The successor of Joseph II., the Emperor Leopold, was, except perhaps Catherine of Russia, the ablest monarch of his time. He had had a long experience in the art of government, for he had succeeded to the sovereignty of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1765, on the death of his father, the Emperor Francis of Lorraine. While his brother Joseph was kept until 1780 by Maria Theresa in leading-strings as far as the actual administration of the Hapsburg dominions was concerned, and was only able to exert his authority as Emperor, Leopold had from his boyhood been an absolute and irresponsible sovereign, and had imbibed from his education an Italian knowledge of statecraft. During his long reign in Tuscany he showed the finest qualities of a benevolent despot in his measures for increasing the material comforts of his people, combined with tact and diplomatic subtlety. His reforms were as sweeping as those of Joseph, but were so managed as not to set his dominions in a flame. With the help of Scipio de Ricci, Bishop of Pistoia, he freed the people of Tuscany from the heavy burden of an excessive number of ecclesiastics; he reorganised the internal administration, and especially the judicial system; and he showed such intelligence in grasping and partially applying the new principles of political economy as to be called ‘the physiocratic prince.’ He had been Grand Duke of Tuscany for twenty-five years, and when he succeeded his elder brother Joseph as King of Hungary and Bohemia in February 1790, he had earned the reputation of a singularly wise and prudent statesman, and of one who, if it could be done, might be expected to restore the power of the House of Austria. He abandoned the Grand Duchy of Tuscany to his second son Ferdinand, and at once applied himself to the difficult task bequeathed to him by Joseph II.

Leopold found the power of Austria seriously affected by dangers from within and dangers from without. He at once undid much of Joseph’s work. He recognised the difference between consolidating and unifying a nation, which was essentially one, and a congeries of nations speaking different languages, belonging to different races, and geographically widely separated. In Tuscany he had accomplished a great work in abolishing the local franchises of the cities and building up a Tuscan state, but he understood that such a work was impossible in the divided hereditary dominions of the House of Hapsburg, and that the Emperor Joseph had been attempting a hopeless task. Leopold’s first step was, therefore, to restore the former state of things in such parts of his dominions as were not in open insurrection. In Austria proper, in Bohemia, in the Milanese, and in the Tyrol, the concessions of Leopold were received with demonstrations of popular gratitude. He abolished the new system of taxation and the unpopular seminaries; he recognised the separate administrations of provinces which were essentially diverse; he gave up futile attempts at unification. But, at the same time, he maintained the edict of religious toleration, the most noble of Joseph’s reforms, and introduced many slight but appreciable improvements in the local institutions which he restored. Having thus assured the fidelity of an important body of his subjects, he prepared to deal with the declared rebels in Belgium and the unconcealed opposition in Hungary. It was here that Leopold suffered most from the foreign policy of Maria Theresa and Joseph, for it was indisputable that the prevalent discontent and insurrection in Belgium and Hungary was fostered by the Triple Alliance, and especially by Prussia. He had a serious war with the Turks on his hands; his ally, Catherine of Russia, was too much occupied with her wars with the Swedes and Turks and with the affairs of Poland, to come to his help; France, excited by her internal dissensions, and with the Assembly indisposed to the maintenance of the Treaty of 1756, might almost be reckoned an enemy; the Empire had been roused to distrust by the policy of Joseph, and the Triple Alliance was openly hostile. Under these circumstances Prussia appeared at once the chief power on the Continent and the principal enemy of Austria, and it was with Prussia that Leopold first resolved to deal.

The events of the year 1789 had greatly improved the position of Prussia on the Continent. The pretensions of Joseph to Bavaria had made Frederick William II., as it had made Frederick the Great, the real leader of the Princes of the Empire, and the Triple Alliance had done more to improve and strengthen his position in Europe. The classic policy of Prussia was consistent opposition to Austria, and Hertzberg, the Prussian minister, in pursuance of this policy, had made use of all Joseph’s mistakes to lower the power of the House of Hapsburg. He felt it necessary, indeed, to disavow a treaty with the Turks, which the too zealous Prussian envoy had signed in January 1790, but he was eager to make use of the difficulties of Russia and Austria caused by the Turkish war to forward Prussia’s designs on Poland. His main aim was to obtain the cession of the important Polish cities of Thorn and Dantzic, which would give Prussia complete control of the great river Vistula. The ablest Prussian diplomatist, Lucchesini, was sent to Warsaw, and on 29th March 1790 he signed a treaty of friendship and union with the Poles, by which Poland was to cede Thorn and Dantzic to Prussia in return for the retrocession of part of Austrian Galicia, which had fallen to Austria at the first partition, while Prussia promised to guarantee the territory and constitution of Poland, and to send an army of 18,000 men to the help of the Poles if they were attacked.

This treaty, shameless even in its epoch for its desertion of allies, breach of former engagements and absence of good faith, was highly approved by Frederick William II. and Hertzberg. They would not have dared to conclude it but for the seeming weakness of Russia and Austria, the partners in the former partition. Russia was hampered by the Swedish and Turkish wars, and the discontent of the ceded provinces of Poland. Austria was in a still more desperate condition. With the Turkish war still unconcluded, with open insurrection in Belgium, and disaffection in Hungary, unpopular in the Empire, and deprived of the alliance of France by the unconcealed dislike of the Assembly to the Treaty of 1756, it seemed as if the House of Hapsburg must now give way entirely to the House of Hohenzollern. Of the active encouragement given to the Turks, the Belgians, the Hungarians, and the Princes of the Empire against Austria by Prussia, mention has been made. Not less skilful was the conduct of the Prussian ambassador at Paris, Goltz, who intrigued with the more extreme leaders in the Assembly, and especially PÉtion,[7] against Austria, and in particular did all in his power to increase the growing unpopularity of Marie Antoinette and to insist that she was a traitor to France.

Had a less able statesman than Leopold been the successor of Joseph, the schemes of Prussia might have been crowned with success. But he had not ruled in the native city of Machiavelli for a quarter of a century for nothing; and he set to work to checkmate the designs of Hertzberg and Frederick William II. His wise measures of conciliation speedily rallied the heart of the hereditary dominions to him; and he determined to use diplomacy to establish his position in Europe before he dealt with Belgium and Hungary. He quickly perceived that Prussia’s real strength lay in the support of the Triple Alliance; her financial situation was such that she dared not undertake a serious war without the active countenance of England and Holland. He knew that it was worse than hopeless to rely upon France, and therefore at once applied to England. He protested that he did not share his brother’s attachment for Russia, or his schemes for the division of the Ottoman provinces; and he further hinted that he would abandon all attempt to reconquer Belgium and surrender it to France unless he received some assistance. Pitt felt the weight of these considerations; he did not care much about what happened to Poland, but he cared a great deal that the French should not occupy Belgium. When, therefore, the King of Prussia mobilised a powerful army in Silesia, and demanded through Hertzberg that Austria should on the one hand make an armistice with the Turks, and on the other restore Galicia to Poland, Leopold, trusting that he had broken the harmony of the Triple Alliance, made no elaborate warlike preparations, but demanded a conference.

The King of Hungary and Bohemia thoroughly understood the character of the Prussian king and the intrigues of his courtiers and ministers; he knew that Hertzberg was the real enemy of Austria, and that Frederick William was unstable and easily persuaded. He felt that his own strength lay in diplomacy, not war. On 26th June the two Austrian envoys, Reuss and Spielmann, arrived at the headquarters of the Prussian army in Silesia at Reichenbach, and demanded a conference. Rather to the disgust of the Prussians, their allies of the Triple Alliance insisted on being present, and a regular congress was held, at which Hertzberg and Lucchesini represented Prussia, Reuss and Spielmann, Austria, Ewart, England, Reden, Holland, and Jablonowski, the Poles. Even the Hungarian malcontents and the Belgian rebels, relying on the promises of Frederick William, ventured to send envoys. The conclusions of the congress justified Leopold’s diplomatic skill. When Hertzberg laid the Prussian demands in full before the assembled envoys, to his surprise Jablonowski declared that the Poles would never cede Thorn and Dantzic, while the representatives of England and Holland not only advocated the maintenance of the status quo, but refused the co-operation of their governments in Prussia’s schemes for aggrandisement. The policy of Hertzberg and Kaunitz, of perpetuating the rivalry of Prussia and Austria, had failed. Leopold was far too acute to leave these matters to ministers. He placed himself in direct communication with the King of Prussia and his personal favourites, Lucchesini and Bischofswerder; he argued that the interests of the two great German states both with regard to Poland and France were identical, and on 27th July 1790 the Convention of Reichenbach was signed, by which Austria promised at once to make an armistice with the Turks, and eventually to conclude peace with them under the mediation of the Triple Alliance, while, on the other hand, the powers of the Triple Alliance guaranteed the restoration of the Austrian authority in Belgium. It was more privately arranged that Prussia should withdraw from encouraging discontent in Hungary and Belgium, and support Leopold’s candidature for the Imperial throne. This great diplomatic victory did more than merely check the active enmity of Prussia; it established the ascendency of Leopold over the weak mind of Frederick William; and it eventually, in May 1791, brought about, not indeed his actual dismissal from office, but the removal of Hertzberg, the sworn foe of Austria, from the charge of the foreign policy of Prussia.

