Note 613 — BOOK IV[556]

It was not at Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1818, as Chateaubriand says in error, that the Allies called for the dismemberment of France, but three years earlier, during the discussion of the Treaties of 1815. It was then that the Emperor Alexander gave the Duc de Richelieu this "map of Styx," as an incontestable proof of the concessions obtained by the latter. On this map, our new frontier is marked out by a line drawn in blue, which takes away from France a portion of the Departments of the Isère, with Fort Barraux; of the Ain, with Belley, Gex and the Fort de l'Écluse; of the Jura, with Saint-Claude; of the Doubs, with the Fort de Tour, Pontarlier, Saint-Hippolyte and Montbéliard; the whole of the Haut-Rhin; the whole of the Bas-Rhin; the whole of the Moselle; a part of the Meuse, including Montmédy; the Ardennes, with Sedan, Mérières and Rocroy; the whole Department of the Nord, excepting Cambrai and Douai. The fact that this blue line was not put through and France not wiped out from the political map of Europe we owe entirely to Louis XVIII. and the Duc de Richelieu.—B.