A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22

Few periods illustrate so well the dilemma posed by the appearance of a revolutionary power; and the problems of organizing a legitimate order, as the decade after the Napoleonic Wars. Revolutionary France had refused to accept the legitimacy of the existing European balance of power, which had operated so intricately throughout the eighteenth century. Disputes no longer concerned the adjustment of differences within an accepted framework, but the validity of the framework itself. In 1812, wh…