h of the movement from the west
occurs: a backwash which serves to solve the apparently insuperable
diplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of that period of
history.

The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any
conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but by
strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they
cursed the day before and will curse again a month later.

This man is still needed to justify the final collective act.

That act is performed.

The last role is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off his
powder and paint: he will not be wanted any more.

And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to himself
in solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and lies
when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the whole
world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long as an
unseen hand directed his actions.

The manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the actor
shows him to us.

"See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was not he
but I who moved you?"

But dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people
understood this.

Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of
Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement from
east to west.

What was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the head of
that movement from east to west?

What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European
affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a moral
superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated with him;
a mild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance against
Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had been
prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his education,
his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by
Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.

During the national war he was inactive because he was not needed. But
as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself he
appeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the nations of
Europe, led them to the goal.

The goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses all
possible power. How does he use it?

Alexander I--the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early years