Negotiations dragged on their weary length, and protocol after protocol followed in endless succession from London. In 1832, Leopold espoused Louisa, one of the daughters of the king of the French, and was not only finally recognized by the northern powers, but, by means of the intervention of England, being backed by a fleet, and by means of that of France, being backed by an army, compelled Holland to accept of terms of peace. The French troops under Gerard, unassisted by the Belgians and watched by a Prussian army stationed on the Meuse, regularly besieged and took the citadel of Antwerp, on Christmas eve, 1832, gave it up to the Belgians as pertaining to their territory, and evacuated the country. King William, however, again rejecting the twenty-four articles, all the other points, the division of the public debt, the navigation of the Scheldt, and, more than all, the future destiny of the province of Luxemburg, which formed part of the confederated states of Germany, had been declared hereditary in the house of Nassau-Orange, and which, by its geographical position and the character of its inhabitants, was more nearly connected with Belgium, remained for the present unsettled. In 1839, Holland was induced by a fresh demonstration on the part of the great powers to accept the twenty-four articles, against which Belgium in her turn protested on the ground of the procrastination on the part of Holland having rendered her earlier accession to these terms null and void. Belgium was, however, also compelled to yield. By this fresh agreement it was settled that the western part of Luxemburg, which had in the interim fallen away from the German confederation, should be annexed to Belgium, and that Holland (and the German confederation) should receive the eastern part of Limburg in indemnity; and that Belgium, instead of taking upon herself one-half of the public debt of the Netherlands, should annually pay the sum of five million Dutch guldens toward defraying the interest of that debt.