The Congress of Vienna, meeting from September 1814 to June 1815, assumed, like the congresses of Osnabruck and Munster, what was practically the role of a great law-making body. It formed new states by the union of Sweden and Norway and of Holland and Belgium, and it confirmed the action of Napoleon in consolidating the numerous German states and formed them into a loose confederation of thirty-nine members. Its chief object, however, was the restoration of the balance of power in Europe which had been so greatly unsettled. The leading powers had announced in the Treaty of Paris of May 30, 1814, that it was their desire "to put an end to the long disturbance of Europe and to the suffering of the people by a stable peace based upon a just division of forces between the powers and carrying with it a guarantee of its permanence.” But the thus announced was completely frustrated by the reactionary principles which dominated the congress. The decisions taken by it proved to be the occasion throughout the nineteenth century of new wars to undo the plans so carefully made revolution followed in the wake of the restoration of the deposed monarches, and wars of liberation followed the suppression of aspirations for national union.