In this respect the diet fairly reflected the place of Germany in Europe. The constitution was the work of the powers, which in all matters arising out of it constituted the final court of appeal. The result was not wholly one-sided. Until the congress of Troppau in 1820 "Jacobinism" was still enthroned in high places in the person of Alexander I. of Russia, whose "divine mission," for the time, included a not wholly disinterested advocacy of the due carrying out of Article 13 of the Final Act. It was not to Russia's interest to see Austrian influence supreme in the confederation. The lesser German princes, too, were quick to grasp at any means to strengthen their position against the dominant powers, and to this end they appealed to the Liberal sentiment of their peoples. Not that this sentiment was very deep or widespread. The mass of the people, as Metternich rightly observed, wished for rest, not constitutions; but the minority of thoughtful men--professors, students, officials, many soldiers--resented the dashing of the hopes of German unity aroused by the War of Liberation, and had drunk deep of the revolutionary inspiration. This sentiment, since it could not be turned to the uses of a united Germany, might be made to serve the purposes of particularism. Prussia, in spite of the promises of Frederick William in the hour of need, remained without a central constitution; all the more reason why the states of second rank should provide themselves with one. Charles Augustus, the enlightened grand duke of Weimar, set the example, from the best of motives. Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg and others followed, from motives less disinterested. Much depended on the success of these experiments. Metternich and the constitutions. The Wartburg festival, 1818.