Without doubt the decision of the Powers to deprive France of any voice in the settlement of the question of the fortresses placed her in a very anomalous position. She was a party to the treaty which established the independence, defined the frontiers and guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, nevertheless Austria, Prussia, Russia and Great Britain had proceeded to conclude at once a separate convention with Belgium against her. By her own action, however, she was debarred from bringing forward this aspect of the case as an argument against her exclusion from the fortress agreement. Far from raising any objections to the conduct of the four Powers in drawing up the protocol of April 17, without consultation with her, she had expressed the greatest satisfaction with its contents. At her request it was communicated to her officially, in order that an allusion might be made to it in the Speech from the Throne. Louis Philippe, in opening the Parliament on July 23, 1831, accordingly announced the early destruction of the barrier fortresses, as a proof that the four Powers had abandoned the system established against France in 1815. In point of fact the apprehensions of her aggressive spirit had been intensified by the Revolution of July and, in deciding to demolish some of the frontier defences of the Low Countries, the Powers had not been actuated by any desire to propitiate the new _régime_. But once the partition of the Kingdom of the Netherlands had been accomplished, it was recognized that the Belgians alone could not keep in repair and efficiently defend the twenty-three barrier fortresses. Ill-equipped and insufficiently garrisoned they would not have contributed to the protection of Belgium, but would have offered a constant temptation to the French to lay hands upon them. If France, however, chose to imagine that in this matter the policy of the Powers was dictated by a desire to please her, it was unnecessary to inform her that she was labouring under a delusion. It was probably the knowledge that the fiction contained in the paragraph of the King's Speech, referring to the fortresses, could not be maintained for long, which had induced the French government to attempt to negotiate a separate agreement with Belgium.[176]