The shock given the Holy Alliance by the news from Spain was quickly followed by another coming from Naples. The Bourbon king who had been replaced upon the throne of that country, another Ferdinand, was one of the most despicable men of his not greatly esteemed race. His government, while weak, was harshly oppressive. But it did not need a revolution to frighten this royal dastard. A mere general celebration of the victory of the liberals in Spain was enough, and in his alarm he hastened to give his people a constitution similar to that which the Spaniards had gained. [=Metternich and His Congresses=] These awkward affairs sadly disturbed the equanimity of those statesmen who fancied that they had fully restored the divine right of kings. Metternich, the Austrian advocate of reaction, hastened to call a new Congress, in 1820, and another in 1821. The question he put to these assemblies was, Should revolution be permitted, or should Europe interfere in Spain and Naples, and pledge herself to uphold everywhere the sacred powers of legitimate monarchs? His old friends of the Holy Alliance backed him up in this suggestion, both Congresses adopted it, a policy of repression of revolutions became the programme, and Austria was charged to restore what Metternich called "order" in Naples. He did so. The liberals of Naples were far too weak to oppose the power of Austria. Their government fell to pieces as soon as the Austrian army appeared, and the impotent but cruel Ferdinand was made an absolute king again. The radicals in Piedmont started an insurrection which was quickly put down, and Austria became practically the lord and master of Italy. [=How Order was Restored in Spain=] Proud of his success, Metternich called a new Congress in 1822, in which it was resolved to repeat in Spain what had been done in Naples. France was now made the instrument of the absolutists. A French army marched across the Pyrenees, put down the government of the liberals, and gave the king back his despotic rule. He celebrated his return to power by a series of cruel executions. The Holy Alliance was in the ascendant, the liberals had been bitterly repaid for their daring, terror seized upon the liberty-loving peoples, and Europe seemed thrown fully into the grasp of the absolute kings. [=The Revolution in Greece=] Only in two regions did the spirit of revolt triumph during this period of reaction. These were Greece and Spanish America. The historic land of Greece had long been in the hands of a despotism with which even the Holy Alliance was not in sympathy--that of Turkey. Its very name, as a modern country, had almost vanished, and Europe heard with astonishment in 1821 that the descendants of the ancient Greeks had risen against the tyranny under which they had been crushed for centuries.