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moderate liberal lines (except as regards the Jews), whichgave them a parliament, full internal self-government withseparate finance and tariffs, and an army—"a snakespouting its venom at us," as a Russian official protested.Under this regime the Poles organized considerableeconomic prosperity for fifteen years. But the constitutionwas not adhered to by the Russians. They felt—and they were right—that the ' Polish Kingdom' wouldbe used as a stepping-stone to the incorporation in itof 'the western lands,' The Poles had fought for thatin 1794 and 1812, and they were to fight for it again in1830 and 1863.The cleavage between Russian opinion and Alexanderas Polish king was fundamental. Alexander may havebeen a mask, but he was not, as his grandmother Catherinethought, a mask of wax. He possessed much obstinacyand he never showed it to more effect than in his Polishpolicy, even though in the end he gave way. Under theinfluence of his early friendship with Czartoryski, Alexandersincerely aimed at the reconstruction of a Poland—provided that it was his own handiwork. At the Congressof Vienna he tried to include the largest possible numberof Poles in a restored kingdom. A compactly Polish statecomposed of the grand-duchy of Warsaw and Galicia,i.e. the Prussian and Austrian share of the partitions,might perhaps have led Polish nationalism to renounceits old eastern mission. Any such possibility waswrecked on the jealousy of Prussia and Austria and thegeneral fear of an overmighty Russia with Poland as herpawn.Even so, Alexander had granted a general amnesty toPoles despite 1812, set up his 'Polish Kingdom' onliberal and national lines, and deliberately left the doorajar to its possible expansion eastwards. As has beenpointed out above, he favoured what was in substancea polonophil regime in the greater part of 'the westernlands.' For a decade or so after 1815 there seemed apossibility that a compromise solution might emergewhereby a part of these lands might be added to' CongressPoland' and the remainder definitively absorbed intothe empire. In all this Alexander was manoeuvring215