1790–1792
The Emperor Leopold—His Internal Policy—The Policy of
Prussia—Leopold’s Foreign Policy—Conference of
Reichenbach—Leopold and the Turks—Treaty of Sistova—Leopold
crowned Emperor—Leopold and Hungary—State of Parties
in Belgium—Their Internal Dissensions—Congress at the
Hague—Leopold reconquers Belgium—War between Russia
and Sweden—Treaty of Verela—War between Russia and the
Turks—Capture of Ismail—Treaty of Jassy—Position of
Leopold—The State of France—Mirabeau’s advice—Death of
Mirabeau—The Flight to Varennes—Its Results: in France—The
Massacre of 17th July 1791—Revision of the Constitution—Its
Results: in Europe—Manifesto of Padua—Declaration of
Pilnitz—Completion of the French Constitution of 1791—The
Polish Constitution of 1791—The Legislative Assembly
in France—The Girondins—Approach of War between France
and Austria—Causes of the War—Attitude of Europe—Death
of the Emperor Leopold—Murder of Gustavus III. of
Sweden—Policy of Dumouriez—War declared by France against
Austria—Invasion of the Tuileries, 20th June 1792—Francis
II. crowned Emperor—Invasion of France by Prussia and
Austria—Insurrection of 10th August 1792—Suspension of Louis
XVI.—Desertion of Lafayette—The Massacres of September
in the prisons—Battle of Valmy—Meeting of the National
Convention—The Girondins and the Mountain—Conquest of
Savoy, Nice, and Mayence—Battle of Jemmappes—Conquest
of Belgium—Execution of Louis XVI.—War declared against
Spain, Holland, England and the Empire—Catherine invades
Poland—Overthrow of the Polish Constitution—Second Partition
of Poland—Contrast between the resistance of France and
Poland.
[Sidenote: The Emperor Leopold.]
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.
[Sidenote: Policy of Leopold.]
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.
[Sidenote: The Policy of Prussia.]
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.
[Sidenote: The Policy of Leopold.]
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.
[Sidenote: The Conference of Reichenbach. June 1790.]
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.
[Sidenote: Leopold and the Turks.]
[Sidenote: The Treaty of Sistova. 4th Aug. 1791.]
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.
[Sidenote: Leopold crowned Emperor. 9th Oct. 1790.]
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]
[Sidenote: Leopold and Hungary.]
[Sidenote: Leopold crowned King of Hungary. 15th Nov. 1790.]
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.
[Sidenote: Parties in Belgium.]
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.
[Sidenote: Congress at the Hague. Oct. 1790.]
[Sidenote: Leopold reconquers Belgium.]
[Sidenote: The Austrians at Liége.]
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.
[Sidenote: Russia and Sweden.]
[Sidenote: Treaty of Verela. Aug. 14th 1790.]
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.
[Sidenote: Capture of Ismail. 20th Dec. 1790.]
[Sidenote: Treaty of Jassy. 9th Jan. 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Position of Leopold.]
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.
[Sidenote: The state of France, 1791.]
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.
[Sidenote: Death of Mirabeau.]
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.’
[Sidenote: The Flight to Varennes. 21st June 1791.]
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.
[Sidenote: Results of the Flight to Varennes.]
[Sidenote: The Massacre of 17th July in Paris.]
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.
[Sidenote: Revision of the Constitution.]
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.
[Sidenote: Effects of the Flight to Varennes.]
[Sidenote: Manifesto of Padua. 6th July 1791.]
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.
[Sidenote: Declaration of Pilnitz, 27th Aug. 1791.]
[Sidenote: Completion of the Constitution.]
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.
[Sidenote: The Polish Constitution. 3d May 1791.]
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.
[Sidenote: The Legislative Assembly.]
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.
[Sidenote: Approach of War between France and the Emperor.]
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.
[Sidenote: Causes of war between France and the Emperor.]
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.
[Sidenote: Death of Leopold, 1st March 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Murder of Gustavus III. 29th March 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Policy of Dumouriez.]
[Sidenote: War declared by France against Austria. 20th April 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Invasion of the Tuileries. 20th June 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Francis II. Emperor. 14th July 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Insurrection of 10th Aug. 1792.]
[Sidenote: Suspension of Louis XVI. 10th Aug. 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Desertion of Lafayette.]
[Sidenote: The Massacres of September 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Battle of Valmy. 20th Sept. 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Meeting of the Convention. 20th Sep. 1792.]
[Sidenote: Parties in the Convention.]
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.
[Sidenote: Conquest of Savoy and Nice.]
[Sidenote: Capture of Mayence. 21st October 1792.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Jemmappes. 6th Nov. 1792.]
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.
[Sidenote: Execution of Louis XVI. 21st Jan. 1793.]
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.
[Sidenote: War with Spain, Holland, England, and the Empire.]
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.
[Sidenote: Catherine invades Poland.]
[Sidenote: Second partition of Poland. 24th Sept. 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.