The first actual consequence of the Convention of Reichenbach was the conclusion of an armistice between Austria and the Turks. The war had never been looked on with favour by Leopold, who regarded Joseph’s infatuation for the grandiose schemes of Catherine of Russia as absurd, and the dismemberment of Turkey as impracticable, and at the present time undesirable. He had not attempted to press matters against the Turks, and had withdrawn many of his best troops under Loudon from the seat of war to Bohemia to strengthen his position at Reichenbach. The Prince of Coburg, who succeeded Loudon, aided by an earthquake, took Orsova, and laid siege to Giurgevo, but he was defeated in his camp after a severe battle on 8th July 1790. This defeat was only partially compensated by a victory won by Clerfayt, and by the capture of Zettin by General de Vins on 20th July. Under these circumstances Leopold was not sorry to conclude an armistice for nine months at Giurgevo on 19th September. Shortly afterwards a congress of plenipotentiaries from Austria, Turkey, and the mediating powers met, as had been arranged at Reichenbach, at Sistova. The negotiations lasted for many months; Leopold insisted on the cession by Turkey of Old Orsova and a district in Croatia, which would make the Danube and the Unna the boundary between Austria and Turkey; Prussia at first strongly protested against any cession to Austria; the congress even for a time broke up; and it was not until Leopold adroitly got Lucchesini, the Prussian envoy, on his side, that the important Treaty of Sistova upon the terms desired by Leopold was concluded on 4th August 1791.

By this treaty the hereditary dominions of the House of Hapsburg were relieved from the danger of foreign war; the next result which Leopold drew from the Convention of Reichenbach was the re-establishment of the Austrian ascendency in Germany. Assured of the support of Prussia, Leopold travelled to the Rhine. On 30th September 1790 he was unanimously elected King of the Romans; on 4th October he solemnly entered Frankfort, and on 9th October he was crowned Emperor. But it was not enough for him to be crowned Emperor; he had to destroy the bad effect of his brother Joseph’s attitude towards the Empire; he had to become the real as well as the nominal head and leader of the German princes, and to win back the advantages which Prussia had secured by forming the League of Princes. The opportunity was afforded to him by the disinclination of the German princes, who owned territories in Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche ComtÉ, to accept the compensation offered to them by the French Constituent Assembly. Their protests took the shape of a clause in the ‘capitulation’ laid before him and accepted by him on his election as Emperor by which he promised to intervene on behalf of the Empire for the preservation of the rights, sanctioned by the Treaty of Westphalia, of the princes, whose interests were affected. Leopold thus seized this opportunity to pose as the head of the German Empire, and on 14th December 1790 he wrote a very strong letter to Louis XVI., in which he said: ‘The territories in question have not been transferred to the kingdom of France; they are subject to the supremacy of the Emperor and the Empire: no member of the Empire has the right to transfer that supremacy to a foreign nation. It follows, therefore, that the decrees of the Assembly are null and void so far as concerns the Empire and its members, and that everything ought to be replaced on the ancient footing.’[8]

After being crowned Emperor at Frankfort, Leopold returned to Vienna and proceeded to establish his power firmly in Hungary. The discontent aroused in the most backward part of his dominions by the Emperor Joseph’s measures had not been appeased by that monarch’s wholesale retractation, nor even by the return of the Crown of St. Stephen. The Hungarian nobles regarded Joseph’s retractation as a sign of weakness, and, encouraged by the intrigues of Prussia and the difficulties in which Leopold was involved by the war with the Turks, resolved to obtain more sweeping concessions. The example of France exerted an influence even in Hungary, and the following sentences from a memorial,[9] presented to Leopold by the people of Pesth, might have been written by a Parisian popular society: ‘From the rights of nations and of man, and from that social compact whence States arose, it is incontestable that sovereignty originates from the people. This axiom our parent Nature has impressed on the hearts of all; it is one of those which a just prince (and such we trust Your Majesty will ever be) cannot dispute; it is one of those inalienable, imprescriptible rights which the people cannot forfeit by neglect or disuse. Our constitution places the sovereignty jointly in the king and people, in such a manner that the remedies necessary to be applied according to the ends of social life for the security of persons and property, are in the power of the people. We are sure, therefore, that at the meeting of the ensuing Diet, Your Majesty will not confine yourself to the objects mentioned in your rescript; but will also restore our freedom to us, in like manner as to the Belgians, who have conquered theirs with the sword. It would be an example big with danger to teach the world that a people can only protect or regain their liberties by the sword, and not by obedience.’ The Hungarian Diet, which Leopold had summoned for the ceremony of his coronation, and to which the people of Pesth alluded in this remarkable address, was largely attended. The Hungarian nobility regarded its convocation as a further sign of weakness, for none had been held since the accession of Maria Theresa, and prepared an inaugural act or compact, which would have reduced the kings of Hungary to a similar position to that occupied by the kings of Poland. Full of confidence in themselves they even went so far as to send envoys, as has been mentioned, to the Congress of Reichenbach. Leopold, however, had no intention of yielding to these demands; his only desire was to gain time until he had secured his position by diplomacy. Meanwhile he tried to stir up opposition in Hungary itself, by encouraging the other nationalities in the kingdom, such as the inhabitants of Croatia and the Banat. But when the Congress of Reichenbach was over, the armistice of Giurgevo concluded, and his coronation as Emperor performed, Leopold proceeded to deal with the Hungarians. He first ordered the army of 60,000 men, which he had concentrated in Bohemia to support his attitude against the Prussians, to Pesth, and then directed the Diet to remove to Presburg for his coronation as King of Hungary. He then declared that nothing would induce him to accept the proposed new constitution, or to consent to an infringement of the Edict of Toleration, and that he would only consent to the terms of the inaugural acts of his grandfather, Charles VI., and his mother, Maria Theresa. The Hungarian nobles, overcome by his firmness and the presence of his troops, yielded; the Emperor appointed his fourth son, the Archduke Leopold, to be Palatine of Hungary in the place of the late Prince Esterhazy; and it was from him that he received the Crown of St. Stephen on 15th November, on the terms he had stipulated.

Having gained this victory by his firmness, Leopold proceeded to win popularity by a timely concession, and proposed a law, obliging every future king to be crowned within six months of his accession. This concession was received with the wildest enthusiasm, as it obviated the possibility of conduct resembling that of Joseph II.; the Diet granted the Emperor a gift of 225,000 florins instead of the usual 100,000 florins; and the disaffected attitude of the nobility was changed for one of hearty admiration and gratitude. The bourgeois of Pesth and their declarations were disavowed; the echo of the French Revolution, which had been heard there, was quickly stifled; and the Hungarian nobility, well contented with Leopold, declined to encourage the popular aspirations. The difficulties which the Emperor Leopold encountered in Hungary were trifling to those which faced him in Belgium. But in this quarter time had worked for the House of Hapsburg, and when the Congress of Plenipotentiaries, arranged at the Congress of Reichenbach, met at the Hague in October 1790, the situation had entirely changed. The victory of the Belgian rebels in 1789 had been followed by internal dissensions, which appeared directly the new Constitution was proclaimed. The first difference was between the Van der Nootists, or Statists, as they termed themselves, and the Vonckists. The latter, inspired by the success of the French Revolution, advocated a thoroughly democratic constitution, and the organisation of a new elective system of local administration, to the great disgust of the Statists, who desired simply the restoration of the old order of things, but with the central government controlled by elected assembly instead of being in the hands of the House of Hapsburg. Curiously enough popular feeling ran in a direction very different from that followed in France. Influenced by the priests, the Belgian people, and more especially the mob of Brussels, were convinced that the Vonckists were atheists; the democrats were attacked in the streets, maltreated and imprisoned; the bourgeois National Guards refused to protect them; they were proscribed by Van der Noot and the party in power; and after many riots and disturbances Vonck fled to France in April 1790. These events greatly weakened the Belgian Republic, for the democratic party, which had been energetic in the revolution, numbered in its ranks many of the ablest and most enlightened men in the country. But even more serious was the result abroad, for the National Assembly of France and Lafayette were surprised and disgusted at the persecution of the democrats, and the sympathy of the French people was entirely alienated from the Belgian leaders. Still more striking in its effect was the conduct of the Van der Nootists towards the gallant officer, Van der Mersch, who had commanded the patriot troops in the invasion of October 1789. Not satisfied with superseding him by the Prussian general, SchÖnfeld, the Van der Nootists had him arrested on a charge of disorganising the Belgian army and imprisoned at Antwerp, to the great wrath of the people of Flanders, of which province Van der Mersch was a native. The conquering party was further divided. The nobility and clergy, headed by the Duc d’Aremberg, were jealous of the ascendency assumed by Van der Noot, and of the continued omnipotence of the Assembly at Brussels. Under these circumstances it was a significant fact that the Austrian troops in Luxembourg under the command of Marshal Bender were able with the help of the people themselves to occupy the province of Limburg.

