they thought, in
danger, they entirely changed their plan with regard to the French
nation. I believe that the chiefs of the Revolution (those who led the
constituting Assembly) have contrived, as far as they can do it, to give
the Emperor satisfaction on this head. He keeps a continual tone and
posture of menace to secure this his only point. But it must be
observed, that he all along grounds his departure from the engagement at
Pilnitz to the princes on the will and actions of _the king_ and the
majority of the people, without any regard to the natural and
constitutional orders of the state, or to the opinions of the whole
House of Bourbon. Though it is manifestly under the constraint of
imprisonment and the fear of death that this unhappy man has been guilty
of all those humilities which have astonished mankind, the advisers of
the Emperor will consider nothing but the _physical_ person of Louis,
which, even in his present degraded and infamous state, they regard as
of sufficient authority to give a complete sanction to the persecution
and utter ruin of all his family, and of every person who has shown any
degree of attachment or fidelity to him or to his cause, as well as
competent to destroy the whole ancient constitution and frame of the
French monarchy.

The present policy, therefore, of the Austrian politicians is, to
recover despotism through democracy,--or, at least, at any expense,
everywhere to ruin the description of men who are everywhere the objects
of their settled and systematic aversion, but more especially in the
Netherlands. Compare this with the Emperor's refusing at first all
intercourse with the present powers in France, with his endeavoring to
excite all Europe against them, and then, his not only withdrawing all
assistance and all countenance from the fugitives who had been drawn by
his declarations from their houses, situations, and military
commissions, many even from the means of their very existence, but
treating them with every species of insult and outrage.

Combining this unexampled conduct in the Emperor's advisers with the
timidity (operating as perfidy) of the king of France, a fatal example
is held out to all subjects, tending to show what little support, or
even countenance, they are to expect from those for whom their principle
of fidelity may induce them to risk life and fortune. The Emperor's
advisers would not for the world rescind one of the acts of this or of
the late French