ign Alexander was called a
Jacobin by Metternich, who despised his philanthropical and sentimental
theories, and his energetic labors in behalf of literature, educational
institutions, freer political conditions, etc.; but when Napoleon was
sent to St. Helena, the Russian ruler, wearied with great events and
dreading revolutionary tendencies, changed his opinions, and was now
leagued with the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria in
supporting the most stringent measures against all reformers. Sand was a
theological student in the University of Jena, who thought he was doing
God's service by removing from the earth with his assassin's dagger a
vile wretch employed by the Russian tyrant to propagate views which
mocked the loftiest aspirations of mankind. The murder of Kotzebue
created an immense sensation throughout Europe, and was followed by
increased rigor on the part of all despotic governments in muzzling the
press, in the suppression of public meetings of every sort, and
especially in expelling from the universities both students and
professors who were known or even supposed to entertain liberal ideas.
Metternich went so far as to write a letter to the King of Prussia
urging him to disband the gymnasia, as hotbeds of mischief. His
influence on this monarch was still further seen in dissuading him to
withhold the constitution promised his subjects during the war of
liberation. He regarded the meeting of a general representation of the
nation as scarcely less evil than democratic violence, and his hatred of
constitutional checks on a king was as great as of intellectual
independence in a professor at a gymnasium. Universities and constituent
assemblies, to him, were equally fatal to undisturbed peace and
stability in government.

In the midst of these efforts to suppress throughout Germany all
agitating political ideas and movements, the news arrived of the
revolution in Naples, July, 1820, effected by the Carbonari, by which
the king was compelled to restore the constitution of 1813, or abdicate.
Metternich lost no time in assembling the monarchs of Austria, Prussia,
and Russia, with their principal ministers, to a conference or congress
at Troppau, with a view of putting down the insurrection by armed
intervention. The result is well known. The armies of Austria and
Russia--170,000 men--restored the Neapolitan tyrant to his throne; while
he, on his part, revoked the constitution he had sworn to defend, and
a