But no sooner had the powers assembled at Vienna to settle the delineations of territory which had been so grievously disturbed by Napoleon, than difficulties met them at every stage. The Bourbons at Paris were beset with claims quite impossible to be conceded. Insolvency, consequent upon Napoleon’s wars, stared them in the face. Russia demanded the whole grand-duchy of Warsaw as the reward of her sacrifices, and adduced abundant arguments to support her claims. Prussia wished to be reinstated in all respects, statistical, financial, and geographical, as she stood at the commencement of the war in 1806, with such additions as might be practicable according to the treaty of Kalitsch. Accordingly, besides various provinces on the left bank of the Rhine, she claimed the whole of Saxony, while Prussia and Russia, by friendly concessions, were united in their demands. [Sidenote: Napoleon’s escape from Elba.] France, Austria, and England opposed these sweeping annexations of the northern nations; and Alexander, annoyed that England and Austria should resist his pretensions, was even more fiercely indignant that Talleyrand, representing France, should “with black ingratitude” hesitate to grant what he asked. To support these pretensions Alexander kept up an army of two hundred and eighty thousand men in Lithuania and Poland, and published an address announcing his intention to restore to the Poles their lost nationality; Prussia had reorganised her army ready for action; Austria maintained her forces on a war footing; and British troops in great number were sent over to Belgium; till a million of armed men, in the midst of a congress assembled for the general pacification of the world, were retained under their banners ready for mutual slaughter. When, however, the political reasons which prompted France, Austria, and England to form a secret arrangement to carry out the treaty of Paris somehow transpired, the views of the northern powers were materially modified; but while their rulers were still discussing the fresh territorial arrangements to be determined upon, the news suddenly reached Vienna that Napoleon had quitted the island of Elba, and had again entered France. This thunderbolt dispelled at once the numerous jealousies which had been fast gathering during the winter. All minor differences were forgotten, and, at the first meeting of the plenipotentiaries, a declaration was drawn up and signed in the name of all the Powers, which in the most rigid terms proscribed Napoleon as a public enemy, and expressed their determination to employ their whole forces to prevent Europe from being again plunged into revolutionary confusion. [Sidenote: His landing in France and advance on Paris.]