On the first of March, the Emperor Leopold died in the midst of his Italian harem, slain by self-compounded aphrodisiacs. The queen, who had read in some lampoon that a penny pie would settle the monarchy, and who had called Dr. Gilbert in to get an antidote, cried aloud that her brother was poisoned. With him passed all the halting policy of Austria.
Francis II., who mounted the throne, was of mixed Italian and German blood. An Austrian born at Florence, he was weak, violent, and tricky. The priests reckoned him an honest man; his hard and bigoted soul hid its duplicity under a rosy face of dreadful sameness. He walked like a stage ghost; he gave his daughter to a conqueror rather than part with his estate, and then stabbed him in the back at his first retreating step in the snows. Francis II. remains in history the tyrant of the Leads of Venice and the Spitzberg dungeons, and the torturer of Andryane and Silvio Pellico.
This was the protector of the French fugitives, the ally of Prussia and the enemy of France. He held Embassador Noailles as a prisoner at Vienna.
The French embassador to Berlin, Segur, was preceded by a rumor that he expected to gain the secrets of the King of Prussia by making love to his mistresses—this King of Prussia was a lady-killer! Segur presented himself at the same time as the envoy from the self-exiled princes at Coblentz.
The king turned his back on the French representative, and asked pointedly after the health of the Prince of Artois.
These were the two ostensible foes; the hidden ones were Spain, Russia, and England. The chief of the coalition was to be the King of Sweden, that dwarf in giant's armor whom Catherine II. held up in her hand.
With the ascension of Francis, the diplomatic note came: Austria was to rule in France, Avignon was to be restored to the pope, and things in France were to go back to where they stood in June, 1789.
This note evidently agreed with the secret wishes of the king and the queen. Dumouriez laughed at it. But he took it to the king.
As much as Marie Antoinette, the woman for extreme measures, desired a war which she believed one of deliverance for her, the king feared it, as the man for the medium, slowness, wavering, and crooked policy. Indeed, suppose a victory in the war, he would be at the mercy of the victorious general; suppose a defeat, and the people would hold him responsible, cry treason, and rush on the palace!
In short, should the enemy penetrate to Paris, what would it bring? The king's brother, Count Provence, who aimed to be regent of the realm. The result of the return of the runaway princes would be the king deposed, Marie Antoinette pronounced an adulteress, and the royal children proclaimed, perhaps, illegitimate.