Poor Denmark was left alone. Napoleon III. made the mistake of not attempting to defeat Prussia before she had reached her climax of strength. He was tied up with his Mexican adventure and unwilling to help Denmark. Charles XV. could not endure to see Denmark thus deserted. Privately he offered Christian IX. an alliance which stipulated that the three Scandinavian kingdoms should be joined into a union with one common foreign policy and common defence. Charles was also willing to make the succession one, if necessary. This alliance was to embrace only such parts of Denmark which were not to enter the German union. Sweden-Norway would do their utmost to prohibit a separation between Denmark and Schleswig. Denmark refused to accept this offer. Her leading statesman, Monrad, held stubbornly to the idea of an undivided Danish monarchy. For this reason, Denmark was for a second time abandoned to fight out alone her uneven battle. It ended in the loss of Holstein, Lauenburg and the greater part of Schleswig, through the treaty of Vienna, October 30, 1864. In Denmark a hard feeling against the Swedes and Norwegians sprang up as a consequence of the disastrous war fought without allies; and the Scandinavian policy and enthusiasm had received a blow from which they have never fully recovered. Charles XV. did all in his power to revive them. He had the pleasure of uniting the efforts of Sweden, Norway and Denmark in a peaceful work of great significance, the first Scandinavian Exposition of Industry and Art, which was opened at Stockholm in June, 1866. The consequence was a perfect Norwegian conquest of Sweden, in a cultured sense. The painters Tidemand and Gude captured the prizes. The composers Kierulf and Nordraak took the lead in song and music. Ibsen and Bjornson became the craze in literature. The literary contact with Norway was begun in 1861, when Lorenz Dietriechson was appointed a docent at the University of Upsala, and for the first time made the contemporary Norwegian and Danish poets acquainted in Sweden. What Sweden received from Norway was a quaint, late-born Romanticism of a strong national flavor. When this Romanticism was changed into stern Realism its influence upon Swedish culture, especially her literature, was only increased, Swedish literature receiving strong realistic impulses from the neighboring Scandinavian countries. The Norwegian influence ceased, when the Swedes at last became aware that there was in it a deeply pessimistic trait, akin to the stern Norwegian and Scotch Christianity, which is incompatible with the Swedish national temperament, slightly inclined to melancholy, but of a robust and irrepressible desire to live and enjoy.