This honest veteran had in fact a deeper insight into affairs than the most wary diplomatists.[19] In 1815, the same persons, as in 1814, met in Paris, and similar interests were agitated. Foreign jealousy again effected the conclusion of this peace at the expense of Germany and in favor of France. Blucher's influence at first reigned supreme. The king of Prussia, who, together with the emperors of Russia and Austria, revisited Paris, took Stein and Gruner into his council. The crown prince of Wurtemberg also zealously exerted himself in favor of the reunion of Lorraine and Alsace with Germany.[20] But Russia and England beholding the reintegration of Germany with displeasure, Austria,[21] and finally Prussia, against whose patriots all were in league, yielded.[22] The future destinies of Europe were settled on the side of England by Wellington and Castlereagh; on that of Russia by Prince John Razumowsky, Nesselrode, and Capo d'Istria; on that of Austria by Metternich and Wessenberg; on that of Prussia by Hardenberg and William von Humboldt. The German patriots were excluded from the discussion,[23] and a result extremely unfavorable to Germany naturally followed:[24] Alsace and Lorraine remained annexed to France. By the second treaty of Paris, which was definitively concluded on the 20th of November, 1815, France was merely compelled to give up the fortresses of Philippeville, Marienburg, Sarlouis, and Landau, to demolish Huningen, and to allow eighteen other fortresses on the German frontier to be occupied by the allies until the new government had taken firm footing in France. Until then, one hundred and fifty thousand of the allied troops were also to remain within the French territory and to be maintained at the expense of the people. France was, moreover, condemned to pay seven hundred millions of francs toward the expenses of the war and to restore the chef d'oeuvres of which she had deprived every capital in Europe. The sword of Frederick the Great was not refound: Marshal Serrurier declared that he had burned it.[25] On the other hand, however, almost all the famous old German manuscripts, which had formerly been carried from Heidelberg to Rome, and thence by Napoleon to Paris, were sent back to Heidelberg. One of the most valuable, the Manessian Code of the Swabian Minnesingers, was left in Paris, where it had been concealed. Blucher expired, in 1819, on his estate in Silesia.[26]
The French were now sufficiently humbled to remain in tranquillity, and designedly displayed such submission that the allied sovereigns resolved, at a congress held at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the autumn of 1818, to withdraw their troops. Napoleon was, with the concurrence of the assembled powers, taken to the island of St. Helena, where, surrounded by the dreary ocean, several hundred miles from any inhabited spot, and guarded with petty severity by the English, he was at length deprived of every means of disturbing the peace of Europe. Inactivity and the unhealthiness of the climate speedily dissolved the earthly abode of this giant spirit. He expired on the 5th of May, 1821. His consort, Maria Louisa, was created Duchess of Parma; and his son lived, under the title of Duke of Reichstadt, with his imperial grandfather at Vienna, until his death in 1832. Napoleon's stepson, Eugene Beauharnais, the former viceroy of Italy, the son-in-law to the king of Bavaria, received the newly-created mediatized principality of Eichstadt, which was dependent upon Bavaria, and the title of Duke of Leuchtenberg. Jerome, the former king of Westphalia, became Count de Montfort;[27] Louis, ex-king of Holland, Count de St. Leu.
[Footnote 1: From London, Frederick William went to Switzerland and took possession of his ancient hereditary territory, Wälsch-Neuenburg or Neufchâtel, visited the beautiful Bernese Oberland, and then returned to Berlin, where, on the 7th of August, he passed in triumph through the Brandenburg gate, which was again adorned with the car of victory and the fine group of horses, and rode through the lime trees to an altar, around which the clergy belonging to every religious sect were assembled. Here public thanks were given and the whole of the citizens present fell upon their knees.—Allgemeine Zeitung, 262. On the 17th of September, the preparation of a new liturgy was announced in a ministerial proclamation, "by which the solemnity of the church service was to be increased, the present one being too little calculated to excite or strike the imagination.">[
[Footnote 2: Oxford conferred a doctor's degree upon Blücher, who, upon receiving this strange honor, said, "Make Gneisenau apothecary, for he it was who prepared my pills." On his first reception at Carlton House, the populace pushed their way through the guards and doors as far as the apartments of the prince-regent, who, taking his gray-headed guest by the hand, presented him to them, and publicly hung his portrait set in brilliants around his neck. On his passing through the streets, the horses were taken from his carriage, and he was drawn in triumph by the shouting crowd. One fête succeeded another. During the great races at Ascot, the crowd breaking through the barriers and insisting upon Blücher's showing himself, the prince-regent came forward, and, politely telling them that he had not yet arrived, led forward the emperor Alexander, who was loudly cheered, but Blücher's arrival was greeted with thunders of applause far surpassing those bestowed upon the sovereigns, a circumstance that was afterward blamed by the English papers. In the Freemasons' Lodge, Blücher was received by numbers of ladies, on each of whom he bestowed a salute. At Portsmouth, he drank to the health of the English in the presence of an immense concourse of people assembled beneath his windows.—The general rejoicing was solely clouded by the domestic circumstances of the royal family, by the insanity of the aged and blind king and by the disunion reigning between the prince-regent and his thoughtless consort, Caroline of Brunswick.—Although the whole of the allied sovereigns, some of whom were unable to speak English, understood German, French was adopted as the medium of conversation.— Allgemeine Zeitung, 174.]
[Footnote 3: "There are moments in the life of nations on which the whole of their future destiny depends. The children are destined to expiate their fathers' errors with their blood. Germany has everything to fear from the foreigner, and yet she cannot arrange her own affairs without calling the foreigner to her aid.—Who, in the congress, chiefly oppose every well-laid plan? Who, with the dagger's point pick out and reopen all our wounds, and rub them with salt and poison? Who promote confusion, provoke, insinuate, and attempt to creep into every committee, to interfere in every discussion? who but those sent thither by France?"—The Rhenish Mercury.]
[Footnote 4: Fate willed that Stein should not be called upon to act with firmness, but Hardenberg to make concessions. Stein disappeared from the theatre of events and was degraded to a lower sphere. Hardenberg was created prince.]
[Footnote 5: Napoleon had such good friends among the Rhenish confederated princes that Augustus, duke of Gotha, for instance, even after the second occupation of Paris, on the return of his troops in the November of 1815, prohibited any demonstrations of triumph and even deprived the Landwehr of their uniforms, so that the poor fellows had to return in their shirt-sleeves to their native villages during the hard winter.—Jacob's Campaigns.]
[Footnote 6: An attack upon Berne had already been concerted. Colonel Bär marched with the people of Aargau in the night time upon Aarburg, but his confederates failing to make their appearance, he caused the nearest Bernese governor to be alarmed and hastily retraced his steps. The Bernese instantly sent an armed force to the frontier, where, finding all tranquil, the charge of aggression was thrown upon their shoulders.]
[Footnote 7: Vide Muralt's Life of Reinhard.]
[Footnote 8: Blücher was at Berlin at the moment when the news of Napoleon's escape arrived. He instantly roused the English ambassador from his sleep by shouting in his ear, "Have the English a fleet in the Mediterranean?">[