Louis XVIII., the Bourbon king, brother of Louis XVI., who had reigned while Napoleon was at Elba, came back to the throne of France. The title of Louis XVII. was given to the poor boy, son of Louis XVI., who died from cruel treatment in the dungeons of the Revolution. In Spain the feeble Ferdinand returned to the throne which he had given up without a protest at the command of Napoleon. Portugal was given a monarch of its old dynasty. All seemed to have floated back into the old conditions again. [=The Rights of Man=] As for the rights of the people, what had become of them? Had they been swept away and the old wrongs of the people been brought back? Not quite. The frenzied enthusiasm for liberty and human rights of the past twenty-five years could not go altogether for nothing. The lingering relics of feudalism had vanished, not only from France but from all Europe, and no monarch or congress could bring them back again. In its place the principles of democracy had spread from France far among the peoples of Europe. The principle of class privilege had been destroyed in France, and that of social equality had replaced it. The principle of the liberty of the individual, especially in his religious opinions, and the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, had been proclaimed. These had still a battle before them. They needed to fight their way. Absolutism and the spirit of feudalism were arrayed against them. But they were too deeply implanted in the minds of the people to be eradicated, and their establishment as actual conditions has been the most important part of the political development of the nineteenth century. [Illustration: LORD HORATIO NELSON ARTHUR WELLESLEY, DUKE OF WELLINGTON ILLUSTRIOUS LEADERS OF ENGLAND'S NAVY AND ARMY] Revolution was the one thing that the great powers of Europe feared and hated; this was the monster against which the Congress of Vienna directed its efforts. The cause of quiet and order, the preservation of the established state of things, the authority of rulers, the subordination of peoples, must be firmly maintained, and revolutionary disturbers must be put down with a strong hand. Such was the political dogma of the Congress. And yet, in spite of its assembled wisdom and the principles it promulgated, the nineteenth century has been especially the century of revolutions, actual or virtual, the result being an extraordinary growth in the liberties and prerogatives of the people. [Illustration: JAMES WATT--THE FATHER OF THE STEAM ENGINE