strange as it may seem, the powers could not decide who should own the city of Cracow and the territory around it, and they ended by making this district a little republic, under the joint protection of Austria, Prussia, and Russia.  In fact, the Swiss, serene in their lofty mountains, were almost the only small people of Europe who were left untroubled.  The Congress of 1815 had laid the foundation for future revolutions and wars without number.

At first, the Poles were fairly well treated by the Russians, but after two or three unsuccessful attempts at a revolution, Poland, which, as one of the states of the Russian Empire, was still called a kingdom, was deprived of all its rights, and its people were forced to give up the use of their language in their schools, their courts, and even their churches.  In the same fashion, the Poles in Prussia were “not even allowed to think in Polish,” as one Polish patriot bitterly put it.  All through the first half of the 19th century, there were uprisings and struggles among these people.  As a result of one of them, in 1846, the little Republic of Cracow was abolished, and its territory forcibly annexed to Austria.

The Italian people formed secret societies which had for their object the uniting of Italy, and the freeing of its people from foreign rulers.  All through Germany there were mutterings of discontent.  The people wanted more freedom from their lords.  Greece broke out into insurrection against the Turks, and fifteen years after the Congress of 1815 won its right to independence.  Not long afterwards, the southern half of the Netherlands broke itself loose from the northern half, and declared to the world that it should henceforth be a new kingdom, under the name of Belgium.  About the same time, the people of France rose up against the Bourbon kings, and threw them out “for good.”  A distant cousin of the king was elected, not “king of France” but “citizen king of the French,” and the people were allowed to elect men to represent them in a parliament or Congress at Paris.  In Spain, one revolution followed another.  For a short time, Spain was a republic, but the people were not well enough educated to govern themselves, and the kingdom was restored.

[Illustration:  Prince Metternich]

The statesman who had more to do with the division of territory in 1815 than any other was Prince Metternich of Austria.  He stood for the “divine right of kings,” and did not believe in allowing the common people any liberty whatsoever.  In 1848, an uprising occurred in Austria, and crowds in Vienna, crying, “down with Metternich,” forced the aged diplomat to flee.  During the same year, there were outbreaks in Germany.  The people everywhere were revolting against the feudal rights of their kings and princes, and gaining greater liberty for themselves.  In 1848, France, also, grew tired of her “citizen king,” and that country a second time became a republic.  The French made the mistake, however, of electing as their president, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the great Napoleon, and in time he did exactly what his uncle had done,—­persuaded the French people to elect him emperor.