IX. 110. Universal diffused in its ultimate effects. The Jacobins beheld in it the ter- CHAP. mination of their apprehensions occasioned by the emigrants, and the uncertain conduct of the King. The 1792. Constitutionalists hoped that the common danger would unite all the factions which now distracted the common- declarajoy which wealth, while the field of battle would mow down the tion of war turbulent characters whom the Revolution had brought France. forth. A few of the Feuillants only reproached the Assembly with having violated the constitution, and begun a war of aggression, which could not fail in the end to terminate fatally for France. It communicated a new impulse to the public mind, already so strongly excited. The districts, the municipalities, and the clubs, wrote addresses to the Assembly, congratulating them on having vindicated the national honour; arms were prepared, pikes forged, gifts provided, and the nation seemed impatient only to receive its invaders. But the efforts of patriotism, strong as an auxiliary to a military force, are seldom able to supply its place. The first combats were all unsuccessful to the French arms; and it will more than once appear in the sequel, that, had the Allies acted. with more decision, and pressed on to Paris before military experience had been superadded to the enthusiasm of their adversaries, there can be no that the war might have been terminated in a campaign.1 doubt 1Mig. i. 169. Toul. ii. 121. Th. ii. 77, single 79. 111. of the Allics period. The real intentions of the Allies at this juncture, and the moderation of the views with which they were in- Real views spired in regard to the war, are well illustrated by a note at this communicated by the cabinets of Berlin and Vienna to May 12. the Danish government-in which, renouncing all idea of interfering in the internal affairs of France, they limit their views, even after war had been commenced by France, to the formation of a bulwark against the revolutionary principles of the French Republic, and the obtaining of indemnities for the German princes. This note VOL. II. 2 E CHAP. is the more remarkable, that it announces IX. 1792. Feb. 7. * In precisely the principles which, proclaimed two-and-twenty years afterwards, in the plains of Champagne, by the Allied sovereigns, brought the war to a triumphant conclusion. contemplation of the approaching struggle, a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, had been, on 7th February 1792, concluded between the sovereigns of Sweden and Austria. But both of the contracting parties did not long survive this measure. On March 1st, Leopold died, leaving his son, Francis II., to succeed to his extensive dominions; and a fortnight after Gustavus King of Sweden March 16. was assassinated at a masked ball at Stockholm. It seemed as if Providence was preparing a new race of actors for the momentous scenes which were about to be performed. 112. of the Leopold expired of a mortification in the stomach, induced by amorous excesses, to which he was peculiarly addicted. He was succeeded by his son FRANCIS, then hardly twenty-four years of age, whose reign was the of Austria. most eventful, long the most disastrous, and ultimately Emperor Francis to the throne the most glorious in the Austrian annals. He had been brought up at Florence, at the court where his father exerted the philosophic beneficence of his disposition; and had married, four years before, the Princess Elizabeth of Würtemberg, who died in childbed on the 8th February 1790; after which he married, in the same year, the Princess Theresa of Naples. The first measures "The object of the alliance is twofold. The first object concerns the rights of the dispossessed princes, and the dangers of the propagation of revolutionary principles; the second, the maintenance of the fundamental principles of the French monarchy. The first object is sufficiently explained by its very announcement; the second is not as yet susceptible of any proper determination. The Allied powers have unquestionably no right to insist, from a great and independent power such as France, that everything should be re-established as it was formerly; or that it shall adopt such and such modifications in its government. It follows from this, that they will recognise as legal any modification of the monarchical government which the King, when enjoying unrestrained liberty, shall agree to, in concert with the legal representatives of the nation. The forces to be employed in this enterprise must be proportioned to its magnitude, and to the resistance which may probably be experienced. With a view to the arrangement of these objects, the city of Vienna is proposed as a IX. of his reign were popular and judicious: Kaunitz, long CHAP. the able and tried director of the Imperial cabinet, was continued prime-minister, and with him were joined 1792. Marshal Lascy, the old friend of Leopold, and Count Francis Colloredo, his own former preceptor. He suppressed those articles in the journals in which he was loaded with praise, observing, "It is by my future conduct that I am alone to be judged worthy of praise or blame." Leopold, at his accession, had ordered all the anonymous and secret communications with which a young prince is usually assailed, to be burned; Francis went a step further he issued a positive order against any of them being received. When the list of pensioners was submitted to his inspection, he with his own hand erased the name of his mother, observing that it was becoming that she should be dependent on the bounty of Cap. l'Eur. pend, la the State. With such bright colours did the dawn of this Rév. i. 157. eventful and glorious reign arise.1 un 1 Hard. i. 255, 267. tain still tral till the Still Great Britain preserved a strict neutrality. 