powers were bound to intervene by peaceful means, if possible, or if need were, by arms. Before parting, the congress invited Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies to attend an adjourned meeting, to assemble early in the following year at Laibach.[75] Against these decisions Castlereagh protested in vigorous terms, and more especially against any possible application of the principle of intervention to England; France under the Duke of Richelieu joined in neither the protocol nor the protest. The liberal tendencies of the tsar had been quenched by recent events, so that, instead of a concert of Europe, there was left only a concert of absolute monarchs. [Pageheading: _AUSTRIAN INTERVENTION._] In January, 1821, the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia met the King of the Two Sicilies at Laibach. France had vainly attempted to mediate between the King of the Two Sicilies and his people. But the Neapolitans were not satisfied with any vague promise of a constitution, and before allowing their king to depart for Laibach, held him pledged to the observance of an impossible condition, the maintenance of the Spanish constitution of 1812. The king's oath to preserve this particularly objectionable constitution was regarded by Austria as sufficient to preclude negotiation, and it was resolved that she should restore him by force as an absolute monarch, and should occupy the Neapolitan territory. The duration of this occupation was reserved as a question to be discussed at the next European congress, which it was intended to hold at Florence in the autumn of the next year. After a show of resistance at Rieti the Neapolitans submitted, and the Austrian army entered Naples on March 24. The restoration of absolute government was accompanied by severities towards the constitutionalists, but Austria would not allow any repetition of the bloodshed of 1799.