London Gazette, 23 April 1816). More than thirty years afterwards a medal was similarly granted to all who had taken part in earlier battles and sieges from Egypt to Toulouse (Lond. Gaz. 1 June 1847 and 12 Feb. 1850). The king of the Netherlands created Wellington Prince of Waterloo, with an estate which made him one of the largest landowners in Belgium (Stanhope, p. 284). Louis XVIII offered him the estate of Grosbois, but substituted the order of the Saint-Esprit set in diamonds (Croker, i. .'333; Stanhope, p. 256). Many other foreign orders were conferred on him (Doyle, Official Baronage).
The troops of the army of occupation took up their cantonments in January 1816, and Wellington fixed his headquarters at Cambrai. He entertained largely, and kept a pack of hounds which he hunted regularly, as he had done in Spain. He maintained strict discipline, but insisted on reparation if the French were aggressors. He went to England in the summer of 1816, and again in 1817, being present at the opening of Waterloo Bridge on 18 June. In October 1817, at the request of the Emperor Alexander, he consented to act as referee for the settlement of the claims against the French government, and succeeded in reducing them by three-fourths (Suppl. Desp. 30 Oct. and 30 April 1818). His share in the restoration of works of art to the countries from which they had been taken had given great offence in Paris, and he incurred the animosity of democrats and reactionaries alike. On 25 June 1816 an attempt was made to 'set fire to his house in the Rue Champs-Elysées, where he was giving a ball; and on 10 Feb. 1818 a shot was fired at him as he drove into the courtyard at night. Cantillon, a sous-officier of the empire, was brought to trial for this attempt, but was acquitted. A legacy of ten thousand francs was left to Cantillon by Napoleon I, and paid to his heirs by Napoleon III (Suppl. Desp. 12 Feb. and 19 March; Croker, i. 339; Gleig, iii. 40, 61).
A reduction of the army of occupation was proposed by Louis XVIII in 1816, and was supported by Russia, which posed as the special friend of France. Wellington resisted it, but in April 1817 he agreed to the withdrawal of thirty thousand men; and in November 1818, when the term of three years came to an end, he thought the remainder might be withdrawn. He took part in the conferences at Aix-la-Chapelle, where the evacuation was decided on, the quadruple alliance was renewed, and other questions were settled. He was made field-marshal in the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian armies on 15 Nov. On the 2lst his command of the army of occupation came to an end, and he returned to England.
The parliamentary commissioners had bought for him the estate of Strathfieldsaye in Hampshire, on 9 Nov. 1817, for 263,000l.: a bad investment, which he used to say would have ruined any man but himself. He enlarged and improved it, spending on it for many years all the income he derived from it. Cobbett owned, 'according to all account, he is no miser at any rate' (Rural Rides, p. 122). Apsley House, at Hyde Park Corner, was also bought for him from Lord Wellesley; and in 1828, when he had an official residence in Downing Street, he faced it with stone, and added a west wing in which the Waterloo banquet was held annually (Quarterly Review, March 1853, p. 458; Wheatley and Cunningham, London, i. 57).
In order that Wellington might lend his weight to the government, the master-generalship of the ordnance, with a seat in the cabinet, was given to him on 26 Dec., being resigned by Lord Mulgrave. The ministry was substantially the same as that of which he had been a member ten years before. Various shades of toryism were represented in it. His own was of the deepest, though he was well aware that 'this country was never governed in practice according to the extreme principles of any party whatever.' What has been said of Pitt may be more justly said of Wellington, that he was 'the child and champion of aristocracy' (Napier, i. 2). In the army he favoured 'sprigs of nobility,' held that family and fortune should have their influence on promotion, and distrusted officers (as a class) who had to live on their pay (Desp. 4 Aug. 1810, 11 April 1821). In Spain he had tried to graft on the new constitution 'an assembly of the great landed proprietors such as our House of Lords,' to guard the rights of property; and he had inquired 'whether, if I should find a fair opportunity of striking at the democracy, the government would approve of my doing it' (ib. 25 Jan. and 5 Sept. 1813; Raikes, Corresp. p. 348). He despised alike the cheers and the clamour of the mob, and had the worst opinion of those who aimed at a 'low, vulgar popularity.' 'Trust nothing to the enthusiasm of the people. Give them a strong, and a just, and if possible, a good government; but, above all, a strong one,' was his advice to Lord William Bentinck for Italy (Desp. 6 Sept. 1810, 12 June and 24 Dec. 1811). He complained much of
