the course which events took after the overthrow of the old French monarchy.  Russian support was highly bidden for by both those parties in Europe which were headed respectively by France and by England; and it is difficult to decide from which Russia most profited in those days, the friendship of England or the enmity of France.  One thing was sufficiently clear,—­and that was, that, when the war had been decided in favor of the reactionists, Russia was the greatest power in the world.  In the autumn of 1815, a Russian army one hundred and sixty thousand strong was reviewed near Paris, a spectacle that must have caused the sovereigns and statesmen of the West to have some doubts as to the wisdom of their course in paying so very high a price for the overthrow of Napoleon.  It was certain that the genie had broken from his confinement, and that, while he towered to the skies, his shadow lay upon the world.  The hegemony which Russia held for almost forty years after that date justified the fears which then were expressed by reflecting men.  It only remained to be seen whether the Russian sovereigns, proceeding in the spirit that had moved Peter and Catharine, would take those measures by which alone a Russian People could be formed; and to that end, the abolition of serfdom was absolutely necessary:  the masses of their subjects, the very population from which their victorious armies were conscribed, being in a certain sense slaves, a state of things that had no parallel in the condition of any European country.[A]

[Footnote A:  At what precise time Russia’s policy began to influence the action of the European powers it would not be easy to say.  Unquestionably, Peter I.’s conduct was not without its effect, and his triumph over Charles XII. makes itself felt even to this day, and it ever will be felt.  “Pultowa’s day” was one of the grand field-days of history.  Sweden had obtained a high place in Europe, in consequence of the grand part she played in the Thirty Years’ War, to which contest she contributed the greatest generals, the ablest statesmen, and the best soldiers; and the successes of Charles XII. in the first half of his reign promised to increase the power of that country, which had become great under the rule and direction of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstierna.  This fair promise was lost with the Battle of Pultowa; and a country that might have successfully resisted Russia, and which, had its greatness continued, could have protected Poland,—­if, indeed, Poland could have been threatened, had Russia been unsuccessful at Pultowa,—­was thrown into the list of third-rate nations.  Poland was virtually given up to Russia through the defeat of Charles XII., just as, a century later, she failed of revival through the defeat of Napoleon I. in his Russian expedition.  But the effect of Sweden’s defeat was not fully seen until many years after its occurrence.  Prussia became alarmed at the progress of Russia at an early day.  The War of the Polish Succession was decided