“This nation,” wrote Castlereagh to Aberdeen on November 13th, “is likely to view with disfavour any peace which does not confine France within her ancient limits....  We are still ready to encounter, with our allies, the hazards of peace, if peace can be made on the basis proposed, satisfactorily executed [sic]; and we are not inclined to go out of our way to interfere in the internal government of France, however much we might desire to see it placed in more pacific hands.  But I am satisfied we must not encourage our allies to patch up an imperfect arrangement.  If they will do so, we must submit; but it should appear, in that case, to be their own act, and not ours....  I must particularly entreat you to keep your attention upon Antwerp.  The destruction of that arsenal is essential to our safety.  To leave it in the hands of France is little short of imposing upon Great Britain the charge of a perpetual war establishment."[389]

Thenceforth British policy inclined, though tentatively and with some hesitations, to the view that it was needful in the interests of peace to bring France back to the limits of 1791, that is, of withdrawing from her, not only Holland, the Rhineland and Italy, but also Belgium, Savoy, and Nice.  The Prussian patriots were far more decided.  They were determined that France should not dominate the Rhineland and overawe Germany from the fortresses of Mainz, Coblenz, and Wesel.  On this subject Arndt spoke forth with no uncertain sound in a pamphlet—­“The Rhine, Germany’s river, not her boundary”—­which proved that the French claim to the Rhine frontier was consonant neither with the teachings of history nor the distribution of the two peoples.  The pamphlet had an immense effect in stirring up Germans to attack the cherished French doctrine of the natural frontiers, and it clinched the claim which he had put forward in his “Fatherland” song of the year before.  It bade Germans strive for Treves and Cologne, aye, even for Strassburg and Metz.  Hardenberg and Stein, differing on most points, united in praising this work.  Even before it appeared, the former chafed at the thought of Napoleon holding the left bank of the Rhine.  On hearing of Metternich’s Frankfurt offer to the French Emperor, he wrote in his diary:  “Propositions of peace without my assent—­Rhine, Alps, Pyrenees:  a mad business."[390]

Frederick William’s views were less pronounced:  in fact, his proneness to see a lion in every path earned for him the sobriquet of Cassandra in his Chancellor’s diary.  But in the main he was swayed by the Czar; and that autocrat was now determined to dictate at Paris a peace that would rid him of all prospect of his great rival’s revenge.  Vanity and fear alike prescribed such a course of action.  He longed to lead his magnificent Guards to Paris, there to display his clemency in contrast to the action of the French at Moscow; and this sentiment was fed by fear of Napoleon.  The