113. During the whole of 1792, pregnant, as we shall imme- Great Bridiately see, with great events, and which saw France strictly neubrought to within a hairbreadth of destruction, no attempt 10th August was made to take advantage of her weakness, to wreak on made her that unhappy country the vengeance of national rivalry. war. England did not, in the hour of France's distress, retaliate upon her the injuries inflicted in the American convenient station; but when the armies are assembled, a congress must be established nearer France than that city, followed by a formal declaration of the objects which the Allies have in view in their intervention."-HARD. i. 391, 392. The same principles were announced by Frederick William to Prince Hardenberg, in a secret and confidential conversation which that statesman had with his sovereign on July 12, 1792. He declared "that France should not be dismembered in any of its parts; that the Allies had no intention of interfering in its internal government; but that, as an indispensable preliminary to the settlement of the public disturbances, the King should be set at liberty, and reinvested with his full authority; that the ministers of religion should be restored to their altars, and the dispossessed proprietors to their estates, and that France should pay the expenses of the war."-HARD. i. 400. prepare for IX. 1 Ann. Reg. CHAP. War. This fact was so notorious, that it was constantly admitted by the French themselves.1 There is but one 1792. nation," said M. Kersaint in the National Assembly, on xxxiv. 181. Sept. 18, 1792, "whose neutrality on the affairs of France is decidedly pronounced, and that is England." But with the progress of events, the policy of Great Britain necessarily underwent a change. The 10th of August came, the throne was overturned, and the royal family thrown into captivity; the massacres of September stained Paris with blood; and the victories of Dumourier rolled back to the Rhine the tide of foreign invasion. These great events inspired the revolutionary party with such extravagant expectations that the continuance of peace on the part of England became impossible. In the frenzy of their democratic fury, they used language, and adopted measures, plainly incompatible with the peace or tranquillity of other states. A Jacobin club of twelve hundred members was established at Chamberry, in Savoy, and a hundred of its most active members were selected as travelling missionaries, "armed with the torch 211. Ann. of reason and liberty, for the purpose of enlightening 181, 185. the Savoyards on their regeneration and imprescriptible rights."2 Oct. 1792. Rév. i. 191, Reg. xxxiv. 114. War was declared by the National Assembly against French sys- the King of Sardinia on 15th September 1792. An tem of propagandism. address was voted by the club just referred to, to the Nov. 21. French Convention, as "the legislators of the world," and received by them on the 20th October 1792. They ordered it to be translated into the English, Spanish, and German languages. The rebellious Savoyards next constituted a Convention, in imitation of that of France, and offered to incorporate themselves with the great Republic. On 21st November, a deputation from Savoy was received by the National Assembly, and welcomed with the most rapturous applause. The president addressed the deputies in a speech, in which he predicted the speedy destruction of all thrones, and the regeneration of the IX. 1792. human race; and assured the deputies, that "regenerated CHAP. France would make common cause with all those who are resolved to shake off the yoke, and obey only themselves." The French Convention was not slow in accepting the proffered dominion of Savoy: the committee to whom it was remitted to consider the subject reported, "that all considerations, physical, moral, and political, call for the incorporation of that country: all attempts to connect it with Piedmont are fruitless; the Alps eternally force it back into the domains of France; the order of nature would be violated if they were to live under different laws;" and the Assembly unanimously united Savoy with the French Republic, under the name Oct. 27. of the Department of Mont Blanc. The seizure of this important province was immediately followed by that of Nice with its territory, and Monaco, which were formed into the department of the Maritime Alps. "Let us not fear," said the reporter who spoke the opinion of the Convention with only one dissentient voice, "that this new incorporation will become a source of discord. It adds nothing to the hate of oppressors against the French Revolution; it adds only to the means of the power by which we shall break their league. The die is thrown : we have rushed into the career: all governments are our enemies-all people are our friends: we must be vol. xx. p. destroyed, or they shall be free: and the axe of liberty, Ann. Reg. after having prostrated thrones, shall fall on the head of Bot. i. 88. whoever wishes to restore their ruins." "1 1 Hist. Parl. 384, 395. χχχίν. 139. 115. tack on Germany. Italy was the next object of attack. "Piedmont," said Brissot in his report on Genoa, "must be free. French atYour sword must not be returned to its scabbard before Italy, Geall the subjects of your enemy are free, before you are nevin, and encircled by a girdle of republics." To facilitate such a work, a French fleet cast anchor in the bay of Genoa; a Jacobin club was established in that city, where the French commanders assisted, and from which adulatory addresses were voted to the French Convention; while |