France, Austria, and England had snatched the greater part of Saxony from the jaws of Prussia, and Alexander had been forced to leave the King of Saxony to reign over half of his former subjects, without, as he wished, sparing him the pain of such a degradation by taking all from him.  Russia had to be contented with a large increase of her Polish dominions, getting most of the Grand-Duchy of Westphalia.  Austria had, probably unwisely, withdrawn from her former outlying provinces in Swabia and the Netherlands, which had before the Revolution made her necessarily the guardian of Europe against France, preferring to take her gains in Italy, gains which she has gradually lost in our days; while Prussia, by accepting the Rhine provinces, completely stepped into the former post of Austria.  Indeed, from the way in which Prussia was, after 1815, as it were, scattered across Germany, it was evident that her fate must be. either to be crushed by France, or else, by annexing the states enclosed in her dominions, to become the predominating power in Germany.  It was impossible for her to remain as she was left.

The Allies tightly bound France.  They had no desire to have again to march on Paris to restore Louis to the subjects who had such unfortunate objections to being subjected to that desirable monarch.  By the second Treaty of Paris, on the 20th of November 1815, France was to be occupied by an Allied force, in military positions on the frontier, not to exceed 150,000 men, to be taken from all the Allied armies, under a commander who was eventually the Duke of Wellington.  Originally the occupation. was not to exceed five years, but in February 1817 the army was reduced by 30,000 men, one-fifth of each contingent; and by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle of 9th October 1818, France was to-be evacuated by the 30th of November 1818.

The three monarchs were probably not sorry to get the Congress over on any terms.  Alexander had had his fill of displaying himself in the salons in his favourite part of an Agamemnon generous towards Troy, and he had worn out his first popularity.  He was stung by finding some of his favourite plans boldly opposed by Talleyrand and by Metternich, and, indeed, was anxious to meet the last in open combat.  Francis had required all the firmness of what he called his Bohemian head to resist the threats, entreaties, and cajoleries employed to get him to acquiesce in the dethronement of the King of Saxony, and the wiping out of the Saxon nationality by the very alliance which professed to fight only for the rights of nations and of their lawful sovereigns.

All three monarchs had again the satisfaction of entering Paris, but without enjoying the full glories of 1814.  “Our friends, the enemies” were not so popular then in France, and the spoliation of the Louvre was not pleasant even to the Royalists.  The foreign monarchs soon returned to their own drained and impoverished States.

The Emperor Francis had afterwards a quiet reign to his death in 1835, having only to assist his Minister in snuffing out the occasional flashes of a love of freedom in Germany.