The manner in which Custine levied contributions in Frankfort on the
Maine,[6] was still less calculated to render the French popular in
Germany. Cowardly as this general was, he, nevertheless, told the
citizens of Frankfort a truth that time has, up to the present period,
confirmed. "You have beheld the coronation of the emperor of Germany?
Well! you will not see another."

Two Germans, natives of Colmar in Alsace, Rewbel and Hausmann, and a
Frenchman, Merlin, all three members of the national convention, came
to Mayence for the purpose of conducting the defence of that city.
They burned symbolically all the crowns, mitres, and escutcheons of
the German empire, but were unable to induce the citizens of Mayence
to declare in favor of the republic. Rewbel, infuriated at their
opposition, exclaimed that he would level the city to the ground, that
he should deem himself dishonored were he to waste another word on
such slaves. A number of refractory persons were expelled from the
city,[7] and, on the 17th of March, 1793, although three hundred and
seventy of the citizens alone voted in its favor, a Teuto-Rhenish
national convention, under the presidency of Hoffmann, was opened at
Mayence and instantly declared in favor of the union of the new
republic with France. Forster, in other respects a man of great
elevation of mind, forgetful, in his enthusiasm, of all national
pride, personally carried to Paris the scandalous documents in which
the French were humbly entreated to accept of a province of the German
empire. The Prussians, who had remained in Luxemburg (without aiding
the Austrians), meanwhile advanced to the Rhine, took Coblentz, which
Custine had neglected to garrison (a neglect for which he afterward
lost his head), repulsed a French force under Bournonville, when on
the point of forming a junction with Custine, at Treves, expelled