, in spite of his instructions to
guarantee the neutrality of Switzerland, he signed on his own
responsibility the proclamation issued by Prince Schwarzenberg, stating
the intention of the allied troops to march through the country. His
motive was to prevent any appearance of disagreement among the allies.
The emperor Alexander, to whom he hastened to make an explanation in
person, endorsed his action.

Capo d'Istria was present with the allies in Paris, and after the
signing of the first peace of Paris he was rewarded by the tsar with the
order of St Vladimir and his full confidence. At the congress of Vienna
his influence was conspicuous; he represented the tsar on the Swiss
committee, was associated with Rasumovsky in negotiating the tangled
Polish and Saxon questions, and was the Russian plenipotentiary in the
discussions with the Baron vom Stein on the affairs of Germany. His
_Memoire sur l'empire germanique_, of the 9th of February 1815,
presented to the tsar, was based on the policy of keeping Germany weak
in order to secure Russian preponderance in its councils. It was perhaps
from a similar motive that, after the Waterloo campaign, he strenuously
opposed the proposals for the dismemberment of France. It was on his
advice that the duc de Richelieu persuaded Louis XVIII. to write the
autograph letter in which he declared his intention of resigning rather
than submit to any diminution of the territories handed down to him by
his ancestors.[2] The treaty of the 20th of November 1815, which formed
for years the basis of the effective concert of Europe, was also largely
his work.

On the 26th of September 1815, after the proclamation of the Holy
Alliance at the great review on the plain of Vertus, Capo d'Istria was
named a secretary of state. On his return to St Petersburg, he shared
the ministry of foreign affairs with Count Nesselrode, though the latter
as senior signed all documents. Capo d'Istria, however, had sole charge
of the newly acquired province of Bessarabia, which he governed
conspicuously well. In 1818 he attended the emperor Alexander at the
congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, and in the following year obtained leave to
visit his home. He travelled by way of Venice, Rome and Naples, his
progress exciting the liveliest apprehensions of the powers, notably of
Austria. The "Jacobin" pose of the tsar was notorious, his all-embracing
ambition hardly less so; and Russian travellers in Italy, notably the
emperor's