II.

Prominent Delegates

Representatives of all the European powers, except Turkey, assembled at the Congress, which was interrupted in February 1815 by Napoleon's escape from Elba. Most conspicuous among the numerous monarchs who attended the Congress was Alexander I, emperor of Russia, who supported such generally unpopular causes as the unification of the German states and the establishment of a constitutional government in Poland. Of the diplomats, Prince Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian minister of state who acted as the president of the Congress, played what was probably the most prominent part in the negotiations. Although the major powers—Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria—had agreed that neither France nor Spain, nor any of the smaller powers, should be party to any important decisions, the French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, who represented the restored French king Louis XVIII, succeeded in securing for France an equal share in the deliberations. Britain was represented mainly by its foreign minister Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and by the general and statesman Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. The principal delegate from Prussia was Prince Karl August von Hardenberg.