called it a "loud sounding nothing"; Castlereagh "a piece of sublime
mysticism and nonsense," while Canning declared that for his part he
wanted no more of "Areopagus and the like of that." What happened on this
occasion is what ordinarily happens with well-intentioned idealists who
happen also to be amateur statesmen. Trying to regulate practical
politics, the Holy Alliance was deflected from its original purpose
because its chief author, Alexander I, came under the influence of
Metternich and was frightened by revolutionary movements in Italy and
within his own dominions. Thus the instrument originally intended to
preserve nationalities and secure the constitutional rights of people was
converted into a weapon for the use of autocrats only anxious to preserve
their own thrones. Nevertheless, though it may have been a failure, the
Holy Alliance did not leave itself without witness in the modern world. It
tried to regulate ordinary diplomacy in accordance with ethical and
spiritual principles; and the dreaming mind of its first founder was
reproduced in that later descendant of his who initiated the Hague
propaganda of peace.


FAILURE

"These things were written for our ensamples," and we should be foolish
indeed if we did not take stock of them with an anxious eye to the future.
The main and startling fact is that with every apparent desire for the
re-establishment of Europe on better lines, Europe, as a matter of fact,
drifted back into the old welter of conflicting nationalities, while the
very instrument of peace--the Holy Alliance--was used by autocratic
governments for the subjection of smaller nationalities and the
destruction of popular freedom. It is accordingly very necessary that we
should study the conditions under which so startling a transformation took