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Context: After Napoleon's defeat, the major European powers gathered at the Congress of Vienna to discuss the fate of France and other matters. Tsar Alexander I personally represented Russia and proved difficult to negotiate with on several occasions due to his unpredictable and stubborn nature. Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens Von Metternich famously called him "The biggest baby on earth".
Currently reading War and Peace. Real early in the book. But, Russian aristocracy is a special kind of crazy. I don't know how it compares to aristocracy of rest of the Europe, but still.
Here is the direct quote from the book "Oh, don’t speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don’t understand things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander’s loftiness of soul."