"Holy Alliance" to
prevent war, Metternich for the same purpose formed the less holy but
more powerful "Quadruple Alliance" of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and
England.

The designs of Metternich, however, went far beyond the mere prevention
of war. To his mind the cause of all the upheavals which had convulsed
Europe was the spirit of liberty bred in France in the days of the
Revolution; if order was to be restored, there must be a return to the
former autocratic principle of government, to the doctrine of "Divine
Right"; it was for kings and emperors to command; it was the duty of
subjects to obey. These principles had not, it was true, preserved peace
in the past, but Metternich now proposed that, in the future, sovereigns
or their representatives should meet "at fixed periods" to adjust their
own differences and to assist one another in enforcing the obedience of
subjects everywhere. The rulers were reasonably well satisfied with
the world as it was arranged by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and
determined to set their faces against any change in the relations of
governments to one another or to their subjects. They regretted, indeed,
that the Government of the United States was built upon the sands of
a popular vote, but they recognized that it was apparently well
established and decently respectable, and therefore worthy of
recognition by the mutual protection society of the Holy Alliance.

The subjects of these sovereigns, however, did not all share the
satisfaction of their masters, and some of them soon showed that much as
they desired peace they desired other things even more. The inhabitants
of Spanish America, while their imperial mother was in the chaos of
Napoleon's wars, had nibbled at the forbidden fruit of freedom. They
particularly desired freedom to buy the products of British factories,
which cost less and satisfied better than those previously furnished
by the Spanish merchants, secure in their absolute monopoly. With peace
came renewed monopoly, haughty officials, and oppressive laws dictated
by that most stupid of the restored sovereigns, Ferdinand VII of Spain.
Buenos Aires, however, never recognized his rule, and her general, the
knightly San Martin, in one of the most remarkable campaigns of history,
scaled the Andes and carried the flag of revolution into Chili and Peru.
Venezuela, that hive of revolution, sent forth Bolivar to found the
new republics of Colombia and Bolivia. Mexico freed herse