In October 1790 the Congress, which had been resolved on at Reichenbach, met at the Hague. The Austrian plenipotentiary was the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, the most accomplished Austrian diplomatist and ambassador at Paris, and the representatives of England, Prussia, and Holland were Lord Auckland, Count Keller, and the Grand Pensionary Van der Spiegel. Leopold now reaped the advantages of his skilful diplomacy at Reichenbach. England and Holland understood that the new Emperor was a very different man from his predecessor, and Prussia dared not act without them. As he had promised, Leopold solemnly announced his intention to restore all the charters, laws, and arrangements, which had existed in Belgium in the time of his mother, Maria Theresa, under the guarantee of the three powers, and further promised a general amnesty if his authority was recognised by 21st November. The Belgian States-General made no reply to Leopold, and the Emperor proceeded to concentrate 45,000 men under Bender in Luxembourg. Then the Belgian leaders applied to the Congress at the Hague for a prolongation of the armistice and the restoration of the state of government existing in the time of Charles VI. and not in that of Maria Theresa. These demands were supported by the representatives of the Triple Alliance, but rejected by the Austrian ambassador. On 21st November the Belgian States-General elected the Archduke Charles, the third son of the Emperor, to be hereditary Grand Duke, but the time had gone by for compromises, and on the following day Bender entered Belgium. The experiences of a year of revolution made the Belgian people not unwilling to return under the sway of Austria; the cities surrendered without a blow, and on 2d December 1790 Brussels capitulated. Van der Noot fled with his chief friends, and Belgium was won back by Leopold as easily as it had been lost by Joseph. On 8th December the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau assented to the restoration of the liberties recognised in the inaugural act of Charles VI., but Leopold disavowed his ambassador and insisted on the authority possessed by Maria Theresa at the close of her reign. Under these circumstances the mediating powers refused their guarantee, a refusal which rather gratified the Emperor than otherwise, as it freed him from the fear of foreign interference. Not only in Belgium itself, but in the neighbouring bishopric of LiÉge also, Leopold established Austrian ascendency. The princes of the Circle of the Empire, which adjoined, were dissatisfied with the conduct of Prussia and General Schlieffen, and appealed to the Emperor. He was only too glad to assert his authority; Schlieffen evacuated the territory; and on 13th January 1791 it was occupied by an Austrian force, which re-established the Prince-bishop in all his former authority.

The entire reversal of Joseph’s policy by Leopold, the arrangements made at Reichenbach, and the friendly attitude of the new Emperor towards the powers forming the Triple Alliance, deprived Russia of her only ally at a time when the Empress had on her hands two exhausting wars with Sweden and Turkey. The former was the most serious. Gustavus III., freed from the dangers of a Danish invasion, and by his coup d’État from the formidable plots of his nobility, rejoined his army in Finland and prepared to carry on the war vigorously by land and sea. His army was too small to effect much in spite of his near approach to St. Petersburg, and his chief confidence was in his fleet. This fleet was soon blockaded in the Gulf of Vyborg by the Russian admiral, the Prince of Nassau-Siegen, one of the most famous soldiers of fortune of the century; an attempt it made to break out on 24th June 1790 was repulsed, and the Russians even hoped to force it to capitulate. But, to their surprise, the Swedes broke the blockade on the 3d July, though with a loss of 5000 men, and on 9th July won a great naval victory in Svenska Sound, in which the Russians lost 30 ships, 600 guns and 6000 men. But this victory led to no corresponding diplomatic result. Catherine, defeated though she was, made overtures in no humiliated spirit to the King of Sweden, and proposed to him that, instead of quarrelling with his neighbours, he should turn his attention to the state of affairs in France. The chivalrous and romantic king was not unwilling to listen to her suggestions; he had, during a visit to Paris, been much impressed by Marie Antoinette, and was full of pity at the situation of the royal family of France and of disgust at the progress of the Revolution. He felt, too, that the war with Russia was not popular among his people, and on 14th August 1790 he signed a treaty of peace at Verela, by which the status quo ante bellum between Russia and Sweden was restored without any compensation in money or territory being obtained by the victorious Swedes.

While resisting the Swedes, Catherine made her chief effort against the Turks. In this quarter the defection of Leopold and the Armistice of Giurgevo seriously compromised her position. The war had resolved itself into the siege of the strong city of Ismail, where the Turks defended themselves with the utmost tenacity. The Russian attacks were foiled again and again, and Potemkin resigned the conduct of the siege in despair. His place was taken by SuvÓrov, whose brilliant victory on the Rymnik in 1789 had marked him as the greatest Russian general of his time. His valour and constancy equalled those qualities in the Turks; and Ismail was stormed on 20th December 1790, after a scene of carnage which cost the lives of 10,000 Russians and 30,000 Turks. In the following year the Russians pressed onwards towards Constantinople, and on 9th July 1791 the Russian General Repnin, under whom served SuvÓrov and Kutuzov, defeated the Grand Vizier at Matchin. But the Empress Catherine was not inclined to follow up these military advantages. The policy of Leopold had isolated her; the Treaty of Sistova had deprived her of an auxiliary army against the Turks; the state of affairs in Poland demanded her most serious attention; and she had to observe the action of Europe on the French Revolution and of the French Revolution on Europe, in the hope of deriving some advantage for Russia from the complications. She, therefore, signed a treaty of peace with the Turks at Jassy on 9th January 1792, by which Russia retained only Oczakoff and the coast-line between the mouths of the Bug and the Dniester. By making this peace, Catherine only deferred the prosecution of the schemes of Russia against the Ottoman Empire, and certain clauses with regard to the Danubian Principalities, affording a pretext for future wars, were skilfully included in the Treaty of Jassy.

The success of the policy of the Emperor Leopold entirely altered the situation of the European states and their attitude towards each other. He was in 1791 not only master in his own dominions, but the recognised representative of the Empire, in fact as well as in name. He had broken down the combination against Austria and the solidarity of the Triple Alliance. England was far more favourably inclined to him than she had ever been to Joseph II.; Frederick William II. of Prussia was his ally not his enemy. He was, therefore, able in 1791 to turn his thoughts to the situation of France, and to see what advantages could be drawn from the position of affairs there for the benefit of Austria. The political effacement of France in foreign affairs was due to the assumption of all real authority by the Constituent Assembly, while leaving the responsibility to the King’s ministers, and Leopold did not doubt that the result of an entire victory of the popular party would be a recurrence to the classical policy of opposition to Austria and the rupture of the Treaty of 1756. It was to his interest to prevent this, and he had therefore political, as well as personal, ends to secure in endeavouring to restore the authority of the King of France. The capture of the Bastille and the transference of the royal family to Paris were great events in the history of France, but they only affected Leopold as weakening the authority of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, the faithful allies of Austria. The behaviour of the Constituent Assembly gave him pretexts for interfering in France, in spite of the diplomatic ability of Mirabeau, and he was earnestly besought by the French ÉmigrÉs, or opponents of the new state of things in France, who had gone into voluntary exile with the King’s younger brother, the Comte d’Artois, at their head, to intervene on behalf of the French monarchy.

