at his side—­La Harpe, who was his tutor, a Jacobin pure and simple, and a fervent apostle of the teachings of Jean Jacques Rousseau; Czartoryski, a Pole, sincerely anxious for the regeneration of his kingdom; and Capo d’Istria, a champion of Greek nationality.  To these we have to add the curious figure of the Baroness von Kruedener, an admirable representative of the religious sickliness of the age.  “I have immense things to say to him,” she said, referring to the Emperor, “the Lord alone can prepare his heart to receive them.”  She had, indeed, many things to say to him, but her influence was evanescent and his Imperial heart was hardened eventually to quite different issues.

METTERNICH

Absolutely at the other extreme was a man like Metternich, trained in the old school of politics, wily with the wiliness of a practised diplomatic training, naturally impatient of speculative dreamers, thoroughly practical in the only sense in which he understood the term, that is to say, determined to preserve Austrian supremacy.  To a reactionary of this kind the Holy Alliance represented nothing but words.  He knew, with the cynicism bred of long experience of mankind, that the rivalries and jealousies between different states would prevent their union in any common purpose, and in the long run the intensity with which he pursued his objects, narrow and limited as it was, prevailed over the large and vague generosity of Alexander’s nature.  To the same type belonged both Talleyrand and Richelieu, who concentrated themselves on the single task of winning back for France her older position in the European commonwealth—­a laudable aim for patriots to espouse, but one which was not likely to help the cause of the Holy Alliance.

CASTLEREAGH AND CANNING

Half-way between these two extremes of unpractical idealists and extremely practical but narrow-minded reactionaries come the English statesmen, Castlereagh, Wellington, and Canning.  Much injustice has been done to the first of these.  For many critics have been misled by Byron’s denunciation of Castlereagh, just as others have spoken lightly of the stubborn conservatism of Wellington, or the easy and half-cynical insouciance of the author of the Anti-Jacobin.  As a matter of fact, Castlereagh was by no means an opponent of the principles of the Holy Alliance.  He joined with Russia, Austria, and Prussia as a not unwilling member of the successive Congresses, but both he and Wellington, true to their national instincts, sought to subordinate all proposals to the interests of Great Britain, and to confine discussions to immediate objects, such as the limitation of French power and the suppression of dangerous revolutionary ideas.  They were not, it is true, idealists in the sense in which Alexander I understood the term.  And yet, on the whole, both Castlereagh and Canning