Alexander, however, was not for peace. Out of the rude experiences he had been undergoing there had been formed two fixed ideas: that Napoleon could not, even if he would, surrender his preponderance in Europe, and that he himself might hope to appear as the liberator of European nationality. For a moment it appeared possible for the Czar to establish himself as king of Poland by the aid of the Jesuits and of Czartoryski's friends. But the Jesuit leader knew that Napoleon's strength was far from exhausted, and fled to Spain. Czartoryski entertained the idea that in case of Napoleon's overthrow he might unite Poland under his own leadership and demand a truly liberal constitution, such as could not be worked by a Russian autocrat with three hundred thousand Russian soldiers at his back. Should the virtual independence of Poland be wrung from Alexander, and not be secured by the French alliance, then the only available constitutional ruler would, he thought, be a member of his own princely family and not one of the rival Poniatowskis. The autocrat did not clearly understand the drift of his boyhood friend, but he saw enough to render the notion of reconstructing Poland in any form distasteful, and finally abandoned it. He then took the sensible resolution to recruit his strength, not by emptying his own lean purse, but by securing the cooeperation with his forces of the strong armies built up by Prussia and Austria. It was therefore with a fairly definite purpose that, on December eighteenth, he left St. Petersburg for Vilna. He had in mind first to secure the fruits of victory by energetic pursuit, then to sound the temper of Prussia and Austria.