The conduct of the Constituent Assembly in disorganising every branch of the executive in France had its natural effect by the commencement of 1791. The army, in spite of the effort of General BouillÉ to restore discipline by making an example of some Swiss mutineers at Nancy in 1790, was rendered inefficient by the disaffection of the soldiers and the exaggerated royalism of most of the officers; the navy was in a still worse condition; the Civil Constitution of the Clergy had caused a schism, which disturbed the minds of men in all parts of France, and created an army of opponents to the work of the Assembly, who had peculiar influence over the rural communities; the issue of assignats on the security of the confiscated domains of the Church had inflated the currency, and, while giving an appearance of fictitious prosperity, had really given a feeling of insecurity to all trade and commerce; the old internal administrations of the provinces had been replaced by the new administrations of the departments, which were filled by inexperienced men, utterly unable to cope with the difficulties of a time of unrest and revolution. The practical disorganisation of the executive was meanwhile being consecrated by the measures of the Constituent Assembly, which, in the Constitution it was drawing up, in its fear of the power of the monarchy, so hampered the authority of the executive as to destroy the necessary foundations of good government.

In its ardour for the Rights of Man and the principle of election, the Constituent Assembly forgot the need for enforcing the authority of the law, and the necessity for providing a strong arm to carry it into effect. Mirabeau had clearly perceived that France was drifting into a state of anarchy. In his secret notes for the Court he insisted on the importance of restoring its proper power to the executive, and he advised the King to leave Paris and call the partisans of order to his side. Civil war, he contended, was preferable to anarchy, cloaked by fine words; it would openly divide France into the adherents of order and of disorder, and result in the maintenance of the popular rights sanctioned by the royal power. The King was to acknowledge the right of the people to legislate, and tax themselves through their representatives, but was to point out the importance of maintaining a strong government to secure the happiness of the governed. Against foreign war, however, Mirabeau strongly protested; foreign interference would rouse the spirit of national patriotism, and if the King was suspected of favouring the foreigners, it would result in the overthrow of the monarchy, and in a long struggle before the country could agree on a new form of government. However, on 2d April 1791, Mirabeau died, and France was deprived of its most sagacious, if not its only, statesman. In truth, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had no wish to take Mirabeau’s advice; the King regarded civil war as a horrible calamity, and to be shunned in every way and at any sacrifice; the Queen longed for the interference of her brother, the Emperor, and begged him to intervene to restore the royal authority. The King’s religious convictions were wounded by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; the Queen was roused to wrath by the feeling that she was a prisoner, by daily insults in the press, and by the degradation of the power of the monarchy. On 18th April 1791 the royal prisoners were prevented by the Parisians from going to Saint-Cloud for Easter, and on 18th May the Emperor Leopold issued a circular to all crowned heads calling attention to the position of the King of France in his capital. On 20th May he had an interview with the Comte de Durfort, a secret emissary from the Tuileries, at Mantua, and charged him to tell the King and Queen of France that ‘he was going to concern himself with their affairs, not in words, but in acts.’

The action of the Parisian mob on 18th April caused Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette to resolve to escape secretly from Paris, since they were obviously prisoners and could not leave openly. They determined, contrary to the advice so often given by Mirabeau, and contrary also to the wishes of the Emperor and of his able representative at the Hague, the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, who knew France better than any living diplomatist, to fly towards the frontier. Leopold, under the pretext of supporting his authority in Belgium and Luxembourg, and that of his allies, the Elector-Archbishop of TrÈves and the Bishop of LiÉge, massed his troops upon the frontier in readiness to succour or assist, and BouillÉ, who commanded at Metz, made preparations to have the part of his forces on which he could rely ready to receive the fugitive monarch. On 20th June 1791 the royal family left Paris by night, after the King had drawn up a declaration protesting against the whole of the measures of the Constituent Assembly, and disavowing them. The flight, from a combination of circumstances, ended in the royal family being stopped at Varennes, and being brought back to Paris in custody. It had the most momentous results upon the history of the French Revolution, which are sometimes disregarded in the recollection of the romantic circumstances attending it.

The primary result of the flight to Varennes was the sudden comprehension by France that Louis XVI. was an unwilling collaborator in the work of reconstituting the French government on a new basis. Hitherto the people, and even the leaders of the Constituent Assembly, had believed in his acquiescence, if not in his hearty assistance. But the declaration, left behind on the occasion of his flight, proved the contrary. The statesmen of the Constituent Assembly, including the makers of the new Constitution, such as Le Chapelier and Thouret, and the triumvirate of Duport, Barnave, and Lameth, who, after Mirabeau’s death, were the undisputed leaders of the majority, saw they had gone too far, and that in their desire to weaken the royal authority, they had seriously weakened the executive, and had made the King’s position intolerable. They therefore threw the blame of the flight to Varennes on the subordinates in the scheme, ignored the King’s declaration, and acted on the supposition that he was misled by bad advisers. This attitude not being wholly approved by the Jacobin Club, which, through its affiliated clubs in the provinces, exercised the most powerful sway in the formation of public opinion, the believers in the royal authority seceded and formed the Constitutional Club, or Club of 1789, which temporarily weakened the power of the Jacobins in Paris. But this secession was entirely sanctioned by the bourgeois classes both in Paris and throughout France, who had the strongest interest in the maintenance of order, and who sent in numerous declarations of their adhesion to the cause of monarchy. Moreover, their chief representatives in arms, the National Guard of Paris, under the command of Lafayette, had soon an opportunity of giving practical proof of this loyal disposition. The Cordeliers Club, which was chiefly influenced by Danton, a lawyer of Paris, who had Mirabeau’s gift of seeing things as they really were, felt it impossible to hush things up. They understood the King’s declaration to mean a declaration of war against the new Constitution; his flight to Varennes they rightly interpreted to show that he was trusting to the intervention of foreign powers to re-establish him in his former position; and they resolved to draw up a petition for his dethronement. This petition was largely the work of Danton and of Brissot, a pamphleteer and journalist, who had been imprisoned in the Bastille, and had imbibed republican notions in America, and a large crowd assembled to sign it on the Champ de Mars. Lafayette determined to disperse this crowd, and the National Guard, under his command, fired on the people, killing several persons. This vigorous measure, which was intended to show the power of the party of order, was followed by vigorous steps against the party for dethronement.

The leaders of the Cordeliers were proscribed. Danton and Marat fled to England, and the party of order seemed triumphant. A revision of the Constitution was undertaken, and various reactionary clauses, specially directed against the press, the popular clubs or societies, and the rights of assembly and of petition, were inserted. But this new attitude of the Constituent Assembly had but a slight effect upon France, for the king’s flight had caused the people in general to believe that he was the enemy of their new-born liberties, and a traitor in league with foreign powers to overthrow them.

The flight to Varennes proved to the people of France, as well as to the monarchs and statesmen of Europe, that Louis XVI. was a prisoner in Paris, and an enemy to the new settlement of the government, as laid down by the Constitution in course of preparation. The Emperor Leopold, as brother of Marie Antoinette, as Holy Roman Emperor and supporter of dynastic legitimacy, as the leading monarch of Europe, decided to intervene. On 6th July 1791 he issued the Manifesto of Padua, in which he invited the sovereigns of Europe to join him in declaring the cause of the King of France to be their own, in exacting that he should be freed from all popular restraint, and in refusing to recognise any constitutional laws as legitimately established in France, except such as might be sanctioned by the King acting in perfect freedom. The English Government paid little or no attention to these requests of Leopold, but the Empress Catherine, and the Kings of Prussia, Spain, and Sweden, for different reasons and in different degrees, heartily accepted Leopold’s views, and armed intervention to carry them into effect was suggested. But Leopold had no desire for war. His policy since his accession had been distinctly in favour of peace. He was a diplomatist, not a soldier, and he desired to frighten France by threats, rather than to fight France for the liberty of Louis XVI. and his family.

