bringing about the overthrow of Napoleon continued to dominate the
affairs of Europe until 1823. This alliance, which met at the Congress
of Vienna in 1815 and held later meetings at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818,
at Troppau in 1820, at Laybach in 1821, and at Verona in 1822,
undertook to legislate for all Europe and was the nearest approach to a
world government that had ever been tried. While this alliance
publicly proclaimed that it had no other object than the maintenance of
peace and that the repose of the world was its motive and its end, its
real object was to uphold absolute monarchy and to suppress every
attempt at the establishment of representative government. As long as
England remained in the alliance her statesmen exercised a restraining
influence, for England was the only one of the allies which professed
to have a representative system of government. As Castlereagh was
setting out for the meeting at Aix-la-Chapelle Lord Liverpool, who was
then prime minister, warned him that, "The Russian must be made to feel
that we have a parliament and a public, to which we are responsible,
and that we cannot permit ourselves to be drawn into views of policy
which are wholly incompatible with the spirit of our government."

The reactionary spirit of the continental members of the alliance was
soon thoroughly aroused by the series of revolutions that followed one
another in 1820. In March the Spanish army turned against the
government of Ferdinand VII and demanded the restoration of the
constitution of 1812. The action of the army was everywhere approved
and sustained by the people and the king was forced to proclaim the
constitution and to promise to uphold it. The Spanish revolution was
followed in July by a constitutional movement in Naples, and in August
by a similar movement in Portugal; while the next year witnessed the
outbreak of the Greek struggle for independence. Thus in all three of
the peninsulas of Southern Europe the people were struggling for the