futility of
all such efforts to hold down on the throne the father of his people
lest he should again run away. In this perception the young Republican
party found its genesis and its inspiration. In truth, the attempted
flight of the King was a death-blow to the moderate party, into which
the lamented leader, Mirabeau, had sought to infuse some of his
masterful energy. Thenceforth, the future belonged either to the
Jacobins or to the out and out royalists.

These last saw the horizon brighten in the East. Louis XVI being under
constraint in Paris, their leaders were the French Princes, the Comte de
Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII) and the Comte d'Artois (Charles X).
Around them at Coblentz there clustered angry swarms of French nobles,
gentlemen, and orthodox priests, whose zeal was reckoned by the
earliness of the date at which they had "emigrated." For many months the
agents of these _emigres_ had vainly urged the Chanceries of the
Continent to a royalist crusade against the French rebels; and it seemed
appropriate that Gustavus III of Sweden should be their only convert.
Now of a sudden their demands appeared, instinct with statecraft; and
courtiers everywhere exclaimed that "the French pest" must be stamped
out. In that thought lay in germ a quarter of a century of war.

Already the Prussian and Austrian Governments had vaguely discussed the
need of a joint intervention in France. In fact this subject formed one
of the pretexts for the missions of the Prussian envoy, Bischoffswerder,
to the Emperor Leopold in February and June 1791.[2] As was shown at the
close of the former volume, "William Pitt and National Revival," neither
Court took the matter seriously, the Eastern Question being then their
chief concern. But the flight to Varennes, which Leopold had helped to
arrange, imposed on him the duty of avenging the ensuing insults to his
sister. He prepared to do so with a degree of caution highly
characteristic of him. He refused to move until he knew the disposition
of the Powers, especially of England. From Padua, where the news of the
capture of Louis at Varennes reached him, he wrote an autograph letter
to George III, dated 6th July, urging him to join in a general demand
for the liberation of the King and Queen of France. He also invited the
monarchs of Europe to launch a Declaration, that they regarded the cause
of Louis as their own, and in the last resort to put down a usurpation
of power which it behoved