312 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



the old hereditary families are sacrilegious. Such was the 

 line of argument advanced at the conference. .Ilie__jthree 

 powers declared that, having crushed out the arch fiend 

 of military tyranny and oppression (Napoleon), they now 

 found themselves called upon to "put a curb on a force no 

 less tyrannical, and no less detestable that of revolt and 

 crime." 



Suiting their actions to their words, the allies called upon 

 the aged king of Naples to meet them in Leybach in January, 

 1821, and take council with them concerning the suppression 

 of a revolution which had forced him to accept a constitution 

 and a parliament. While that old monarch was theorizing 

 in Leybach, the king's son joined the popular party against 

 him. The allies sent an Austrian army into Italy which de- 

 feated the prince, suppressed the rebellion and restored the 

 old king upon the throne of Naples as an absolute ruler. 

 Insurrections in Piedmont and in Greece were in the same 

 manner crushed by the forces of the allies. 



At Leybach, a new declaration of principles was issued, 

 which was, in effect, a repetition of the Troppau circular. 

 It announced that they (the allies) had " taken the people of 

 Europe into their holy keeping, and that, in future, all useful 

 and necessary changes in the legislation and administration 

 of states must emanate alone from the free will, the reflected 

 and enlightened impulse of those whom God has rendered 

 responsible for power." 



The next year the allies met in Vienna, adjourning thence 

 | to Verona (October, 1822), when the matter of the Spanish 

 revolution was taken into most serious consideration. Spain 

 was distressed by civil dissensions, Ferdinand had been driven 

 into reassembling the Cortes, and the cause of liberalism was 

 again advancing. It appeared more and more improbable 

 that the exhausted nation could succeed in holding her trans- 

 atlantic colonies, all of which were in revolt, and most of 

 which had, to all intents and purposes, already acquired their 

 independence. Ferdinand begged the aid of the alliance to 

 regain his American possessions, and the great powers hesi- 

 tated. Russia, Prussia and Austria, which stood firmly 