The sequel to the Manifesto of Padua was a conference at Pilnitz between the Emperor Leopold and King Frederick William II. of Prussia, accompanied by their ministers, in August 1791. At this conference the King’s brothers, Monsieur, the Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII., who had escaped from France at the time of the flight to Varennes, and the Comte d’Artois, afterwards Charles X., who had fled in July 1789, at the epoch of the capture of the Bastille, were present. They had their own aims to serve. They were disgusted at the weak conduct, as they termed it, of Louis XVI. in yielding so far as he had done to the popular wishes; they desired to undo the whole effect of the Revolution and to restore the Bourbon monarchy in its ancient authority by the arms of the monarchs of Europe. But Leopold did not care about the French princes or the Bourbon monarchy. He cared rather for the safety of his sister, Marie Antoinette, and the maintenance through her of the Franco-Austrian alliance. In the Declaration of Pilnitz, which was signed by the Emperor and the King of Prussia on 27th August 1791, the two sovereigns declared that the situation of the King of France was an object of interest common to all European monarchs, and that they hoped other monarchs would use with them the most efficacious means to put the King of France in a position to lay in perfect liberty the bases of a monarchical government, suited alike to the rights of sovereigns and the happiness of the French nation. Provided that other powers would co-operate with them they were willing to act promptly, and had therefore placed their armies on foot. These threats exasperated but did not terrify the French people. Leopold had no intention of entering upon hostilities, and found a loophole by which to escape from declaring war in the acceptance by Louis XVI. of the completed Constitution on 21st September 1791. He then solemnly withdrew his pretensions to interfere in the internal affairs of France.

While the first Constitution of France, sanctioning the representative principle and the rights of the people, was being slowly built up in the midst of troubles and intrigues in Paris, a not less remarkable constitution was promulgated in Poland, manifesting the same ideas. The partition of Poland in 1773 had proved to all patriotic Poles that their independence as a nation was in the utmost peril. A serious effort was therefore made to organise the country, and to place the government on a settled and logical basis. The army was made national instead of feudal; an attempt was made to establish a national system of finance, and a scheme of national education was propounded and partly carried into effect. But these measures were but steps in the work of making Poland a nation, instead of a loose confederation of nobles; the final decision was taken in 1788, when the Polish Diet elected a Committee to draw up a new Constitution, raised the national army to 60,000 men, and decreed regular taxes in order to replenish the national treasury. This consciousness of nationality enabled Stanislas Poniatowski, King of Poland, to negotiate as an independent and powerful sovereign with Prussia in 1789, and to send his envoys to Reichenbach in 1790 to act with the envoys of the other powers. The leading member of the Polish Constitutional Committee was Kollontai, a most remarkable man, and a Catholic priest, who had done good service as Rector of the University of Cracow, which he reorganised, and who had been made Vice-Grand-Chancellor of the kingdom. He was the principal author of the Polish Constitution, which was accepted by the Diet of Warsaw on 3d May 1791. This Constitution was noteworthy in what it abolished and what it created. It abolished the elective monarchy, the source of so many evils and intrigues, and declared the throne of Poland hereditary in the House of Saxony in succession to Stanislas Poniatowski, and it also abolished the liberum veto, which had enabled one member of the Diet to thwart the wishes of the majority. It created a regular government, conferring the legislative power on the King, the Senate, and an elected Chamber, and the executive power on the King, aided by six ministers responsible to the Legislature. The cities were permitted to elect their judges and deputies to the Diet; but the plague-spot of serfdom was too delicate to touch, and the Diet only declared its willingness to sanction all arrangements made between a lord and his serfs for the benefit of the latter. In some respects this Constitution compares favourably with that of France drawn up at the same time; if it does not proclaim so firmly the liberty of man, it at any rate is free from the lamentable fear of the power of the executive, which vitiated the work of the French reformers. France feared its executive after a long course of despotic monarchy; Poland felt the need of a strong executive after a long history of anarchy. Both countries, trying to be free, were affected in different ways, and with very different results, by the intervention of foreign powers.

The acceptance of the completed French Constitution was the signal for the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. It was at once succeeded by the Legislative Assembly, elected under the provisions of the new Constitution. The new Assembly consisted, owing to a self-denying ordinance passed in May 1791, on the proposition of Robespierre, forbidding the election of deputies sitting in the Constituent Assembly to its successor, of none but untried men, who had no experience of politics. They were mostly young men who had learned to talk in their local popular societies, and who at once joined the mother of such societies, the Jacobin Club at Paris. They were forbidden by a clause in the Constitution of 1791 to interfere with constitutional questions, which could only be touched by a Convention summoned for the purpose, and so could only interfere in current politics and matters of administration. In such interference they were justified by the position of powerlessness into which the executive authority, the King and his ministers, were reduced by the Constitution. The two burning questions which first came before them were, the treatment of the clergy who had not taken the oath to observe the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and of the ÉmigrÉs. Both questions gave plenty of opportunity for the display of fervid revolutionary and patriotic eloquence, for the priests, who had not taken the oath, were undisguisedly stirring up opposition to the Revolution in the provinces, and the ÉmigrÉs were forming an army on the French frontier. And the Legislative Assembly was in a greater degree than either its predecessor, the Constituent, or its successor, the Convention, liable to be swayed by oratory. The deputies liked to listen to glowing words and patriotic sentiments, and were largely influenced by the speeches of three great orators, Vergniaud, GensonnÉ, and Guadet, who all came from Bordeaux, the capital of the department of the Gironde, and to whose supporters posterity has given the name of Girondins. But these orators were in their turn influenced by a Norman deputy, Brissot. This veteran pamphleteer was a sincere republican; he also, having long been a journalist, believed himself a master of foreign politics. He desired to bring about a war between France and Austria. He believed that such a war would either cause the King to throw in his lot heartily with the Revolution, or, what was more likely, would make him declare himself openly against it, and would thus enable the advanced democratic party to call him a traitor, and by rousing all France against him, pave the way for his overthrow and the establishment of a republic. The first step was taken to make Louis XVI. appear the opponent of the Revolution by passing a decree against the priests, who had not taken the oath, which his conscience would not permit him to sign; the second by passing a decree against the ÉmigrÉs, who were led by his own brothers, and an instruction that he should ask the Emperor and the German princes on the Rhine to prevent the ÉmigrÉs from forming an army, and to expel them if they did so.

The question of the expediency of war with Austria was soon taken up in France, and not only the Legislative Assembly but the popular clubs busied themselves in discussing it. The Declaration of Pilnitz exasperated the whole nation, which resented dictation or interference in the internal affairs of France, and the warlike and menacing attitude of the army of ÉmigrÉs, which had been formed by the Prince de CondÉ on the French frontier at Worms, increased the universal wrath. Louis XVI., whose ministers had been but feeble figure-heads during the Constituent Assembly, at this juncture appointed the Comte de Narbonne, a young man of distinguished ability, to be Minister for War. Narbonne grasped the situation. He saw the people wished for war, and he therefore declared that the King was as patriotic as his subjects, and was also ready for war if satisfaction were not given to France. Three large armies were formed and placed upon the frontiers under the command of Generals Rochambeau, LÜckner, and Lafayette, of whom the two former were created Marshals of France. By this policy Narbonne took the wind out of the sails of Brissot and the Girondins; he hoped that if the Austrian war was successful the King would be sufficiently strengthened in popularity to regain his authority as head of the executive; while, if it failed, the nation in its extremity would turn to its legitimate sovereign and invest him with dictatorial power. The leaders of the democratic party in Paris, which had been scattered by Lafayette in July 1791, saw this equally clearly with Narbonne, and therefore opposed the war with all their might. The Jacobin Club had become their headquarters; most of the deputies who came up from the provinces joined the mother society in Paris, and it soon became more powerful than ever in creating public opinion. The effect of the secession and consequent formation of the Club of 1789 only made the Jacobins more frankly democratic, while the presence of many of its members in the Legislative Assembly strengthened the influence of the Jacobin Club. It was in the Jacobin Club during the debates on the war that the difference between what were to be the Girondin and the Mountain parties in the Convention first appeared. Brissot and the Girondin orators argued in favour of war; while Marat, Danton, and still more Robespierre, whose career in the Constituent Assembly had made him exceedingly popular, opposed it. The last-mentioned orator was indeed the chief opponent of the war; he saw through Narbonne’s schemes, and hinted that the projected war was merely a court intrigue to promote the power of the King. The political strife became personal, and Robespierre, Marat, and Danton became the sworn foes of Brissot and the Girondins.

