t an end to the troubles in France." Dumouriez urgently
demanded the court of Vienna to explain itself. It finally sent the
French Ambassador, Marquis de Noailles, a dry, curt, and formal note,
naming the only conditions on which peace could be preserved. These
were: the re-establishment of the French monarchy on the bases of the
royal declaration of June 23, 1789, and, consequently, the restoration
of the nobility and clergy as orders; the restitution of Church
property; the return of Alsace to the German princes, with all their
sovereign and feudal rights; and, finally, the surrender of Avignon and
the county of Venaisson to the Holy See.

"In truth," says Dumouriez in his Memoirs, "if the Viennese minister
had slept through the entire thirty-three months that had elapsed since
the royal seance, and had dictated this note on awaking {128} without
knowledge of what had happened, he could not have proposed conditions
more incongruous with the progress of the Revolution.... The new
social compact was founded on the abolition of the orders and the
equality of all citizens. The financial system, which alone could
prevent bankruptcy, was founded on the creation of assignats. The
assignats were hypothecated on the property of the clergy, now become
the property of the nation, and the greater part of which had been
already sold. The nation, therefore, could not accept these conditions
except by violating its Constitution, destroying property, ruining its
purchasers, annulling its assignats, and declaring bankruptcy. Could
so humiliating an obedience be expected from a great nation, proud of
having conquered its liberty? and that for the sake of placing itself
once more under the yoke of nobles who, having abandoned their King
himself, now threatened to re-enter their country with sword and flame
and every scourge of vengeance?"

The entire National Assembly reasoned in the same way as Dumouriez. A
cry for war arose on all sides. The Girondins saw in it the
indispensable consecration of the Revolution. The Feuillants hoped
that besides proving creditable to the government, it would accomplish
the additional end of drawing away from Paris and other great cities a
multitude of turbulent men who, for lack of anything else to do, were
disturbing public order. Certain reactionists, stifling the sentiment
of patriotism in their hearts, {129} were equally anxious for war, in
the secret hope that it would prove disastrous