The political systems of all ages are personified by certain statesmen, who were their representatives. Since the commencement of the eighteenth century, France has been constantly placed between two preponderating interests; these are, 1st, an alliance with England, effected during the regency, and overturned by Louis XV. at Fontenoy; then resumed by the treaties of 1783 and 1785; again broken by the convention, with expressions of contempt and violence, in 1793; renewed for a moment under Talleyrand in 1814, when it was destroyed by the personal influence of the Emperor Alexander; and finally restored for a short time in 1833, by the feeble treaty between France, England, Spain and Portugal. 2dly, the Russian alliance, of more modern date, though naturally very suitable to the interests of France. It was first attempted by means of the embassy of M. de Ségur, under Louis XVI.; was restored by Napoleon at Erfurt, until the disastrous campaign of Moscow; resumed in 1815, and supported by the ministries of the Duc de Richelieu in 1816, and M. de la Ferronays in 1828, until Prince Polignac brought back the English system. After the revolution of July the diplomatic projects of Prince Polignac were resumed, with this sole difference, that Talleyrand attempted with the Whigs what the ministers of Charles X. had endeavoured to effect with the Tories. I am about to write the life of the Duc de Richelieu as the personification of the Russian alliance, which I shall consider in all its various stages, from the period of the Restoration; and this is an era of very great importance in diplomatic history, for we are living under the treaties of 1814 and 1815. Those concluded at Vienna, at Aix-la-Chapelle, at Troppau, and Laybach, form the basis of our present relations with the rest of Europe.