An express order of the emperor had suspended for that day all the ordinary entertainments. During the evening there was positively a crowd in M. de Talleyrand’s drawing-rooms. Everything was most sedate, as usual, for political discussions were the order of the day there rather than those connected with fêtes and gaiety. The Polish question was more than ever to the fore, and apparently as far as ever from being settled. The incorporation of Poland with his empire had been the ardent aspiration of Alexander from the very beginning of the Congress of Vienna. Supported in that claim by the King of Prussia, to whom, as a set-off, he sacrificed and abandoned Saxony, he had not reckoned upon any particular resistance; but it became manifest at the very outset of the discussions that there would be a lively opposition to this dual spoliation and the kind of bargain it involved. In the matter of Saxony, both Metternich and Talleyrand strenuously opposed the overthrow of a prince sincerely beloved by his subjects, and who during forty years had honoured the throne by his uprightness and by a combination of many virtues. These two statesmen fostered the hope that by denying Saxony to Prussia they would contribute to a rupture between the czar and King Frederick William; and that in consequence of this the Congress would be enabled to cut an independent Polish kingdom out of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. England, which in principle seemed favourable to the pretensions of Russia and Prussia, had, however, been persuaded by the arguments of the Austrian Minister and his French colleague, and had taken sides with them. The discussion became very envenomed, in spite of the kindly efforts of Prince Razumowski. It was during one of those stormy conferences that the Grand-Duke Constantine became very angry with M. de ----. Finally, during another sitting, Alexander, addressing Lord Castlereagh, had not scrupled to affirm that at his voice eight millions of Poles would not hesitate to arise in order to sustain the independence of their country.[100]