Up to this time the two ideas that had run side by side were the tsar’s plan for a league to secure coöperation of a general nature and the British plan limiting common action to a few specific matters, chiefly connected with the repression of France in case she wished to return to a policy which would threaten the peace of Europe. As it became increasingly apparent that France was no longer a menace this type of union became less important, and the British ardor for it cooled, especially since it was becoming more and more certain that the Alliance was being used to support repression. At the same time a change was passing through the mind of the tsar. In all he had done he had been supported by liberal ministers, against whose influence at his court Metternich did not hesitate to intrigue. Alexander’s conversion to the cause of repression came suddenly and completely in 1820, when there was a mutiny in a favorite regiment of his guard. Sober advisers pointed out to him that the action of the regiment had no political significance, but he would not be convinced. He insisted he would not countenance revolt abroad, lest it encourage insurrection at home. All the fervor he had shown in behalf of liberal ideas he now manifested in behalf of repression. At Troppau he met Metternich in a spirit of profound repentance for what he had done in the past, saying with an outburst of emotion: “So we are at one, Prince, and it is to you that we owe it. You have correctly judged the state of affairs. I deplore the waste of time, which we must try to repair. I am here without any fixed ideas; without any plan; but I bring you a firm and unalterable resolution. It is for your Emperor to use it as he wills. Tell me what you desire, and what you wish me to do, and I will do it.” The speech astonished the Prince as much as it pleased him. All his schemes had lost in the defection of Castlereagh, and probably more, was made up in the accession of his new ally. Not only was the cause of legitimacy, as he advocated it, made safe; but the danger was removed of a Franco-Russian alliance, always a thing to be dreaded by the great Powers in the center of Europe. In the conference at Troppau, Austria, Russia, and Prussia now acted together. Up to that time Metternich had ignored the Holy Alliance. He now brought it out as his stalking horse. The three sovereigns, controlling the conference, issued a declaration suspending from the Alliance any state that tolerated revolution in its borders and declaring that the other Powers in the Alliance would bring back the offending state by force of arms. Under the indefinite terms of the instrument this was a legal interpretation of power, but it was not in the spirit of the benevolent sovereign who made the Holy Alliance possible.