When Paris was still called Rome of Gaul, Mechelen was merely a village inhabited by Romans. The Romans preferred land routes to waterways, and the great road built from Lyon to the Rhine River did not pass through Mechelen.
By the fourth century, the Western Roman Empire had collapsed, and there had been "barbarian" invasions. Mechelen became a settlement of Germanic tribes. The centralized system Mr. Martin had mentioned during dinner was proposed by a German historian. The network of central places established by the Romans in Germany was largely based on principles of transportation. Barbarian invasions disrupted transport, Roman cities were almost entirely lost, and the country fell into poverty, leaving it unable to rebuild the infrastructure damaged by war. Yet in places where the conflicts had not been too fierce, the Roman networks built according to those original transportation principles survived. Even though most Roman towns had been destroyed, their location markers and names remained, later determining the locations of future towns.
Take Ulm, for example. In the records of the ancient Roman historian Tacitus, it was already one of the most prosperous towns. It was an enormous warehouse as well as a distribution center for supplies. For an army like Napoleon's, which carried little baggage and sustained itself through war, it became exceedingly important.
The army of France under Louis XIV, the Sun King, drew supplies from within the country. That was why William III attacked Maastricht.
Even after the main army had withdrawn, as long as the king had not abandoned his plans to attack the Netherlands again, Maastricht would regain its usefulness. Thus, after Maastricht had been retaken, as long as France held it, peace had not truly arrived for William III. He had to be ready for war at any moment.
As they strolled