The main causes of the war were the questions of the rights of the Princes of the Empire in Alsace and of the ÉmigrÉs. The defence of the former rights as rights of the Empire had been pressed upon Leopold at the time of his election as Emperor, and on 26th April 1791 the Prince of Thurn and Taxis, as Imperial Commissary, summoned the Diet to meet. It assembled, and after a long discussion a conclusum was arrived at, that the Empire maintained the Treaties of Westphalia and of the eighteenth century now violated by France, and requested the Emperor to take severe measures against the revolutionary propaganda. The Emperor Leopold, as sovereign of Austria, had withdrawn from the position he had taken up at Pilnitz, but as Emperor he was obliged to submit this conclusum of the Diet to the King of France, which he did in a strongly-worded despatch drawn up by the Chancellor Kaunitz, which was laid before the Legislative Assembly on 3d December 1791. It was as Emperor also that Leopold defended the conduct of the border princes of the Empire, notably the Elector-Archbishops of TrÈves, Cologne, and Mayence, and the Bishops of Spires and Worms, in sheltering French ÉmigrÉs. On 29th November 1791 the Assembly had desired the King to write to the Emperor and to these border princes protesting against the enlistment of troops by the ÉmigrÉs, and the Emperor’s answer defending the conduct of the princes concerned was read to the Assembly on 14th December. The replies of Leopold were referred to the Diplomatic Committee, and on its report, the Assembly resolved on 25th January 1792 that the Emperor should be requested to explain his attitude towards France and to promise to undertake nothing against her independence in forming her own constitution and settling her own mode of government before 1st March 1792, and that an evasive or unsatisfactory reply should be considered as annulling the Treaty of 1756 and as an act of hostility. The answer to this demand, which was drafted by Kaunitz, was read to the Assembly on 1st March; it censured the course which was being taken by France, stigmatised the Revolution and accused the Jacobins of fomenting anarchy, and its first results were the dismissal of Narbonne, the impeachment of De Lessart, the Foreign Minister, and the formation of a Girondin ministry.

In the position he had taken up the Emperor Leopold was generally supported. The Princes of the Empire, as was represented in their conclusum passed at the Diet, not only resented the interference of France with historic rights in Alsace and her dictation as to whom they should shelter, but were beginning to fear the contagion of the revolutionary conceptions of the rights of man and political liberty. Throughout the Rhine provinces the peasants had risen in partial rebellion against their lords; in all the great cities of western Germany the more enlightened bourgeois protested against their exclusion from political influence. This contagion, however, did not spread far in these early days. The Empress Catherine, the King of Prussia, and the King of Sweden, who chiefly urged Leopold to make a brave stand against the Legislative Assembly, were urged by other motives. Catherine wished to see Austria and Prussia embroiled with France so as to have her hands free to deal with the Poles, who seemed likely with their new Constitution to ward off destruction. Frederick William II. was disgusted by the disrespect shown to the principle of monarchy by the Parisians’ treatment of Louis XVI. Gustavus III. had imbibed a knightly admiration for Marie Antoinette, and felt a personal desire to relieve her from her position of humiliation. Each monarch showed his inclination characteristically. Catherine received some French ÉmigrÉs, who found their way to her distant court, with kindness, and dismissed the French ambassador; Gustavus hurried to Spa to consult with the French ÉmigrÉs, and proposed an immediate expedition to carry off the French court; Frederick William signed an offensive and defensive alliance with the Emperor on 2d February 1792, which saved him the trouble of personal decision, and left to the Emperor the harassing business of arranging the details of the war and of so carrying out the necessary diplomatic negotiations which preceded an open rupture, that the interference of the powers should seem justified. In the midst of his preparations the Emperor Leopold died suddenly on 1st March 1792, the very day on which his last manifesto was read to the Legislative Assembly. His death was an irreparable blow for Austria, for Germany, for France, and for Europe. In his short reign he had shown himself to be a monarch of extraordinary ability, possessing alike singular tact and great force of character. He was succeeded in the hereditary dominions of the House of Hapsburg by his eldest son Francis II., an inexperienced youth, quite unfitted to continue Leopold’s policy in the troublous times approaching.

Europe had hardly recovered from the shock of the Emperor’s sudden death, when it was startled by the news of the murder of Gustavus III. of Sweden, who was shot on his way from a masked ball at Stockholm by an officer named AnkarstrÖm, on 16th March 1792. He lingered till 29th March, when he died, and was succeeded on the throne of Sweden by his infant son, Gustavus IV. Duke Charles of Sudermania was appointed Regent. He at once reversed the policy of the late king; he felt none of the sympathy so warmly expressed by Gustavus III. for Marie Antoinette, and he distrusted the close alliance which had been entered into with Russia after the Treaty of Verela. His first measure was to place Sweden in a position of absolute neutrality, from which she never swerved during his tenure of power.

Of the ministers who came into office in France in March 1792 through the influence of the Girondins in the Legislative Assembly, the most notable were Roland and Dumouriez. The former was a sincere republican, who was induced by his wife to take up an offensive attitude to the King, the latter an experienced soldier and diplomatist, who was well fitted for the ministry of foreign affairs. Dumouriez at once accepted war with Austria as inevitable, and directed all his efforts to isolate her. He was a sworn enemy of the Austrian alliance, entered into by the Treaty of 1756, and cemented by the marriage of Marie Antoinette, and his first step was to endeavour to detach Prussia. He was sanguine enough to believe in the possibility of doing this, but he did not understand the character of Frederick William II. It was difficult to induce that monarch to make up his mind, but when he did make it up he was obstinate. The French party at his Court, headed by his uncle Prince Henry, and in his ministry, represented by Haugwitz, was very strong; but, on the other hand, he had been convinced by Leopold that the cause of Louis XVI. was the cause of monarchy, and the German party at Berlin hinted that if he allowed Austria to pose as the defender of the rights of the Empire by herself, the policy of Frederick the Great to make Prussia the leader of Germany would be undone. Frederick William II., therefore, listened coldly to the overtures of Dumouriez, and made preparations to support his ally in the field. On 20th April 1792 the Legislative Assembly assented almost unanimously to the King’s proposition, as read by Dumouriez, to declare war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia, as Francis II. was at this time styled, and the great war, which was to rage with but slight intermissions for twenty-three years, began.

The commencement of the first campaign of 1792 proved how thoroughly the French army had been disorganised and demoralised by the policy of the Constituent Assembly and the general course of the Revolution. An attempt was made to invade the Austrian Netherlands or Belgium on four lines; but one column was seized with panic and rushed back to Lille, murdering its general, Theobald Dillon. The other commanders found their soldiers filled with a spirit of distrust for their officers and hardly amenable to discipline, and it soon became obvious that France would have to stand on the defensive. This news profoundly moved the people of France and especially of Paris. The word treachery was freely used in connection with the Court, and it was asserted that the plan of campaign had been revealed to the Austrians by the Queen. This was true; Marie Antoinette had always looked to Austrian help to rescue her from her position, and Louis XVI. had now entirely come round to her view. At this juncture he dismissed his Girondin ministers on their insisting upon his signing a decree, which had been passed by the Assembly ordering the deportation of priests who had not taken the oath, and even accepted the resignation of the ablest of them, Dumouriez, who had offered to form a new ministry. The populace of Paris was intensely excited by the failure of the attack on Belgium, the concentration of the Prussian army on the frontier, and the dismissal of the popular ministers, and a body of petitioners, after filing through the hall of the Assembly, burst into the Tuileries and for some hours filled the palace, insulting the King and Queen and forcing the former to put on a red cap of liberty. The invasion of the Tuileries marked the final breach between the King and the people. Louis XVI. longed more ardently than ever for the arrival of the allied monarchs; and the Jacobin leaders, who perceived the impossibility that France should be successful in war with an unwilling king at her head, began to plot for his overthrow. His last chance was lost, when he rejected the proffered assistance of Lafayette, who returned from his army without leave and offered to bring the National Guard of Paris to his help.

The news of the invasion of the Tuileries by the mob on the 20th June further decided the allied monarchs to take immediate action. Francis II., who was crowned Emperor at Frankfort on 14th July 1792, was eager to come to his aunt’s help. The position of the allies was now reversed. Instead of Austria in the person of the experienced Emperor Leopold guiding Prussia, it was now Frederick William II. of Prussia who directed the policy of the young Emperor Francis. It was arranged that the Prussians should invade Champagne, supported by a corps of Austrians and ÉmigrÉs on their left, and joined midway by a corps of Austrians from their right, while an Austrian army under Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen was to march from the Netherlands and invest Lille. The central Prussian army was placed under the command of the Duke of Brunswick, who issued a proclamation, drafted by an ÉmigrÉ, M. de Limon, and filled with violent language by Count Fersen, threatening to hold Paris liable for the safety of the King, and vowing vengeance on the French people as rebels.

