Star.
London, England, 1815-12-18 00:00:00

STATE PAPER.

ANSWER OF THE PLENIPOTENTIARIES OE FRANCE, TO
THE PROPOSITIONS OF THE 20TH SEPTEMBER.
The undersigned Plenipotentiaries of his Most
Christian Majesty forthwith laid before him the com-
munications which were made to them in the code.'
Tense of yesterday, by their Excellencies the Ministers
Plenipoteetiary of the four United Courts, respecting,
the *definitive arrangement, as bases ot which their
Excellencies have proposed :
1. The cession by his Most Christian Majesty of a
,territory equal to two-thirds of what was added to
old France by the Treaty sit the SOtir May, and in
which 'should be comptehended the fortresses of
Conde, Marienbourg.,Givet and Cherie-
qsont, Sarre-Louis, Landau, and forts Jou and
L'Eelnse.
2. The demolition of the fortress of Huninguen.
S. The payment of two sums ; the one of 600
millions, under the denomination of indemnity ; the
other of 20i) millions, to serve for the construction of
fortresses in the countries conterminous with France.
4. The military occupation, during seven years,
of the fortresses of Valenciennes, Bouchain,Cambray,
Maubenge, Laodrecy, Lequesnoy, Avesne, Rocroy,
Longwi, Bitche, and the tete-du-pont of
ion Lodi% as well as of a line along the northern
and eastern frontiers by an army of 150,000 men,
under the orders of a General nominated by the
Allies, and to be subsisted by-France.
His Majesty, ardeatly desirous of hastening as far
as lies in his pow,:rthe conclusion of an arrangement,
the delay. of which. has caused to his people so many
evils which he daily deplores, and has prolonged in
France, and still. prolongs, that internal agitation
which has excited the solicitude of the Powers, but
still more animated by a desire to make known his
good dispositions to Sovereigns, his Allies,has wish-
ed that the undersigned should communicate without
delay to their Excellencies the Plenipotentiaries of
the four Courts, the principles on which he thinks
the negociation ought to be prosecuted, relatively to
each ot the bases proposed, by ordering the under-
signed to present the following considerations on the
first of these bases—that remecting territorial cessions
—hi which that important object is examined, in the
twofold relationsuf justice and utility, which it would
be so dangerous to separate.
The want of a common Judge, having authority
. and power to terminate the disputes rf Sovereigns,
leaves no other course, when- they cannot come to an
amicable agreement, but that of referring the decision
of such disputes to the fate of arms, which constitutes
between them the state of war. If in this state, pos-
sessions of the one are occupied by the forces of the
other, these possessions are under conquest, by right
of which the occupier acquires the full enjoyment of
them during all the time that he occupies them, or
until the re.establishmedt of peace. He is entitled
to demand, as a condition of that re-establisbmen',
that the territory which he occupies should be ceded
tat him in whole or in part; and the cession, when at
has taken place, transforming the. enjoyment into
property, from mere occupier of it he becomes the
Sovereign. This is a mode of acquisition which the
law of nations authorises.
But the state of war, conquest, and the right of
exacting cessions are things which proceed from and
depend upon each oilier, in such way that the first is
'n dbsollite condition of the second, and the latter of
the third ; for out of the state of war, there can be
no conquest made ; and where conquest has not been
made, or nn longer exists, the right of demandingl
territorial cessions cannot exist, since a claim can'.',
be made to retain that which one has not or that
which he no longer has.
There can be no conquest where there is no state
of war, and as you cannot take from him who has
nothing, you can only make conquest of what a'man
possesses ; hence it follows, that in order to constitute
the possibility of cinquest, there must have been war
by the'cietopier on the possessor, that is on the Sove-
reign ; right of possession of a country and sove-
reignty being chinas inseparable or rather identical:
It ern you make war in a coUntry, and against I
number more-or less considerable of the inhabitants
of that country, while ;he Sovereign is excepted there-
from, you do not make war on the country, the lat-
ter word being merely, a trope by which the domain
is put for the possessor. A Sovereign, however, must
be considered as excepted from the war which fo-
reigners carry on in his country, when they acknow-
ledge him and maintain with him the accustomed
'relations of peace. The war is then made against
pen, to the rights of whom !ie who combats them
cannot succeed, because they have no rights, and
from whom it is impossible to conquer what does not
belong to them. Neither the object nor the effect oft
such a war can be to make conquests, but to recover:
;He, however, who recovers that which does not be-1
long to him, cannot recover it but for him whom he
acknowledges as the legitimate possessor.
To entitle you to deem yourself at war with a
country, without being so with him who has been
previously acknowledged as Sovereign, two things
must necessarily happen ; the one is, that of ceasing
to hold him as such, and to regard the sovereignty
as transferred to those whom you fight against, by
the very act for which you fight against them; that
is to say, you then recognize, pursue, and sanction
those doctrines which have overthrown so many
thrones, shaken them all, and against which all Eu-
rope was under the necessity of arming itself ; or yon
must believe that the sovereignty can be xionble while
it is essentially one, and incapable of division; it
may exist under different forms, be collective or in.

