so much peace with the vanquished enemy as a complete reform of the
ordering of the whole world, so that wars should thenceforward be
abolished and the welfare of mankind be set developing like a sort of
pacific _perpetuum mobile_. This blessed change, however, was to be
compassed, not by the peoples or their representatives, but by the
governments, led by himself and deliberating in secret. At the Paris
Conference it was even so.

This curious type of public worker--a mixture of the mystical and the
practical--was the terror of the Vienna delegates. He put spokes in
everybody's wheel, behaved as the autocrat of the Congress and felt as
self-complacent as a saint. Countess von Thurheim wrote of him: "He
mistrusted his environment and let himself be led by others. But he was
thoroughly good and high-minded and sought after the weal, not merely of
his own country, but of the whole world. _Son coeur eût embrassé le
bonheur du monde_." He realized in himself the dreams of the
philosophers about love for mankind, but their Utopias of human
happiness were based upon the perfection both of subjects and of
princes, and, as Alexander could fulfil only one-half of these
conditions, his work remained unfinished and the poor Emperor died, a
victim of his high-minded illusions.[5]

The other personages, Metternich in particular, were greatly put out by
Alexander's presence. They labeled him a marplot who could not and would
not enter into the spirit of their game, but they dared not offend him.
Without his brave troops they could not have been victorious and they
did not know how soon they might need him again, for he represented a
numerous and powerful people whose economic and military resources
promised it in time the hegemony of the world. So, while they heartily
disliked the chief of this new great country, they also feared and,