Brunswick’s proclamation was the very thing to complete the exasperation of the French people. National patriotism rose to its height; the country had been declared in danger, and thousands of volunteers were arming and preparing to go to the front; the threats of the Prussians only increased the national spirit of resistance; and the universal feeling was one of defiance. But there was obviously no chance of success while the executive remained in its present hands. The King’s power of interfering with the preparations for resistance had to be stopped. This was clearly understood by the democratic leaders, who, ever since 20th June 1792, had been organising an armed rising. They waited till some volunteers from Marseilles entered the capital, singing the song that bears their name, and then they struck. The royal plans for the defence of the Tuileries were thwarted; a number of the most energetic democrats ousted the Council-General of the Commune of Paris, and formed an Insurrectionary Commune; and the men of the poorer districts of Paris, the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, headed by the Marseillais, advanced to attack the royal palace. Before the assault commenced, Louis XVI., accompanied by his family and his ministers, took refuge in the hall of the Legislative Assembly. The attack was gallantly resisted by the Swiss Guards, who garrisoned the palace, but the people were eventually successful and the Tuileries was taken. The Legislative Assembly at once declared the King suspended from his office, and ordered him to be confined with his family in the Temple. It then elected a new ministry, consisting of three of the former Girondin ministers, Roland, ClaviÈre, and Servan for the Interior, Finance, and War, and three new men, Danton, Monge, and Lebrun for Justice, the Marine, and Foreign Affairs. This ministry, with the help of an extraordinary Commission of Twenty-one, elected by the Legislative, and of the Commune of Paris, displayed the greatest energy. By means of domiciliary visits, those suspected of opposition to the insurrection of 10th August were seized and imprisoned; a camp was formed for the defence of Paris; men were everywhere raised and equipped and sent to the front; and commissioners were sent throughout France, and especially to the armies, to tell the tale of the insurrection and to secure the adhesion of the people. Danton was the heart and soul of the defence movement and of the ministry, and inspired confidence and patriotism into those who hesitated; the Commission of Twenty-one, whose mouthpiece was the great orator Vergniaud, aided him to the best of their power; the Legislative directed the convocation of the primary assemblies, without distinction of active and passive citizens, for the election of a National Convention; and the Commune of Paris took measures to prevent any attempt at a counter-revolution.

But no amount of energy and patriotism could in a moment make trained armies and enable France to repulse the most famous troops in Europe. Fortunately for France, in this crisis, her untrained soldiers behaved admirably. Lafayette, on the news of the insurrection of 10th August, arrested the commissioners sent to him by the Legislative Assembly, and endeavoured to induce his army to march to the aid of the King. But his men refused; the former commander of the National Guard of Paris deserted, and Dumouriez took command of his army. Lille made a gallant resistance to the Austrians, who had formed the siege, but the Prussians met with no such obstinate opposition. Longwy surrendered to them on 27th August, and Verdun on 2nd September, and they continued their march directly on Paris. Dumouriez fell back with his main army to defend the uplands,—they can hardly be called the mountains,—of the Argonne. He summoned to him the corps d’armÉe on the Belgian frontier under Arther Dillon, and a detachment from the Army of the Rhine under Kellermann, while he was also reinforced by some thousands of undisciplined, and therefore useless, volunteers, and by a fine division of old soldiers collected from the garrisons in the interior. In Paris the news of the Prussian advance caused a panic; it seemed impossible that Dumouriez’ hastily concentrated army could oppose an effective resistance; and even Danton and Vergniaud could hardly keep up the enthusiasm they had at first aroused. At this juncture the Parisian volunteers were half afraid to go to the front for fear that the numerous prisoners, arrested during the domiciliary visits, would break out and revenge themselves on the families of the volunteers. This feeling induced the horrible series of murders, known as the Massacres of September, in the prisons. The massacres began fortuitously, and there were not more than 200 murderers at work; but the crowd, including national guards, stood by and saw them committed without raising a hand to help the victims. All Paris was responsible for the murders; they could have been easily stopped; but no one wanted to check them: the feeling which allowed them was the popular feeling; neither Danton, nor Roland, nor the Commune of Paris, nor the Legislative Assembly cared to interfere; the massacres were the answer to the Prussian advance and the capture of Longwy, as the insurrection of 10th August was the reply to Brunswick’s manifesto.

On 20th September 1792 the main Prussian army, which had reached the Argonne, attacked the position occupied by Kellermann at Valmy, and was repulsed. The victory was not a great one; the battle was not very hotly contested; the losses on both sides were insignificant; but its results both military and political were immense. The King of Prussia, who complained that the Austrians had not fulfilled their engagements, and that the whole burden was thrown on him, was easily persuaded by the Duke of Brunswick to order a retreat. The Duke of Brunswick was induced to give that advice from military considerations, in that his army was wasted by disease and harassed by the inclement weather, and from policy, because, like many Prussian officers, he considered it unnatural for Prussians and Austrians to fight side by side. The retiring army was not hotly pressed; Dumouriez still hoped to induce Prussia to quit the coalition against France, and pursued with more courtesy than vigour until the army of Brunswick was beyond the limits of French territory.

On the day of the battle, or as it is with more correctness termed the cannonade, of Valmy, the National Convention met in Paris and assumed the direction of affairs. It contained all the most distinguished men who had sat in the two former assemblies on the Left, or democratic side, and its first act was to declare France a Republic. After this had been unanimously carried, dissensions at once arose, and a fundamental difference between two groups of deputies appeared, which threatened to end in the proscription of the one or the other. On the one side were the distinguished orators of the Gironde, who have given their name to the whole party, reinforced by the presence of several old members of the Constituent Assembly and of a few young and inexperienced men. This group was roughly divided into Buzotins and Brissotins, or followers of Buzot, a leading ex-Constituant, and of Brissot, the author of the war; but some of the greatest of them, like Vergniaud, refused to ally themselves with either leader. The chief meeting-place of the Buzotins, who included most of the younger men, was Madame Roland’s salon. On the other side, taking their name from the high benches on which they sat, were the deputies of the Mountain, including almost the whole of the representatives of Paris, and all the energetic republicans, who had brought about the insurrection of 10th August. This group comprised Robespierre, Danton and Marat, Collot-d’Herbois and Billaud-Varenne, all deputies for Paris, and none of whom, except Robespierre, had ever sat in either of the former assemblies, with some leaders of the extreme party in the Legislative, Merlin of Thionville, Chabot and Basire. It was not long before open quarrels arose between the two groups. The Girondins accused the leaders of the Mountain of having in the Insurrectionary Commune fomented the massacres of September in the prisons, and abused them as sanguinary and ambitious anarchists. This accusation was formally indeed brought against Robespierre by Louvet, a Rolandist Girondin, in an elaborate attack delivered on 29th October; while at the same time the Mountain accused the Girondins of being federalists and desiring to destroy the essential unity of the Republic, an accusation which was used with deadly effect at a later date. Both groups,—they cannot be called parties, for they had no party ties and recognised no party obligations,—appealed to the great majority of the Convention, the deputies of the Centre, who sat in the Plain or Marsh. The representative of this vast majority was BarÈre, an ex-Constituant, who trimmed judiciously between the two opposing groups.

The Convention, which had been elected in days of deepest dejection, if not despair, when the Prussians were moving on Paris and the Austrians were besieging Lille, was soon raised by a succession of conquests to a state of patriotic exaltation, bordering on delirium. In the month of September, just after the battle of Valmy, General Montesquiou occupied Savoy, and General Anselme the county and city of Nice, territories belonging to the King of Sardinia, without striking a blow. This was followed by a more important series of successes. Though not as a body engaged in war with France, many princes of the Empire had sent contingents to the aid of the Prussians and Austrians. In reply, still without declaring war on the Empire, the French attacked the Rhenish princes. On 1st October General Custine, commanding a corps of the Army of the Rhine, took Spires, on October 4 Worms, and on October 21 Mayence, one of the bulwarks of the Empire and the capital of the Elector-Archbishop. From Mayence Custine detached divisions in other directions, and held the wealthy city of Frankfort-on-the-Main to ransom. Not less startlingly rapid were the conquests of Dumouriez on the north-east frontier. After the retreat of the Prussians he turned north against the Austrians; he raised the siege of Lille, which had been heroically defended, and on 6th November he defeated the Austrians in a pitched battle at Jemmappes, near Mons. This victory laid Belgium open to him. He occupied the whole country, entered Brussels as a conqueror, and established his headquarters at LiÉge. The conquest of Belgium intoxicated the Convention; they believed their armies to be invincible; they regarded themselves as having a mission to carry the doctrines of the French Revolution as embodied in the Rights of Man and the Sovereignty of the People into all countries; they declared themselves on 19th November ready to wage war for all peoples upon all kings; and in disregard of all international obligations, they declared the Scheldt, which by treaty had been closed to commerce for years, a free river, because it had its source in a free country.

