On Tuesday, 28 March, news reached Vienna that Napoleon was in Paris. That meant that they were, in some respects, back where they had been in 1813. Among the first reactions of some of the statesmen was the fear that all they had worked for for so long and achieved at the cost of so many hours of discussion and argument might be lost. From London, Castlereagh wrote to Wellington suggesting that they sign a treaty as soon as possible enshrining at least that which had been agreed so far, so as to place it ‘out of the reach of doubt’.
