The congress which now assembled at Verona was devoted largely to a discussion of Spanish affairs. Wellington had been instructed to use all his influence against the adoption of measures of intervention in Spain. When he found that the other powers were bent upon this step and that his protest would be unheeded, he withdrew from the congress. The four remaining powers signed the secret treaty of Verona, November 22, 1822, as a revision, so they declared in the preamble, of the "Treaty of the Holy Alliance." This treaty of the Holy Alliance, signed at Paris, September 26, 1815, by Austria, Russia, and Prussia, is one of the most remarkable political documents extant. It sprang from the erratic brain of the Czar Alexander under the influence of Madame Crudner, who was both an adventuress and a religious enthusiast. Its object was to uphold the divine right of kings and to counteract the spirit of French revolutionary ideas by introducing "the precepts of justice, of charity, and of peace" into the internal affairs of states and into their relations with one another. No one had taken it seriously except the Czar himself and it had been without influence upon the politics of Europe. The agreement reached at Verona gave retrospective importance to the Holy Alliance, and revived the name, so that it became the usual designation of the combined powers. The following alleged text of the secret treaty of Verona soon became current in the press of Europe and America. Although it has never been officially acknowledged and its authenticity has been called in question, it states pretty accurately the motives and aims of the powers. The first four articles are as follows: The undersigned, specially authorized to make some additions to the Treaty of the Holy Alliance, after having exchanged their respective credentials, have agreed as follows: ARTICLE I. The high contracting parties being convinced that the system of representative government is equally incompatible with the monarchical principles as the maxim of the sovereignty of the people with the divine right, engage mutually, and in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts to _put an end_ to the system of _representative_ _governments_, in whatever country it may exist in Europe, and to prevent its being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known. ART. II. As it cannot be doubted that the _liberty of the press_ is the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights of nations, to the detriment of those of Princes, the high contracting parties promise reciprocally to adopt all proper measures to suppress it not only in their own states, but also, in the rest of Europe.