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The purpose of this paper is to re-analyze Alexander I's Holy Alliance, which has often been considered as either religious or reactionary. I use the term Holy Alliance as his ideas or plans for the European international system after the Napoleonic War, not as the treaty of the Holy Alliance on September 26, 1815, nor as the actual European system. The object of analysis here is Alexander's attitude towards the project of the General Alliance, which Capodistrias, the Russian vice-minister of foreign affairs, presented to the Emperor on July 6, 1818 as a subject for discussion in the Aachen Congress, and which Capodistrias regarded as having derived from the Emperor's Holy Alliance. A great deal of research has been done on the European system and the Aachen Congress. What is lacking, however, is an examination of the ideas of Alexander and Capodistrias on the European system. No studies in West Europe, USA or Japan have analyzed Capodistrias's above-mentioned project or the manuscripts on the Aachen Congress kept at the archive of Russian Foreign Ministry. Russian historians have studied these documents, but they have failed to compare sufficiently the thoughts of the Emperor with those of Capodistrias. The question to be discussed in the first chapter is the relationship between Alexander's Holy Alliance and Capodistrias's project of the General Alliance. The second chapter is concerned with the negotiations in Aachen between Russia and England-Austria. The third deals with Alexander's attitude towards the project and his motives. In these analysis, I studied the manuscripts in the archive and printed materials, and examined each idea of Alexander and Capodistrias in chronological order. The Emperor expressed the outline of his thoughts in the project of the treaty of the Holy Alliance on September 1815. The final purpose of his project was to maintain peace and order. Its measures were to promote monarchical constitutionalism and to construct a confederation of Christian states. The confederation could be regarded as a sort of collective security system. It is reasonable to suppose that he aimed at some changes in order to maintain the status quo. Metternich, the Austrian minister of foreign affairs, rejected both means in Alexander's plan, since he himself wanted to suppress demands for constitutions and to organize a system in which the Great Powers could settle European problems. The treaty of the Holy Alliance was concluded after Metternich's amendments. Nevertheless, Alexander attempted to carry out his own ideas for the European system in the negotiation of the Treaty of the Quadruple Alliance in 1815 and through his proposal to England at the Great Alliance in 1816. A close look at these negotiations reveals that the maintenance of peace and order meant for him a guarantee of the legitimate sovereignties and territories of each European state, and furthermore, that his focus of diplomatic interest changed from Christian states to Europe. It is after the failure of those efforts that Russia proposed the plan of the General Alliance. Its aim was to protect European legitimate sovereignties and their territories. It consisted of two proposals: the confederation of European states, or a collective security system including the Small States; and promotion of monarchical constitutionalism. Capodistrias opposed the General Alliance to the Quadruple Alliance, which Austria and England considered as the main base of the European system, and through which the Four Great Powers could rule the Smalls. This project of the General Alliance can be traced to the Emperor's Holy Alliance. At the end of July 1818 Alexander approved it. Let us now turn to the questions of the bargaining between Russia and England-Austria in the Aachen Congress. It is clear that England and Austria were against the Russian program; that they insisted on the Quadruple-Alliance System; that their objections were one of the reasons why the Russian plan was not realized in Aachen; that Russia had clung to her own system until the very last and conceded only with much reluctance; and that she tried to keep at least some of the grounds to construct it in the future. It is necessary at this point to focus attention on Alexander's attitude. It follows from this analysis that his support of the project of the General Alliance was indecisive from first to last; and that the reason why Russia continued to present proposals of the General Alliance repeatedly despite the Emperor's indecisiveness was that Capodistrias persuaded him on every occasion when he was inclined to give way. It is clear that a lack of sufficient support at Alexander's side prompted the obstinate objections of Austria and England. The reasons for this indecisiveness were that the Emperor respected the Quadruple Alliance, and that he had begun to doubt the effect of monarchical constitutionalism as preventive means against revolutions. There were differences between the ideas of Alexander and Capodistrias. They were to be seen in the following two points. First, the Emperor considered the Greats the more important, while the vice-minister considered the Smalls more important. In Alexander's project of the Holy Alliance in 1815, the Greats were leaders of the system. On the contrary, Capodistrias, born into a Greek noble family, ex-Secretary of State of the Ionian Republic, in 1817 expressed interest in the protection of the rights of the Smalls against the Greats. Secondly, the Emperor respected the maintenance of the status quo, that is, guarantee of the legitimate sovereignties and territories, while Capodistrias emphasized the need for changes, i.e. monarchical constitutionalism and the confederation of all European states. This notwithstanding, it is appropriate to say that Alexander could not with ease abandon the General Alliance. To be sure, in Aachen he was forced to give priority to the maintenance of the status quo and the concert of the Great Powers, but he was so fascinated with the measures proposed that Capodistrias persuaded him to support it several times. The actual European system after Napoleon can be regarded as a system which gave the Greats the dominant positions and put pressure upon oppositionists. We can distinguish idea of Alexander's Holy Alliance from it, on the grounds that his system would give the Smalls some leverage in the system though limited and that he wanted the legitimate monarchs to be reformer without taking oppressive measures. Finally, it is worthwhile looking at Alexander's ideas and attitudes in the light of the Russian position in Europe. At the beginning of the 19th century, Russia approached the center of Europe more than ever, although she was not completely accepted by Europe. In other words, Russia could not escape being located politically and culturally on the margins of Europe. Given that this marginality influenced Alexander's Holy Alliance and his attitude towards the General Alliance, it might be reasonable to make points as follows. On the one hand, His proposal reflects the decrease in Russia's marginality. It is because Russia became one of the Four European Powers that Alexander could propose European confederation. It is because Russia obtained politically progressive Poland that he needed the plans in order to present himself as the protector of small and constitutional monarchies such as the Polish Kingdom and to guarantee Russia's rule over it. On the other hand, the fact of Russia's marginality was the source of Alexander's attitude. His Holy Alliance can be interpreted as a program for strengthening Russia's position in Europe. At the same time, since Alexander wanted to keep her place as one of the Four Greats, he was compelled to give up the General Alliance at least in Aachen, which the other Greats had rejected. It would be useful to take Russia's marginality into account with a view to re-consider her diplomacy. Up to now popular theories have characterized it as a search for warm-water ports, a need to stabilize her frontiers or Russian messianism. Examining Russian diplomacy in light of marginality will afford us another interpretation.