The Prince went on to say that in the great war of liberation the people and their princes stood by one another in struggling for the establishment of civic freedom, first against the foreign oppressor, and then as citizens in their own country; and the treaties of 1815, as well as the appeal to the people in 1813, decreed constitutional government in every country. The charter was granted in France, and special constitutions were promised in all the States; even to Poland the promise of one was made, although there, as well as in Prussia and Austria, that promise was not kept. Then came the Holy Alliance and introduced reaction into Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, by dint of sword and Congress (in 1817-1823). Once more the patriarchal relation was fostered with the sentimentalism of the Kotzebue school, and the betrayed peoples were required to become good children, because the Princes styled themselves good fathers! The July Revolution, and all that has taken place since then, sufficiently demonstrate that the peoples neither will nor can play the part of children. As for the personal government of absolute Sovereigns, Prince Albert declared that to be a pure illusion. Nowhere does history present us with such cases of government by Ministers and favourites as in the most absolute monarchies, because nowhere can the Minister play so safe a game. A Court cabal is the only thing he has to fear, and he is well skilled in the ways by which this is to be strangled. History is full of examples. Recent instances have occurred where the personal discredit into which the Sovereign has fallen makes the maintenance of the monarchy, not as a form of government, but as an effective State machine, all but impossible. When, as in the case of the King of Naples, this result has arisen, all that people are able to say in defence is, "He was surrounded by a bad set, he was badly advised, he did not know the state the country was in." To what purpose, then, is personal government, if a man in his own person knows nothing and learns nothing? The Sovereign should give himself no trouble, said the Prince in conclusion, about details, but exercise a broad and general supervision, and see to the settlement of the principles on which action is to be based. This he can, nay, must do, where he has responsible Ministers, who are under the necessity of obtaining his sanction to the system which they pursue and intend to uphold in Parliament. This the personally ruling Sovereign cannot do, because he is smothered in details, does not see the wood for the trees, and has no occasion to come to an agreement with his Ministers about principles and systems, which to both him and them can only appear to be a great burden and superfluous nuisance.