Peace was established in Europe. It had cost France great anguish and great grief. The Duke Richelieu, who had concluded it, and whose personal influence over the Emperor Alexander had powerfully contributed to soften its conditions, expressed the sentiment of all France when he wrote to his sister, Madame Montcalm, "All is consummated. More dead than alive, I have affixed my name to that fatal treaty. I had sworn not to do it, and I had said it to the king. The unhappy prince conjured me, breaking into tears, not to abandon him. I no longer hesitated. I have the confidence to believe that no one else could have obtained as much. France, expiring under the weight of the calamities which overwhelm her, claims imperiously a prompt deliverance." England again breathed: triumphant, but weighed down by her long efforts. The state of the public finances and the monetary situation occupied all minds, and served as a theme for the attacks of the opposition against Lord Liverpool and Lord Castlereagh. A certain inquietude manifested itself also upon the subject of the secret conditions of the peace. Henry Brougham, a young advocate of great talent, in a speech upon this question, demanded the publication of the Treaty, half mystical, half absolute, known under the name of the Holy Alliance, and signed at Paris on the 20th of November, 1815, by the Emperors of Russia and Austria, as well as by the King of Prussia. {443} "In his capacity as constitutional sovereign, the Prince Regent was not competent to affix his signature to this treaty, concluded by the sovereigns themselves," said Lord Castlereagh; "England has therefore no right to call for its publication." The Houses gave themselves the noble pleasure of rewarding the valor of their generals and their armies. Monuments were erected to the memory of those who had fallen in the war. The pensions formerly accorded to the Duke of Wellington were doubled; he received from the just gratitude of his country five hundred thousand pounds sterling. It is to the honor of the English nation that no absolute monarch was ever more liberal toward his favorites than it has shown itself in regard to its great servants.