptance; and Metternich had joined the other allied Governments
that now demanded a more thorough solution of the boundary question.

In fact, the allies were now able to make political capital out of
their recent moderation.[396] On December 1st they issued an appeal to
the French nation to the following effect: "We do not make war on
France, but we are casting off the yoke which your Government imposed
on our countries. We hoped to have found peace before touching your
soil: we now go to find it there."

If the sovereigns hoped by means of this declaration to separate
France from Napoleon, they erred. To cross the Rhine was to attack,
not Napoleon, but the French Revolution. Belgium and the Rhine
boundary had been won by Dumouriez, Jourdain, Pichegru, and Moreau, at
a time when Bonaparte's name was unknown outside Corsica and Provence.
France had looked on wearily at Napoleon's wars in Germany, Spain, and
Russia: they concerned him, not her. But when the "sacred soil" was
threatened, citizens began to close their ranks: they ceased their
declamations against the crushing taxes and youth-slaying
conscription: they submitted to heavier taxes and levies of still
younger lads. In fact, by doffing the mask of Charlemagne, the Emperor
became once more the Bonaparte of the days of Marengo.

He counted on some such change in public opinion; and it enabled him
to defy with impunity the beginnings of a Parliamentary opposition.
The Senate had been puffily obsequious, as usual; but the Corps
Legislatif had mistaken its functions. Summoned to vote new taxes, it
presumed to give advice. A commission of its members agreed to a
report on the existing situation, drawn up by Laine, which gave the
Emperor great offence. Its crime