French Revolution the ruin of a state hitherto inimical to them, and
rejoiced at the event. The prospect of an easy conquest of the
distracted country, however, ere long led to the resolution on their
part of actively interfering with its affairs. Austria was insulted in
the person of the French queen, and, as head of the empire, was bound
to protect the rights of the petty Rhenish princes and nobility, who
possessed property and ecclesiastical or feudal rights[1] on French
territory, and had been injured by the new constitution. Prussia,
habituated to despotism, came forward as its champion in the hope of
gaining new laurels for her unemployed army. A conference took place
at Pilnitz in Saxony, A.D. 1791, between Emperor Leopold and King
Frederick William, at which the Count D'Artois, the youngest brother
of Louis XVI., was present, and a league was formed against the
Revolution. The old ministers strongly opposed it. In Prussia,
Herzberg drew upon himself the displeasure of his sovereign by
zealously advising a union with France against Austria. In Austria,
Kaunitz recommended peace, and said that were he allowed to act he
would defeat the impetuous French by his "patience;" that, instead of
attacking France, he would calmly watch the event and allow her, like
a volcano, to bring destruction upon herself. Ferdinand of Brunswick,
field-marshal of Prussia, was equally opposed to war. His fame as the
greatest general of his time had been too easily gained, more by his
manoeuvres than by his victories, not to induce a fear on his side of
being as easily deprived of it in a fresh war; but the proposal of the
revolutionary party in France--within whose minds the memory of
Rossbach was still fresh--mistrustful of French skill, to nominate him
generalissimo of the troops of the republic, conspired with the
incessant entreaties of the emigrants to reanimate his courage; and he
finally declared that, followed by the famous troops of the great
Frederick, he would put a speedy termination to the French Revolution.