The allies now agreed by the convention of Chaumout that they would make no peace till France was reduced within her former limits; that Austria, Russia, and Prussia should employ all their forces to that effect, and keep each, for the period of twenty years after the peace, an army of 150,000 men ready to euforce the condi tions of such a peace, and that Great Britain should pay 5,000,0001. sterling. There was still a doubt at the head-quarters of the allies whether they should march upon Paris or not, the operations of Napoleon lu their rear seerniug to render such movement very dangerous, but Frederick William, at the instigation of Blucher, constantly urged the necessity of finishing the war at l'arie, and so at last the great task was uudertaken. Ou the 9th and 10th of March Blucher defeated Napoleon at Leon, Prince Schwarzeuberg was vic torious at Arc's-our-Aube, and their uuital armies gained another battle at La Fere Champeuoiso. A few days afterwards they stormed the fortifications round Paris, and gained the battle of BlontsMartre, and on the following day, the 31st of March, Frederick William and Alexander made their triumphal entry into Paris. On the 2nd of April Napoleon was deposed by the Senate.
After the restoration of the Bourbons, Frederick William in com pany with the Emperor Alexander, several mernbera of the Royal l'ruaeian family, and the old field-marshal 131iicher, paid a visit to England, where they were moat enthusiastically received. After a short stay in England he returned to l'rusaia, and made his triumphal entry into Berlin, and thence proceeded to the congress at Vienna, to take his seat among the distributors of the provinces ceded by France at the peace of Paris. There he claimed his former possessions, except the greater part of his share in the division of Poland, which he consented to leave to Husain, but with his usual unscrupulous selfishness, he demanded, as an indemnity, the whole kingdom of Saxony. The king of Saxony, Frederick Augustus, was then Frederick William's prisoner of war. Frederick William was supported in his views by the Emperor Alexander. Both of them took so menacing an attitude in this affair, and met with so firm a resistance from the king Saxony, as well as other potentates, that serious fears were enter tamed of a rupture between Prussia and Russia on one aide, and Austria, Great Britain, and France, on the other, but the return of Napoleon from the island of Elba produced a salutary effect among the members of the congress, and Frederick William was obliged to be satisfied with the larger and northern half of the kingdom of Saxony. Besides this acquisition he received back the most western part of Poland, under the name of the grand-duchy of Posen, nearly all his former possessions in Germany, and several other parts of that country, namely, a large tract on both sides of the Rhine and the greater part of Westphalia. He also acquired Swedish Pomerania by exchange for Lauenburg, but left several small districts in the hands of some of the minor German princes. Comparatively speaking, how ever, Prussia acquired less than the other great northern powers, since the area of the kingdom as fixed by the treaty of Vienna was less than previous to the peace of Tilsit, and besides this the Prussian dominions were now divided into two large portions separated from each other by a small narrow tract belonging to Hanover and Hesse CeripL Blucher at the head of a powerful Prussian army was ready to resist Napoleon, after his return to Paris in 1815, in the Netherlands. Against him Napoleon aimed his first blow at Ligny, on the 16th of Jnne, and Blucher lost the day, but the spirit of the Prussian army was so excellent, that Bliicher retreated in good order upon Wavre, kept his word to aid the Duke of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo, and had his glorious share in that great victory, by which the power of Napoleon was broken. Frederick William followed his army to
Paris, and there signed with the other powers the second peace of Paris. To the proposition of the Emperor Alexander of forming that union called the Holy Alliance, Frederick William adhered with eagerness.
After his return, Frederick William undertook the difficult task of organising a kingdom composed of incongruous parts, and exhausted by oppression, rapine, war, and its great exertions. Hie intellectual capacities were very limited, but he had plain sense, loved and knew how to create order, and, guided by long and bitter experience, dis played considerable ability in selecting his measures, and in choosing his servants among men whose principles promised a quiet and peace able development of that state of things which he had in view. In a few years the finances were brought to a flourishing condition ; trade, mechanical arts, agriculture, were promoted by liberal laws, and where laws were not sufficient the king would help with money from his own purse, lending or giving large sums to the great land owners in Eastern Prussia, wheu the high rate of the corn duties in England produced a stagnation of the corn trade in that pro vince, and momentarily deprived the owners of immense estates of the means of paying taxes or their creditors, or even living decently. Nor was he less active in reforming the administration of law and the post-office, in constructing roads, and in founding universities, colleges, and schools. The people however looked to him for civil and political freedom as well as for material improvements. Their claims were the more just as they were not only founded upon their social wants, but upon rights also ; their rights being derived not merely from the eighteenth article of the Confederative Act, but still more directly from Frederick William's edict of the 22nd of May, issued after the return of Napoleon from Elba, and before the battle of Waterloo had removed all fear of France, wherein he promised to establish a general representative constitution for the whole kingdom. But whatever were his intentions when he issued that edict, he never fulfilled the smallest portion of it. The reasons why Frederick William III. broke his solemn promise must be found in his character. A real representative constitution which should give the nation a participation in the legislation, WAS a thing utterly detested by Frederick William. He was, a king brought up in the old German doctrines of absolutism. He would be the father of his nation, the master in his house, and he expected from his subjects that sort of obedience which boys owe to their father and servants to their muter. Like a good father he gave his children a good education, allowing them all sorts of amusements and liberty, and paying even their little debts occasionally ; but he wanted all their actions to be confined within the limits prescribed by himself, and any claim to go beyond he would punish with angry words or the paternal cane, according to the cage. When Frederick William promised a constitution he did not perhaps precisely know what it was; at least this is the excuse which has been offered for him : yet it would seem to be the most obvious duty of a sovereign to ascertain what he really meant before pledging his royal word to give his people a representative constituiton.