The patriots, of whom the governments had made use both before and after the war, unable to comprehend that the result of such immense exertions and of such a complete triumph should be to bring greater profit and glory to France than to Germany, and that their patriotism was, on the conclusion of the war, to be renounced, were loud in their complaints.[11] But the revival of the German empire, with which the individual interests of so many princely houses were plainly incompatible, was far from entering into the plans of the allied powers. An attempt made by any one among the princes to place himself at the head of the whole of Germany would have been frustrated by the rest. The policy of the foreign allies was moreover antipathetic to such a scheme. England opposed and sought to hinder unity in Germany, not only for the sake of retaining possession of Hanover and of exercising an influence over the disunited German princes similar to that exercised by her over the princes of India, but more particularly for that of ruling the commerce of Germany. Russia reverted to her Erfurt policy. Her interests, like those of France, led her to promote disunion among the German powers, whose weakness, the result of want of combination, placed them at the mercy of France, and left Poland, Sweden, and the East open to the ambition of Russia. A close alliance was in consequence instantly formed between the emperor Alexander and Louis XVIII., the former negotiating, as the first condition of peace, the continuance of Lorraine and Alsace beneath the sovereignty of France. Austria assented on condition of Italy being placed exclusively beneath her control. Austria united too many and too diverse nations beneath her sceptre to be able to pursue a policy pre-eminently German, and found it more convenient to round off her territories by the annexation of Upper Italy than by that of distant Lorraine, at all times a possession difficult to maintain. Prussia was too closely connected with Russia, and Hardenberg, unlike Blucher at the head of the Prussian army, was powerless at the head of Prussian diplomacy. The lesser states also exercised no influence upon Germany as a whole, and were merely intent upon preserving their individual integrity or upon gaining some petty advantage. The Germans, some few discontented patriots alone excepted, were more than ever devoted to their ancient princes, both to those who had retained their station and to those who returned to their respective territories on the fall of Napoleon; and the victorious soldiery, adorned with ribbons, medals, and orders (the Prussians, for instance, with the iron cross), evinced the same unreserved attachment to their prince and zeal for his individual interest. This complication of circumstances can alone explain the fact of Germany, although triumphant, having made greater concessions to France by the treaty of Paris than, when humbled, by that of Westphalia.