Events, however, were progressing in a manner likely to weaken the credit of Capo d'Istria, and augment that of Nesselrode. The Polish senate had been the especial creation of Alexander, it was the work of his own hands; and this senate, by an ill-advised resistance, had just deeply offended the will of the sovereign--a circumstance which might have been considered as a legal act, in a long-established government, was construed into an armed and criminal revolt; and the Czar suddenly issued harsh and firm resolutions regarding Poland. The strong repressive measures advocated by Nesselrode and Metternich thus regained their place among the ideas of the European system; from the same cause the influence of Capo d'Istria visibly lost ground with the Emperor, and with his influence declined the idea of a Christian insurrection in Greece. Capo d'Istria, as I before observed, was favourably disposed towards his countrymen the Greeks, who, by a spontaneous movement, had shaken off the yoke of the Porte; and he urged Alexander immediately to interfere, by causing a Russian army to appear on the Pruth and an imperial fleet in the Mediterranean. The revolt of the Greeks was observed with great anxiety by Metternich; the house of Austria, being considered as the protectress of the Divan, made every possible effort to avoid a conflict calculated to injure the Ottoman influence, which was necessary to the balance of power in Europe: consequently, it was the object of Austria to persuade Alexander that the real spirit evinced by Greece was that of revolution, where Capo d'Istria saw nothing but a religious question; and in this opinion Nesselrode perfectly concurred. He considered that the actual state of Europe would not admit of the emancipation of a people, for rebellion was every where forming against the crowned heads, and Greece was merely employed as a pretext. The moment was well chosen to infuse these alarms into the mind of the Emperor, the bent of the German universities having just manifested itself by the assassination of Kotzebue; Piémont had taken up arms, Naples was in a state of insurrection, and Spain had proclaimed the Cortes. Metternich, in concert with Nesselrode, then returned to the idea of congresses, those great fusions of the sovereignties, according to the course that had been settled by the Holy Alliance. The diplomatic school had rather a predilection for this assembling of Europe--those meetings in which all the statesmen of the various countries met on friendly terms to discuss the affairs of the Continent. The same passion for congresses was to be observed in Talleyrand, Metternich, Hardenberg, and Nesselrode; it was a habit they had formed, a desire of appearing and playing an important part on the diplomatic stage. The Emperor Alexander was also fond of these great _réunions_ because he was consulted as an arbiter, the princes of Europe trusting both to his experience and to his magnanimity.