“Colonel Woodford desires to express his satisfaction at the temperance and forbearance shown by the Non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Brigade, in the affray between them and the French soldiers and the inhabitants yesterday evening; to this temperate conduct, so highly creditable to brave troops, and to the activity of the Officers and Non-commissioned officers who were present, is to be attributed the early restoration of order and tranquillity throughout the town.”[116] ----- Footnote 116: _Brigade Order_ , Cambrai, May 11, 1818. ----- [Illustration: N. R. Wilkinson del. MUSQUETEER 1650. Mintern Bros. Chromo.] The Allied forces were now soon to quit French territory. It had been stipulated by treaty that the occupation was to last five years, but it was also expressly stated that it might terminate in three, and all parties by this time wished to bring it to a conclusion as soon as possible. The French naturally pined for emancipation; and the words of the Duc de Richelieu, delivered in the Chambers, that “every heart throbbed at the thought of seeing on the soil of the country, no other banner but that of France,” found a responsive echo throughout the length and breadth of the land, and awoke a passionate longing for freedom in the minds of the people, which was very difficult to resist. Wellington, also, was disposed to assist them. The Government of the King had been showing increased hostility to the foreign contingents, who were becoming daily more hateful in the eyes of the French nation. He expressed himself clearly on this subject to Lord Bathurst, on the 8th of March, 1818:— “As soon as the occupation becomes odious to the people, and that we are liable to the attacks which they are daily excited to make upon us, and that, under these circumstances, we are to begin a new lease, as it were, of the occupation, we must close up, and take our real position with our whole force between the Meuse and the Scheldt, and our occupation must become more burthensome to the country in which we shall be placed, and in fact, become one of war. Of course that state of things could not last, and the Powers of Europe must be prepared to support their troops left in such a situation in this country.”[117] ----- Footnote 117: _Supplementary Despatches, etc._, xii. 381. -----