The third diplomatic school, which was to a certain degree founded by Count Nesselrode, consisted in taking a middle course between the two former systems. The young Count had never been devoted to the plans proposed at Erfurt, and he did not for a moment allow himself to be carried away by the gigantic projects then determined upon in a moment of enthusiasm; he did not identify himself either with the Greek or the German school, nor even entirely with the Muscovite, in its repugnance for Napoleon. What Alexander particularly remarked was, the perfect obedience of his minister to all his wishes, though he sometimes strove to infuse a little moderation into his decisions, when their tendency was too abrupt or positive to be advisable in political affairs. Nesselrode always executed the orders of his sovereign, but in so doing he tempered the expressions of enthusiastic mysticism which often characterised the politics of the Czar; he did not attempt to give an impulse, but he endeavoured to prevent the will of his master from going too far. The commencement of Count Nesselrode's favour dates especially from the French expedition to Russia. The movement, still more national than military, which repulsed this gigantic undertaking, naturally took its source from the old Muscovite families, and in the savage energy against which the Czars, ever since the days of Peter the Great, have struggled in vain; and Alexander, whose education and principles rendered him particularly averse to this return of barbarism, felt the need of a confidential friend, in whose bosom he might confide his fears of the results to be apprehended from this Muscovite tendency, which went beyond his own ideas and wishes. Count Nesselrode became one of these confidential servants, and as early as 1812, although he did not fill the official situation of _conseiller d'état_, he took the principal part in the prodigious diplomatic movement then in progress; he concluded and signed the treaty of the subsidies with England, and the secret alliance of the two great powers against Napoleon, which completed his political fortune.