statues to enrich his own museums. He turned
the whole of Europe into an armed camp and killed almost an entire
generation of men.

Now he was gone, and the people (except a few professional military men)
had but one wish. They wanted to be let alone. For awhile they had been
allowed to rule themselves, to vote for mayors and aldermen and
judges. The system had been a terrible failure. The new rulers had been
inexperienced and extravagant. From sheer despair the people turned to
the representative men of the old Regime. "You rule us," they said, "as
you used to do. Tell us what we owe you for taxes and leave us alone. We
are busy repairing the damage of the age of liberty."

The men who stage-managed the famous congress certainly did their best
to satisfy this longing for rest and quiet. The Holy Alliance, the main
result of the Congress, made the policeman the most important dignitary
of the State and held out the most terrible punishment to those who
dared criticise a single official act.

Europe had peace, but it was the peace of the cemetery.

The three most important men at Vienna were the Emperor Alexander of
Russia, Metternich, who represented the interests of the Austrian house
of Habsburg, and Talleyrand, the erstwhile bishop of Autun, who had
managed to live through the different changes in the French government
by the sheer force of his cunning and his intelligence and who now
travelled to the Austrian capital to save for his country whatever
could be saved from the Napoleonic ruin. Like the gay young man of the
limerick, who never knew when he was slighted, this unbidden guest came
to the party and ate just as heartily as if he had been really
invited. Indeed, before long, he was sitting at the head of the
table entertaining everybody with his amusing stories and gaining the
company's good will by the charm of his manner.

Before he had been in Vienna twenty-four hours he knew that the allies
were divided into two hostile camps. On the one side were Russia, who
wanted to take Poland, and Prussia, who wanted to annex Saxony; and on
the other side were Austria and England, who were trying to prevent this
grab because it was against their own interest that either Prussia or
Russia should be able to dominate Europe. Talleyrand played the two
sides against each other with great skill and it was due to his efforts
that the French people were not made to suffer for the ten years
of oppression which Europe had