Belgium, and Napoleon marched to Paris in triumph, and resumed the government without a blow. The allied powers however were in no mind to see their vast sacrifices thrown away, and to allow Napoleon the chance of once more consolidating his power in France, and beginning a fresh series of wars of aggression. Their representatives were still assembled in congress at Vienna, occupied in the difficult task of resettling Europe after the universal removing of landmarks which had been produced by the recent wars. They at once declared Napoleon a public enemy, and began preparations for launching enormous hosts against him. Months must pass before, in the then state of roads and modes of locomotion, a single Russian soldier could be seen on the French frontier. A shorter, but still considerable, interval must elapse before the Austrian armies could take the field. But England was only across the narrow seas, and Prussia held great territories on the Rhine. Accordingly these two powers, acting in concert, poured their troops, one army under Wellington, the other under Blucher, into the new kingdom of the Netherlands, which had but recently formed part of Napoleon's empire. From the Belgian frontier starts the easiest and shortest line of invasion of France, assuming invasion to be directed at the capital. And the intention was that the English and Prussian armies should take this route, when the Austrians had reached the eastern frontier, and the Russians were getting within supporting distance. Napoleon no doubt realised that his game was lost if his enemies once gathered in their irresistible numbers. At any rate he saw plainly enough that his best chance lay in defeating his opponents piecemeal. Could he succeed in destroying the Anglo-Prussian army, the other powers might be intimidated, or possibly bribed, into letting him alone. The indications are that this would never have happened; the Czar would probably have receded before nothing but overwhelming defeat, and the overthrow of Wellington and Blucher would not have meant the annihilation of the power of Prussia, still less of Great Britain. Nevertheless Napoleon had a chance in this way, and in no other, and he proceeded to try it with characteristic vigour and resolution, though with less than his usual skill and care when the actual stress came.