er be at ease on that score; she will
{25} always be the King's wife and always dominant. What is she afraid
of, then? She complains that she is not sufficiently respected. But
you know the good heart and the uprightness of our Prince; he is
incapable of the remarks attributed to him, and which have certainly
been reported to the Queen with the intention of estranging them
entirely." Madame de Raigecourt ends her letter with this complaint
against Louis XVI.: "Our wretched King lowers himself more and more
every day; for he is doing too much, even if he still intends to
escape.... The emigration, meanwhile, increases daily, and presently
there will be more Frenchmen than Germans in this region." At this
very time, the Queen was having recourse to her brother Leopold as to a
saviour. She wrote to him, October 4, 1791: "My only consolation is in
writing to you, my dear brother; I am surrounded by so many atrocities
that I need all your friendship to tranquillize my mind.... A point of
primary importance is to regulate the conduct of the _emigres_. If
they re-enter France in arms, all is lost, and it will be impossible to
make it believed that we are not in connivance with them. Even the
existence of an army of _emigres_ on the frontier would be enough to
keep up the irritation and afford ground for accusations against us; it
appears to me that a congress would make the task of restraining them
less difficult.... This idea of a congress pleases me greatly; it
would second the efforts we are {26} making to maintain confidence. In
the first place, I repeat, it would put a check on the _emigres_, and,
moreover, it would make an impression here from which I hope much. I
submit that to your better judgment.... Adieu, my dear brother; we
love you, and my daughter has particularly charged me to embrace her
good uncle."

While Marie Antoinette was thus turning towards Austria for assistance,
the National Assembly at Paris repelled with energy all thought of any
intervention whatsoever on the part of foreign powers. January 1,
1792, it issued a decree of impeachment against the King's brothers,
the Prince de Conde, and Calonne. The confiscation of the property of
the _emigres_ and the taxation of their revenues for the benefit of the
State had been prescribed by another decree to which Louis XVI. had
offered no opposition. January 14, Guadet said in the tribune, while
speaking of the congress: "If it is true that b