Seven Years' War, had assisted at the partition of Poland without opposing
it, had raised no obstacle to the fall of the Ottoman empire, and even
allowed its ally, the republican party in Holland, to sink under the blows
of Prussia and England, without assisting it. The latter powers had in
1787 re-established by force the hereditary, stadtholderate of the United
Provinces. The only act which did honour to French policy, was the support
it had happily given to the emancipation of North America. The revolution
of 1789, while extending the moral influence of France, diminished still
more its diplomatic influence.

England, under the government of young Pitt, was alarmed in 1788 at the
ambitious projects of Russia, and united with Holland and Prussia to put
an end to them. Hostilities were on the point of commencing when the
emperor Joseph died, in February, 1790, and was succeeded by Leopold, who
in July accepted the convention of Reichenbach. This convention, by the
mediation of England, Russia, and Holland, settled the terms of the peace
between Austria and Turkey, which was signed definitively, on the 4th of
August, 1791, at Sistova; it at the same time provided for the
pacification of the Netherlands. Urged by England and Prussia, Catharine
II. also made peace with the Porte at Jassy, on the 29th of December,
1791. These negotiations, and the treaties they gave rise to, terminated
the political struggles of the eighteenth century, and left the powers
free to turn their attention to the French Revolution.

The princes of Europe, who had hitherto had no enemies but themselves,
viewed it in the light of a common foe. The ancient relations of war and
of alliance, already overlooked during the Seven Years' War, now ceased
entirely: Sweden united with Russia, and Prussia with Austria. There was
nothing now but the kings on one side, and people on the other, waiting
for the auxiliaries which its example, or the faults of princes might give