The intoxication which followed this series of unparalleled successes blinded the Convention to the need of improving and disciplining their troops. The French republicans did not comprehend that the chief cause of the facile conquests of their armies was that they met with the sympathy of the conquered. Belgium, the Rhine provinces, Savoy, and Nice were all filled with revolutionary enthusiasm, and welcomed the French as liberators; they requested to be united to France, when primary assemblies were summoned by the French commissioners, and on 9th November Savoy and Nice, and on 13th December the Austrian Netherlands or Belgium, were declared a part of France. In spite of these military successes, the republican army could not be organised in a day; the seeds of anarchy sown by the Constituent had gone too deep to enable discipline to be restored except by sharp measures; the administration of the army, that is, the commissariat, the war office, etc., was in a state of chaos; the soldiers, both officers and men, of all the armies, kept their eyes too closely fixed on the course of politics in Paris to do their duty efficiently at the front.

The burning question which divided the Convention at the end of 1792 was the treatment to be meted out to Louis XVI. Robespierre urged that, as a political measure, he should be put to death; but the Girondins, filled with an idea of imitating the English republicans of the seventeenth century, decided on a royal trial. When the trial, which was but a defence of Louis XVI. by his counsel, was over, the Girondins, in their desire to avoid responsibility, or perhaps from a genuine belief that it might save the King’s life, proposed that the sentence on him should be submitted to the primary assemblies of the people. The deputies of the Mountain feared no responsibility, and taunted the Girondins with being concealed royalists. The motion for an appeal to the people was rejected; the King was sentenced to death by a small majority; and on 21st January 1793 Louis XVI. was guillotined at Paris.

The result of the execution of Louis XVI. was to give a pretext to the countries of Europe which had not yet declared war against the French Republic to do so. Charles IV. of Spain, in the hope of saving the chief of the Bourbon family, maintained his minister at Paris until the last possible moment, and it was with reluctance that he placed his army in the field on the news of the King’s execution. The French Republic accepted the challenge, and early in March declared war against Spain. The war with Holland stood on a different basis. Dumouriez, after his conquest of Belgium, looked on Holland as an easy and particularly wealthy prey. He believed that by conquering Holland, France would have in her hands a means of forcing England to keep the peace. His views were supported by Danton, who was sent on mission to Dumouriez’ headquarters. The contrary was the result. Pitt sincerely wished for peace, and was essentially a peace minister, but he had no idea of allowing the faithful ally of England, Holland, to be overrun and held to ransom by the French. The opening of the Scheldt had crowned the long series of French breaches of international law, and Pitt resented the assumption of the Convention that the law of nature, as interpreted by themselves, was to take the place of the law of nations. Pitt’s hand was also forced in two directions; the philippics of Burke had roused the fears of English property-holders against the spread of French principles; and George III. was as anxious as any Continental monarch to preserve the dignity of kings. Pitt and his foreign minister, Grenville, gradually became convinced that the French meant to fight England, and that war was inevitable, and Chauvelin, the French ambassador, was ordered to leave London. The French leaders were under a misconception with regard to the spread of their ideas in England; they knew that a large body of educated men sympathised with them, and expected a national democratic rising which should overthrow not only Pitt, but the English monarchy. They did not understand that an English parliamentary opposition, in spite of its words, is as staunchly loyal as the ministry, and that it would never foment or encourage insurrection. Under these circumstances and deluded by these misconceptions France declared war against England and Holland on 1st February 1793. Many smaller nations entered on the fray. Sweden under the prudent government of the Regent Duke of Sudermania, Denmark under Christian VII. and Bernstorff, and Switzerland declared their neutrality. But Portugal, where the heir-apparent, afterwards King John VI., had become regent for his mother, Maria Francisca, who was insane; Tuscany, whose Grand Duke, Ferdinand, was a brother of the Emperor; Naples, or rather the Two Sicilies, whose king was a Bourbon, and whose queen was a sister of Marie Antoinette, all declared war on the French Republic. Catherine of Russia wore mourning for Louis XVI. inveighed against the wickedness of the French republicans, and proceeded to take advantage of the occupation of the rest of Europe in the affairs of France to prosecute her schemes on Poland. Last of all, the Holy Roman Empire, which had decreed the armament of the contingents of the circles, on 23d November 1792, after the news of the capture of Mayence, solemnly, and with all the circumlocution inseparable from the movement of the unwieldy machine, declared war against France on 22d March 1793.

While regenerated France was at bay with nearly the whole of Europe, regenerated Poland was being conquered by a single power. While Europe pretended to fight France on behalf of the principle of monarchy, Catherine invaded Poland, because by the Constitution of 3d May 1791 it had strengthened its monarchy. France was attacked because it was asserted to be in a state of anarchy, Poland because it had by wise reforms tried to put an end to an historic system of constitutional anarchy. As soon as Catherine had made peace with the Turks at Jassy, and Austria and Prussia were engaged in war with France, she intervened to overthrow the new Polish Constitution. It was not difficult to find Polish nobles who resented the abrogation of the old system, and, under Catherine’s encouragement, Branicki, Felix Potocki, and some others formed the Confederation of Targovitsa, and protested against the abolition of the liberum veto and the reforms of 3d May 1791. They then asked Catherine to send a Russian army to their assistance. She willingly complied, and on 18th May 1792 published a manifesto, stating that she was the guarantor of the ancient Polish Constitution, and stigmatising the reformers of 1791 as Jacobins. SuvÓrov at once entered Poland at the head of 80,000 Russians and 20,000 Cossacks, and by force of numbers defeated the Polish army under Joseph Poniatowski at ZielencÉ on 18th June 1792, and under Kosciuszko at Dubienka on 17th July. These defeats caused the reformers of 1791, including Kollontai and Kosciuszko, to go into exile; their place at the Diet was taken by the leaders of the Confederation of Targovitsa, and the Constitution of 3d May 1791 was abrogated. The conquest of the Polish patriots by Russia greatly excited the King of Prussia and the Emperor, and was one of the causes which induced Frederick William to order Brunswick to retreat after his trifling check at Valmy. The Polish patriots appealed to Prussia for help under the terms of the alliance of 1790, but the King only answered that he had not recognised the Constitution of 3d May 1791, and that the Polish leaders were Jacobins and imitators and allies of the French revolutionary leaders. A Prussian army, therefore, entered Poland to co-operate with the Russians and to share the spoil. A treaty of partition was signed by Catherine and Frederick William on 4th January 1793, by which Russia was to annex eastern Poland, including the whole of Minsk, Podolia, Volhynia, and Little Russia, and Prussia was to have Posen, Gnezen, Kalisch, and the cities of Dantzic and Thorn. Austria was too hotly engaged in the war with France to be able to claim a share, but the conduct of Prussia at this time in excluding her from the partition of Poland was never forgotten nor forgiven, and increased the hereditary feeling of distrust between the two powers. The Emperor Francis regarded himself as duped, and Prussia by acting alone broke the solemn engagements entered into with Leopold, and commenced the policy which was to end in the conclusion of the Treaty of Basle with the French Republic. Though the second partition of Poland was agreed upon in 1792, it was not consummated until the following year. A Diet was called at Grodno, and there, in the presence of the Russian soldiers, Stanislas Poniatowski and the Diet consented in silence, on 24th September 1793, to the arrangements made between Russia and Prussia. On 16th October Catherine signed a treaty, guaranteeing the liberty of Poland, that is, the abuses of the old Constitution, which were certain to give Russia the opportunity of finishing the work of blotting out the Poles as an independent nationality from the map of Europe.

The close of the year 1792 thus witnessed at the same time the overthrow of Poland and France in arms against foreign aggression. Each country was to make a violent effort for independence. The French were to be successful, because under the influence of personal and political freedom every Frenchman felt it his duty to resist foreign interference; Poland was to fail, because it was not the Polish people, but only the enlightened Polish nobles and bourgeois, who appreciated the situation.