ere to
break off they had better break off on this question. He himself would
cease to control lands beyond the natural frontiers, and would
recognize the independence of Holland: as regards Belgium, he would
refuse to cede it to a prince of the House of Orange, but he hinted
that it might well go to a French prince as an indemnity--evidently
Joseph Bonaparte was meant. If this concession were made, he expected
that all the French colonies, including the Ile de France, would be
restored. Nothing definite was said about the Rhine frontier.

The courier who carried these proposals from Rheims to Chatillon was
twice detained by the Russians, and had not reached the town when the
Congress came to an end (March 19th). Their only importance,
therefore, is to show that, despite all the warnings in which the
Prague negotiations were so fruitful, Napoleon clung to the same
threatening and dilatory tactics which had then driven Austria into
the arms of his foes. He still persisted in looking on the time limit
of the allies as meaningless, on their ultimatum as their _first
word_, from which they would soon shuffle away under the pressure of
his prowess--and this, too, when Caulaincourt was daily warning him
that the hours were numbered, that nothing would change the resolve of
his foes, and that their defeats only increased their exasperation
against him.

If anything could have increased this exasperation, it was the
discovery that he was playing with them all the time. On the 20th the
allied scouts brought to head-quarters a despatch written by Maret the
day before to Caulaincourt which contained this damning sentence: "The
Emperor's desires remain entirely vague on everything relating to the
delivering up of the strongholds, Antwerp, Mayence, and Alessandria,
if you should be obliged to consent to these cessions, as he has the
intention, even after the ratification of the treaty, to take counsel
from the military situation of affairs. Wait for the last
moment."[435] Peace, then, was to be patched up for Napoleon's
convenience and broken by him at the first seasonable opportunity. Is
it surprising that on that same day the Ministers of the Powers
decided to have no more negotiations with Napoleon, and that
Metternich listened not unfavourably to the emissary of the Bourbons,
the Count de Vitrolles, whom he had previously kept at arm's length?

In truth, Napoleon was now about to stake everything on a plan from
which other l