so there is not one word to prove the charge principally relied upon,
that of an intention to effect the dismemberment of France, or to
impose upon it by force any particular constitution. I say that,
as far as we have been able to trace what passed at Pilnitz, the
declaration there signed referred to the imprisonment of Louis XVI;
its immediate view was to effect his deliverance, if a concert
sufficiently extensive could be formed with other sovereigns for that
purpose. It left the internal state of France to be decided by the
King restored to his liberty, with the free consent of the states
of his kingdom, and it did not contain one word relative to the
dismemberment of France.

In the subsequent discussions, which took place in 1792, and which
embraced at the same time all the other points of jealousy which had
arisen between the two countries, the declaration of Pilnitz was
referred to, and explained on the part of Austria in a manner
precisely conformable to what I have now stated; and the amicable
explanations which took place, both on this subject and on all the
matters in dispute, will be found in the official correspondence
between the two Courts, which has been made public; and it will
be found, also, that, as long as the negotiation continued to be
conducted through M. Delessart, the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
there was a great prospect that those discussions would be amicably
terminated; but it is notorious, and has since been clearly proved,
on the authority of Brissot himself, that the violent party in France
considered such an issue of the negotiation as likely to be fatal
to their projects, and thought, to use his own words, that 'war was
necessary to consolidate the revolution'. For the express purpose
of producing the war, they excited a popular tumult in Paris; they
insisted upon and obtained the dismissal of M. Delessart. A new