But there were two other gladiators in the arena: England, hard pressed but still undaunted in her mastery of the seas which flowed around her majestic colonial empire; Russia, grimly determined to hold an even balance with France in Europe while reestablishing by the overthrow of Turkey the eastern counterpoise to Napoleon's western dominion. The Czar of Muscovy would fain have passed for a philosopher. Fourteen years earlier, when in his eighteenth year, he had fallen under the charm of Prince Adam Czartoryski, a youth of about his own age, whom the Empress Catherine had taken as a hostage after the final dismemberment of Poland in 1795. Trained by his grandmother to play her own role of enlightened despot, the young ruler, still in those early years when generous impulses rule, conversed with his friend, the representative of a downtrodden land, about the possibility of a restored and regenerated Poland, avowing his secret detestation of all that he was compelled in public to profess. We may picture the joy of the noble Pole at the thought of his country made whole once more, even though it were destined to be but semi-autonomous as a member of the Russian empire. But years rolled by, and Czartoryski, though preferred to place and honor by the Czar, heard less and less of the young philosopher's scheme. In 1805 he finally wrung from Alexander a promise that he would begin to act; but it was very soon withdrawn, and Czartoryski retired to his estates. The realities and selfishness of life eclipsed the man of sensibility and developed the despot. For a time, however, he essayed the role of European mediator, with what success Tilsit is the witness. Disgusted from the practical point of view with the old dynasties and their chicanery, Alexander had not only eschewed the idea of a reconstructed Poland, but had become indifferent to the territorial lines of all ancient Europe, and momentarily dreamed of Napoleon as his twin emperor. To this end he too must likewise be a conqueror. Finland he had gained, but at the price of adhesion to a commercial system which was gradually ruining his people. The exhausting, slow-moving war with Turkey was still dragging on, and neither Moldavia nor Wallachia was yet acquired. Oldenburg was incorporated into France. The grand duchy of Warsaw was not merely the specter of a restored Poland: the addition of Galicia to its territories had given it solidity and substance. The Franco-Austrian alliance was a menace to all the Czar's aspirations on the Balkan peninsula. It was clear that he must choose between keeping his engagements to the letter and an open rupture. He had been beaten and humiliated at his own game.