“Heaven has gained a citizen, and Earth has lost an emperor. Never shall we see his like again.”
With these words, in a letter to the heads of the Coalition nations dated September 4 (but, pointedly, not to Louis XVIII) the French Regency Council acknowledged the passing of Napoleon I. Said Council consisted of Napoleon’s surviving brothers (Joseph more or less first among equals, but not so much that he dared reach for the throne himself), the marshals of the French army and the leaders of the new Parliament.
In this missive, the Council also affirmed its desire for peace with the members of the Coalition, and called on those nations to respect the sovereignty of the French government within the “natural boundaries” of the French people — which included everything south and west of the Rhine and the Waal. (As Prince Joseph would later say, “When negotiations are about to begin, only a fool asks for less than he wants.”)
There was, however, some dispute as to whether negotiations were in fact to begin. Also on September 4, Louis XVIII devised a plan for the Coalition army. His plan was… to do nothing, and to wait for the illegitimate, ramshackle government in Paris to collapse into anarchy. “Soon enough, the thieves will fall out,” he said. The Coalition army withdrew to Karlsruhe in September.
To the British and the Dutch, the French occupation of Antwerp remained an insurmountable problem. The Spanish had a grudge against Prince Joseph, whom they had come to call “José de las Joyas” for his pilfering of the crown jewels before his flight from Madrid. The Austrians were at this moment fighting a rebellion in Italy to which the French were offering some small support… small support being all they could afford to offer at this point. They had no intention of making peace with France — in fact, they were solidifying their ties to the states of Baden and Württemberg.
The Prussians were another matter. Although the government of Frederick William III had lovingly stoked the fires of anti-French sentiment among its people, the fact remained that the kingdom was in a very bad way, and could not afford to have its soldiers languish through the winter in hastily made French prisoner-of-war camps while the estates of Prussian nobles burned. But to negotiate with France, even for mutual recognition of parole, it would first be necessary to recognize the French government, which would mean repudiating the Bourbon king.
Russia was in the opposite position from Prussia. As Tsar Alexander stated coolly, “The French could not conquer us when they had defeated all others. Should we fear them now?” His ministers had learned at Vienna how the rest of Europe feared the expansion of Russian power. Clearly there was no further reason for Russian blood to be spilled on behalf of the houses of Hapsburg or Bourbon. So it was that both Wilhelm von Humboldt and Count Nesselrode found themselves in Paris that October, negotiating with Caulaincourt.
The Treaty of 20 October was a simple one. France withdrew all claims to Prussian and Russian territory and paroled and released all prisoners from those nations, and Prussia and Russia both recognized the French government. Russia declared peace and withdrew from the Coalition entirely, while Prussia merely remained in a state of cease-fire. The important thing, from the Prussian king’s perspective, was that the Prussian POWs could now offer their parole to Paris, return home and save the kingdom. (Of course, their first act on returning to Prussia was to go to Berlin and crush the anti-French rioters who had taken to the streets on learning of this peace.)
P.G. Sherman, 1815 And All That