While “liberty, equality, and fraternity” maddened France, long oppressed by the dull repression of the ancient régime, La Harpe was converting his royal pupil to the doctrine of the “Rights of Man.” So well was the lesson taught that a long series of encounters with the solid wall of Russian autocracy was necessary before the pupil ceased to try to do something to ameliorate the condition of his people. Historians have called Alexander a dreamer, but what is a man to do who is born a tsar and has the misfortune to believe in the doctrines for which we honor Lincoln and Jefferson? I am willing to call him impractical, but I cannot withhold sympathy from a man who tried, as he, to strike blows in behalf of the forms of government which makes my own country a home of liberty. Alexander I came to the throne of Russia in 1801, anxious to carry out his liberal plans.[3] In 1804, through his minister in London, he suggested to Pitt, the prime minister, a plan for settling the affairs of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon. France, he said, must be made to realize that the allies did not war against her people but against Napoleon, from whose false power they proposed to set her free. Once liberated she was to be allowed to choose any government she desired. From La Harpe he had imbibed a deep repugnance to the government of the Bourbons, and in all his future discussions of the subject he showed no enthusiasm for restoring that line to their throne. [3] For an excellent treatment of the events discussed in this chapter see W. A. Phillips, _The Confederation of Europe_, London, 1914. One of the charges often made by the allies was that Napoleon overthrew international law. It was a part of Alexander’s plan to reëstablish its potency and to have the nations see to it that no future violations of it could occur. He also suggested that the firm agreement then existing between Russia and Great Britain should continue after the establishment of peace and that other great powers should be brought into it so that there should be a means of securing common action in affairs of mutual significance. At this time he had not, it seems, fully determined just what form of coöperation ought to be adopted, but in the suggestion of 1804 can be found the germ of all his later designs for permanent peace.