evelopment.

THE GREAT REACTION

THEY TRIED TO ASSURE THE WORLD AN ERA OF UNDISTURBED PEACE BY
SUPPRESSING ALL NEW IDEAS. THEY MADE THE POLICE-SPY THE HIGHEST
FUNCTIONARY IN THE STATE AND SOON THE PRISONS OF ALL COUNTRIES WERE
FILLED WITH THOSE WHO CLAIMED THAT PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO GOVERN
THEMSELVES AS THEY SEE FIT

To undo the damage done by the great Napoleonic flood was almost
impossible. Age-old fences had been washed away. The palaces of two
score dynasties had been damaged to such an extent that they had to
be condemned as uninhabitable. Other royal residences had been greatly
enlarged at the expense of less fortunate neighbours. Strange odds and
ends of revolutionary doctrine had been left behind by the receding
waters and could not be dislodged without danger to the entire
community. But the political engineers of the Congress did the best they
could and this is what they accomplished.

France had disturbed the peace of the world for so many years that
people had come to fear that country almost instinctively. The Bourbons,
through the mouth of Talleyrand, had promised to be good, but the
Hundred Days had taught Europe what to expect should Napoleon manage
to escape for a second time. The Dutch Republic, therefore, was changed
into a Kingdom, and Belgium (which had not joined the Dutch struggle for
independence in the sixteenth century and since then had been part of
the Habsburg domains, firs t under Spanish rule and thereafter under
Austrian rule) was made part of this new kingdom of the Netherlands.
Nobody wanted this union either in the Protestant North or in the
Catholic South, but no questions were asked. It seemed good for the
peace of Europe and that was the main consideration.

Poland had hoped for great things because a Pole, Prince Adam
Czartoryski, was one of the most intimate friends of Tsar Alexander
and had been his constant advisor during the war and at the Congress
of Vienna. But Poland was made a semi-independent part of Russia with
Alexander as her king. This solution pleased no one and caused much
bitter feeling and three revolutions.

Denmark, which had remained a faithful ally of Napoleon until the end,
was severely punished. Seven years before, an English fleet had sailed
down the Kattegat and without a declaration of war or any warning had
bombarded Copenhagen and had taken away the Danish fleet, lest it be of
value to Napoleon. The Congress of Vienna went one step furt