of
escaping from Paris. Chauvelin speedily quarrelled with him. But the
doings of the French embassy concern us little for the present, as Pitt
and Grenville paid no attention to the offers, similar to those made in
April, which Lebrun charged his envoys to make for an Anglo-French
alliance. It is not surprising, after the September massacres, that
Ministers should hold sternly aloof from the French envoys; but we may
note that Miles considered their attitude most unwise. He further
remarked that the proud reserve of Grenville was almost offensive.[87]
We made the acquaintance of Miles as British agent at Paris in 1790 and
noted his consequential airs. In 1792 they were full blown.

The opinions of George III and Pitt on the events of that bloody
harvest-time in Paris are very little known. The King's letters from
Weymouth to Pitt in August-September are few and brief. On 16th
September, after the arrival of news of the massacres, he writes to say
that his decision respecting the Prince of Wales's debts is irrevocable.
After that there is a long silence. Pitt's reserve is equally
impenetrable. We know, however, from the letters of Burke that the
conduct of Ministers deeply disappointed him. Writing to Grenville on
19th September he says that the crisis exceeds in gravity any that is
recorded in history; and he adds these curious words: "I know it is the
opinion of His Majesty's Ministers that the new [French] principles may
be encouraged, and even triumph over every interior and exterior
resistance, and may even overturn other States as they have that of
France, without any sort of danger of their extending in their
consequences to this Kingdom."[88] Can we have a clearer testimony to
the calm but rigid resolve with which Pitt and his colleague clung to
neutrality? On the following day (the day of the Battle of Valmy) Pitt
frigidly declined the request of the Austrian and Neapolitan
ambassadors, that the British Government would exclude from its
territories all those who should be guilty of an attack on the French
royal family. On 21st September Grenville issued a guarded statement on
this subject to the _corps diplomatique_; but it was far from meeting
the desires of the royalists.[89]

Reticence is a virtue over-developed in an aristocracy--"that austere
domination," as Burke terms it. The virtue is slow in taking root among
democracies. The early Radical clubs of Great Britain regarded it as
their cherished privile