international tribunal, the encouragement of the growth of representative
institutions, and, last but not least, an arrangement between the Powers
for a gradual and systematic disarmament. "It seemed," writes Sir A.W.
Ward, "as if the states composing the European family, free once more to
take counsel together on terms of independence, were also free to determine
their own destinies."[1] The Congress of Vienna was to inaugurate a
New Era. Such of these views, however, as pointed in a democratic or
nationalistic direction represented the expectations of the peoples,
not the intentions of the crowned heads and diplomatists who met at the
Austrian capital. Among the members of the Congress the only man who at
first voiced these aspirations of the world at large was the Russian Tsar,
Alexander I., and such concessions to popular opinion as were made were due
to what the English plenipotentiary, Lord Castlereagh, described as the
"sublime mysticism and nonsense" of the Emperor.

[Footnote 1: _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. ix. p. 577.]

Instead, therefore, of establishing a new era, the Congress did its utmost
to restore the old one. Everything which had happened in Europe since
the outbreak of the French Revolution was regarded as a bad dream, the
principles of popular freedom and national liberty were completely ignored,
and an attempt was made to rivet again on the limbs of Europe the shackles
of the antiquated frontiers which had been struck off by the hammer of
Napoleon. Everywhere the "national idea" was trampled upon. Germany and
Italy were put back again into the eighteenth century, Austria's territory
in the latter country being largely increased; Norway was unwillingly yoked
with Sweden, and Belgium with Holland; Switzerland was made to surrender
her democratic constitution and to return to the aristocratic cantonal
system of the past; and, lastly, Poland remained dismembered.