388 A BRIEF SURVEY OF HUMAN HISTORY

power/ She evinced considerable interest in the great intel-
lectual movements of Western Europe represented by men
like Diderot and Voltaire (even like her contemporary
Frederick the Great), and professed high-sounding, political
principles : ' the nation,' she said, ' is not made for the
ruler but the ruler for the nation;' * liberty/ she defined,
' is the right to do anything that is not forbidden by law ;'
'better that ten guilty should escape than that one innocent
should suffer unjust punishment/ But her practice was a
negation of all these doctrines. The.sincerest devotee of thfc
Enlightened Despotism of the eighteenth century in Europe
was Catherine's Austrian contemporary Joseph II (1765-90),
but he died a disappointed man.-Catherine, while she .brought
large accession of territory and power to Russia (particu-
larly by her share in the three Partitions of Poland, 1772,
1793, and 1795), she was one of the strongest haters of the
new forces released by the French Revolution. Her imbecile
son Paul I (1796-1801) was assassinated by a coterie of her
own courtiers. But the next ruler of Russia, Alexander I
(1801-25), became famous as the protagonist of "Legitim-
ism" in Europe. The triple pillars of this anti-Revolu-
tionary movement were the monarchs of Russia, Prussia,
and Austria.

We have already referred to the immediate reactions of
Austria and Prussia to the revolutionary outbreak in France.
The challenge of Leopold II (brother and successor of
Joseph II) to the revolutionaries was reinforced by alliances,
at first with Prussia, then with Russia, England, and all
the rest of Europe. The ultimate result was the defeat of
Napoleon and the humiliation of France in the Vienna
Settlement This settlement was as fateful in consequences
as that of Utrecht a century earlier (1713) and Versailles
a century later (1918). The high-priest of the Vienna