The Defense of the Old Regime, 1815–48 461Europe until Napoleon abolished it in 1806. Instead, the
allies restored only thirty-nine German states, linked in
a loose German Confederation with a weak Diet at
Frankfurt. The dispossessed rulers kept their titles, their
personal estates, and good reasons to doubt the mean-
ing of legitimacy. Italians had their own reasons to
question the validity of that principle. Lombards and
Venetians discovered that they were legitimate Austri-
ans; the Genoese learned that their historic government
was not legitimate because it had been a republic; and
others, such as the Tuscans, found that their legitimate
rulers were members of the Habsburg family.
Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from his lenient exile
on Elba in March 1815 and returned to France during
these negotiations. Louis XVIII fled and his army de-
fected to Napoleon, but the allies rejected Napoleon’s
claim to the throne and assembled armies in Belgium
under the duke of Wellington, who had defeated
Napoleon’s armies in Spain. A combination of British
and Prussian armies defeated Napoleon outside Brussels
at Waterloo, and his reign of one hundred days ended
with harsher settlements. Napoleon became a British
prisoner of war, and they held him under house arrest
on the island of St. Helena until his death in 1821. A
Second Peace of Paris made the French pay for accept-
ing Napoleon’s return. France lost more Rhineland terri-
tory to Prussia and more of Savoy to the Kingdom of
Piedmont-Sardinia, had to pay an indemnity of 700
million francs, and endured the military occupation of
northeastern France until it was paid.The Conservative Alliance and the Congress System
After the difficult negotiations at Vienna and the shock
of the Hundred Days, the allies resolved to protect
their newly restored order. Alexander I, who was at-
tracted to religious mysticism, proposed a Holy Al-
liance in which they would pledge to act according to
the teachings of the Bible. Most statesmen agreed with
Castlereagh that this was “sublime nonsense” (one
called it a “holy kiss”), but they promised to act “con-
formably to the words of the Holy Scriptures.” In case
that did not work, they also renewed the Quadruple Al-
liance against French armies and French ideas. Austria,
Britain, Prussia, and Russia pledged “to employ all their
means to prevent the general tranquility from again be-
ing disturbed.”NaplesMoscowKazanKharkovKharkovSt. PetersburgWarsawOstrolenkaVilnaBerlinCarlsbad
Troppau
ViennaAntwerp AachenLaibachLondonParisBudapestMissolonghiManchesterNew LanarkMadridLyonsLisbon RomeBalearicIslandsCorsicaCrete CyprusPyr
enee
sMts
.TaurusMts.AlpsMts.ElbaMediterranean SeaAtlantic
OceanNorth
SeaBlack SeaBalticSeaRhineR
.Ebro
R.PoR.DanubeR.Dniep
er R
Dniester.
R.DanubeR.Do
n
R.PORTUGAL
SPAINFRANCEGREAT
BRITAINDENMARKNETHSWITZPRUSSIALOMBARDY VENETIA
PARMAMODENA
KINGDOM OF TUSCANY
PIEDMONT-
SARDINIAKINGDOM OF
THE TWO
SICILIESOTTOMAN
EMPIREAUSTRIANEMPIRERUSSIAN EMPIREKINGDOM OF
NORWAY AND SWEDENGERMANICCONFEDERATIONPAPAL
STATES0 250 500 Miles0 250 500 750 KilometersBoundary of the
Germanic ConfederationMAP 24.1
Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815