After the downfall of Napoleon, the Habsburgs recovered many of their lands but did not attempt to revive the Holy Roman Empire. Their immovable Chancellor, Prince Klemens von Metternich, a prim-faced, iron-willed zealot of reaction, took charge of the Habsburg destinies and in their name propagated the ideology of the traditionalist counterrevolution. It was mainly due to Metternich’s influence that the Holy Alliance of Christian monarchs, proposed by Czar Alexander I at the Congress of Vienna in 1814, emerged as a repressive league for the maintenance of the dynastic and territorial status
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