Alexander, indeed, if occasionally irritating Metternich, evidently afforded him considerable amusement, and the sort of pleasure which every man finds in a suitable subject for the exercise of his peculiar talents. For Alexander was eminently a man to be managed. Enthusiastic, dreamy, and vain; now bent on schemes of conquest, now on the development of some ideal of liberty, now filled with some confused religious mysticism; at one time eager to divide the world with Napoleon, then anxious to restore Poland to its independence; now listening to the appeals of Metternich to his fears, at another time to the nobler and more liberal suggestions of Stein and Pozzo di Borgo;[1] only consistent in the one desire to play an impressive and melodramatic part in European affairs. But, amusing as Alexander was to Metternich, there were circumstances connected with the condition of Europe which might make his weak love of display as dangerous to Metternich's policy as a more determined opponent could be. There were still scattered over Europe traces of the old aspirations after liberty which had been first kindled by the French Revolution, and again awakened by the rising against Napoleon. Setting aside, for the moment, the leaders of German thought, there were men who had hoped that even Napoleon might give liberty to Poland; there were Spanish popular leaders who had risen for the independence of their country; Lombards who had sat in the Assembly of the Cis-Alpine Republic; Carbonari in Naples, who had fought under Murat, and who had at one time received some little encouragement, even from their present King. If the Czar of Russia should put himself at the head of such a combination as this, the consequences to Europe might indeed be serious. But the stars in their courses fought for Metternich; and a force, which he had considered almost as dangerous as the character of Alexander, proved the means of securing the Czar to the side of despotism.