dividual, but not each or ese 4 once in fh :ne
country, which etnnnt have two Bniereigns at the
same time.
The Allied Powers, howover, have neither done
nor believed the one or the other a these tern things.
They have considered 'he enterprise of Bonaparte
as the greatest crime that could be committed bt
men, and the very attempt of which alone placed
him witL:out the law of nations. in his adherents
they viewed only accomplices of that crime, %Owns
it was necessary to crmbat, to put down, and punish;
circumstances which irrefiagably etch, fe every sup.
position that such men could naturally either acquire,
or confer, or transmit any right.
The Allied Powers have not, for an instant, ceased
to recogrize his Most Christi in Mai... 47 as King of
France, and consAiiently to recognise the rights
which Ir.:longed to him in that capaci,y ; they have
not for an instant ceased to he with him in relations
of peace and amity, which alone conve;-ed with it
the engagement to respect hi: rights; they took upon
them this engagement in a feu-m.ll though imptied
manner in Ole declaration of the 18th March, and
in the Treaty of the (.2.5,.;;. Th'y ren(!..re it naire
strict by making the Kiag enter, by his Accessi.bn to.
thit Treaty, into their alliance ag 'hist the conroau
enemy; for if you cannot make conquests hom a.
friend, you can still leas do it from an ally. And let
it not be said, that tl4 King could not he the ally of
the Powers, but by co-operating with them, and that
he did nut do so; if the total defecLion of the army,
which, at the time of the Treaty of the 25th of March,
was already known and deemed inevitable, did not
permit him to bring regular troops bun action, the
Frenchmen who, by taking tip arms for him, to the
number of 60 or 70,000, in the Departments of the
West and- the South, those who :hewing themselves
disposed to take them up, placed the Usurper under
the necessity of dividing his forces, and tho'e who.
after the defeat of Waterloo, instead of the resources
in men and money which he demanded, left him
no other but that of abandoning every thing, were,
foe the Allied Powers, a real en-operation, who, in
proportion as their forces advanced into the French
Provinces, re-established there the King's authority,
a measure which would have caused cortylieit to
cease, had there Provinces been really convered..
It is evident, then, that the demand which is made of
territorial cessions cannot be founded on cmsquest.

Neither cm it have as adequate reason the ex;,eray.
dilute made by the Allied Powers; for if it be just
that the sacrifices to which they have b..en forced by
a war, undertaken fir the c^mmon good, but for the
mere particular acnefit of France, should not remain .
chargeable on them, it is equally just that they should
satisfy themselves with an indeMnification at the
same kind with the sacrifices. The Allied Powers,
however, have made no sacrifice of territory.
We live at a period when, more than at. any other,
•• -
it is important to strengthen confidence in the word
of Kings. The ekaction of ceasions from his most
Christian Majesty would produce a q bite contr try
effect, atter the declaration in which the Po%ve:s an-
nounced, that they took up milli only against 13nna- •
parte and his adherents ; after the Treaty in which
they engaged to maintain against all infraction the
integrity of Me stipulation: el the 'rite My, 1814,
which cannot be maintained unl.ss that of F. ance is
s 3; after tf,e Proclamations of their ilenerals-ir,-Chict;
in which the same as,nrances Are renowed.
The exaction of cessions trorn his Most Christian

Majesty would deprive him of Vie. means ot extin-
guishing totally and :or ever among •he peopi., that
spirit ot conquest, tanned by the Usurper, and which
would inevitably rekindle with the &tire of r,,cover-
ing that which France would never believe she had
j use: y lost.
Cessions exacted horn his Most Christian M jesty
would be imputed to him as a crime, as ii he Lad
thereby purchased the Aid ot the Powers. and .k,.111,1
be an obitacle ro the cenlitnati ,n 1.1 the Royal Go-
vernment, so important for the letri-nate (I) nasties,
nod so necessary to the repos, or Lu•ope, i,t .s f.ar
As that !epos= is connected %cirri tr orqua-
lity of France.
In tine, tit.: ettact;on of cessions (-tom his Most
Christian Majesty would destroy. or. at least alter
that equilibrium, to the establishment of which the
Powers have devoted so many sacrifizes etf,irre„ind
cares. It was themselves who fixed the extent that
'France ought to have. How sh,old that which they
'deemed necessary a year ago, have ceased to exist
There are upon the continent of Erin ipe two Sates
that -surpass France in extent. and. in population. •
Their relative greatness would necessarily increase in,
the same proportion as the absolute greatness of
France should be diminished. Wnisid thick con. •
formable to the interests of Europe ? Would it even ;.
be suitable to the particular interests of these two •
States, in the order of relations in wjaich. they are. .•
placed towards each other.
If, in a small democracy of *antiquity, the people
in a body learning that one of their Generakhad to • •
propose to them something advantageoui but roc jest,
exclaimed • unanimously, that they would not even
hear it mentioned, is it possible to doubt that. the ,
Monatchs of Europe should not be unanimous iu a
ease where that which Is not just thntld even be per-
nicious?
It is therefore, with the most entire .confidenee,
that the undersigned have the honobt of snbmitting
to the Allied Sovereigns the preceding observations.
Not Withstanding, however, the incorivenie.nces at-
tached in actual circumstances to every territorial ces.
'sion, his Majesty will consent to the'sre-establishinent
of the ancient limits, in all the points in which addi-
tions were made to old France by the Treaty ot the
gOth of May. His Majesty will alsci consent to the
payment of such an indemnity as shall leave means
of supplying the wants of the interior administration,
without which k would be impossible to arrive at that
settlement of order and tranquillity which has been
the object of the war.
'His Majesty will likewise consent to a provisional •
occupation. Its duration, the number ot fortresses,