"The document called the Holy Alliance was originally sketched at Paris [during the occupation of the French capital by the Allies, after Waterloo, in 1815], in the French language, by [the Czar] Alexander's own hand, after a long and animated conversation with Madame de Krüdener and Bergasse. It was suggested, perhaps, by words spoken by the king of Prussia after the battle of Bautzen, but was chiefly the result of the influence, upon a mind always inclined to religious ideas, of the conversation of Madame de Krüdener and of the philosopher Bader, the admirer of Tauler, Jacob Boehm, and St. Martin, the deadly foe of Kant and his successors in Germany. … The Czar dreamt of founding a Communion of states, bound together by the first principles of Christianity. … The king of Prussia signed the paper from motives of friendship for the Czar, without attaching much importance to what he did. … The emperor of Austria, the least sentimental of mankind, at first declined to sign, 'because,' he said, 'if the secret is a political one, I must tell it, to Metternich; if it is a religious one, I must tell it to my confessor.' Metternich accordingly was told; and observed scornfully, 'C'est du verbiage.' {1658} Indeed no one of the princes who adhered to the Holy Alliance, with the single exception of Alexander himself, ever took it seriously. It was doomed from its birth. As M. de Bernhardi observes: 'It sank without leaving a trace in the stream of events, never became a reality, and never had the slightest real importance.' What had real importance was the continuance of the good understanding between the powers who had put down Napoleon, and their common fear of France. This good understanding and that common fear led to the treaty of the 20th November 1815, by which it was stipulated that the Powers should, from time to time, hold Congresses with a view to regulating the welfare of nations and the peace of Europe. It was these Congresses, and not the Holy Alliance, which kept up close relations between the rulers of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and enabled them, when the liberal movement on the Continent, which followed the conclusion of the war, began to be alarming, to take measures for a combined system of repression." _M. E. G. Duff, Studies in European Polities, chapter 2._ The text of the Treaty is as follows: