1822. The crowned heads of Europe appeared unable to
comprehend that the French revolution, with its orgies of blood (p. 206)
and tears, had produced an impassable abyss between the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. They wished to return to the conditions
prevailing before the revolution, which caused the success of that
upheaval; but the people, the masses, had quaffed of the cup of
liberty, and the taste lingered. The Holy Alliance with its unholy
aims might ordain what it pleased, the _people_ obstinately refused to
resume the place of beasts of burden for the benefit of the State.
Thus a spirit of unrest was perceptible, and when Alexander learned
that his "I, the czar, will it!" was not able to restore quiet, he
joined the other crowned heads in their struggle against more liberal
ideas. From that time his conduct changed.

There was evidence of this in the events occurring in the south. The
majority of the inhabitants of the Balkan provinces of Turkey belonged
to the Greek Church, and looked to Alexander for relief from the
oppressive Mahomedan yoke. The Servians took up arms, the people of
Greece did the same. On Easter day, 1821, the Patriarch of the Greek
Church at Constantinople was seized at the altar, and hung in his
vestment at the door of the church. Three metropolitans and eight
bishops were also murdered. The news caused deep indignation in
Russia, but Alexander moved not. He believed in the theory that no
people should be encouraged in rising against its ordained masters. In
Russia all liberal ideas were rigidly suppressed.

In 1825, Alexander left St. Petersburg for the south where he intended
to spend some time. He was full of gloomy forebodings and gave further
evidence of an unsound mind by having a mass for the dead sung in (p. 207)
his presence in broad daylight. While in the Crimea he was heard to
repeat: "They may say what they like of me, but I have lived and will
die a republican." He died on the 19th of November, 1825, while on his
journey.

He left no sons. His brother Constantine had renounced the crown when
he became King of Poland, and in 1823, Alexander had made his next
brother Nicholas his successor. Alexander's reign marked a new era for
Russia inasmuch as it was brought into closer contact with Europe, and
promised to change in thought and impulse, from an Asiatic into a
European nation. The necessity of securing the help of the masses
against Napoleon's invasion created n