Having received no formulated proposition for acceptance or rejection, and desiring to force one, the Emperor of the French virtually disregarded the letter of Metternich's communication, and sent a carefully considered message to the allies. Making no mention in this of the terms brought by St. Aignan, he suggested Caulaincourt as plenipotentiary to an international congress, which should meet somewhere on the Rhine, say at Mannheim. Further, he declared that his object had always been the independence of all the nations, "from the continental as well as from the maritime point of view." This communication reached Frankfort on November sixteenth, and, whether wilfully or not, was misinterpreted to mean that the writer would persist in questioning England's maritime rights. Thereupon Metternich replied by accepting Mannheim as the place for the proposed conference, and promised to communicate the language of Napoleon's letter to his co-allies. How far these co-allies were from a sincere desire for peace is proven by their next step, taken almost on the date of Metternich's reply. A proclamation was widely posted in the cities of France, which stated, in a cant borrowed from Napoleon's own practice, that the allies desired France "to be great, strong, and prosperous"; they were making war, it was asserted, not "on France, but on that preponderance which Napoleon had too long exercised, to the misfortune of Europe and of France herself, to which they guaranteed in advance an extent of territory such as she never had under her kings." Napoleon's riposte was to despatch a swarm of trusty emissaries throughout France in order to compose all quarrels of the people with the government, to strengthen popular devotion in every possible way--in short, to counteract the possible effects of this call. The messengers found public opinion thoroughly imperial, but profoundly embittered against Maret as the supposed instigator of disastrous wars. Maret was transferred to the department of state, and the pacific Caulaincourt was made minister of foreign affairs. On December second, at the earliest possible moment, the new minister addressed a note to Metternich, accepting the terms of the "general and summary basis." This, said the despatch, would involve great sacrifices; but Napoleon would feel no regret if only by a similar abnegation England would provide the means for a general, honorable peace. Metternich replied that nothing now stood in the way of convening a congress, and that he would notify England to send a plenipotentiary. There, however, the matter ended, and Metternich's record of those Frankfort days scarcely notices the subject, so interested is he in the squabbles of the sovereigns over the opening of a new campaign. It was the end of the year when they reached an agreement. CHAPTER V THE INVASION OF FRANCE[5]