Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

Death of Leopold, 1st March 1792.

In the position he had taken up the Emperor Leopold was generally supported. The Princes of the Empire, as was represented in their conclusum passed at the Diet, not only resented the interference of France with historic rights in Alsace and her dictation as to whom they should shelter, but were beginning to fear the contagion of the revolutionary conceptions of the rights of man and political liberty. Throughout the Rhine provinces the peasants had risen in partial rebellion against their lords; in all the great cities of western Germany the more enlightened bourgeois protested against their exclusion from political influence. This contagion, however, did not spread far in these early days. The Empress Catherine, the King of Prussia, and the King of Sweden, who chiefly urged Leopold to make a brave stand against the Legislative Assembly, were urged by other motives. Catherine wished to see Austria and Prussia embroiled with France so as to have her hands free to deal with the Poles, who seemed likely with their new Constitution to ward off destruction. Frederick William II. was disgusted by the disrespect shown to the principle of monarchy by the Parisians’ treatment of Louis XVI. Gustavus III. had imbibed a knightly admiration for Marie Antoinette, and felt a personal desire to relieve her from her position of humiliation. Each monarch showed his inclination characteristically. Catherine received some French émigrés, who found their way to her distant court, with kindness, and dismissed the French ambassador; Gustavus hurried to Spa to consult with the French émigrés, and proposed an immediate expedition to carry off the French court; Frederick William signed an offensive and defensive alliance with the Emperor on 2d February 1792, which saved him the trouble of personal decision, and left to the Emperor the harassing business of arranging the details of the war and of so carrying out the necessary diplomatic negotiations which preceded an open rupture, that the interference of the powers should seem justified. In the midst of his preparations the Emperor Leopold died suddenly on 1st March 1792, the very day on which his last manifesto was read to the Legislative Assembly. His death was an irreparable blow for Austria, for Germany, for France, and for Europe. In his short reign he had shown himself to be a monarch of extraordinary ability, possessing alike singular tact and great force of character. He was succeeded in the hereditary dominions of the House of Hapsburg by his eldest son Francis II., an inexperienced youth, quite unfitted to continue Leopold’s policy in the troublous times approaching.

Murder of Gustavus III. 29th March 1792.

Europe had hardly recovered from the shock of the Emperor’s sudden death, when it was startled by the news of the murder of Gustavus III. of Sweden, who was shot on his way from a masked ball at Stockholm by an officer named Ankarström, on 16th March 1792. He lingered till 29th March, when he died, and was succeeded on the throne of Sweden by his infant son, Gustavus IV. Duke Charles of Sudermania was appointed Regent. He at once reversed the policy of the late king; he felt none of the sympathy so warmly expressed by Gustavus III. for Marie Antoinette, and he distrusted the close alliance which had been entered into with Russia after the Treaty of Verela. His first measure was to place Sweden in a position of absolute neutrality, from which she never swerved during his tenure of power.

Policy of Dumouriez.

War declared by France against Austria. 20th April 1792.

Of the ministers who came into office in France in March 1792 through the influence of the Girondins in the Legislative Assembly, the most notable were Roland and Dumouriez. The former was a sincere republican, who was induced by his wife to take up an offensive attitude to the King, the latter an experienced soldier and diplomatist, who was well fitted for the ministry of foreign affairs. Dumouriez at once accepted war with Austria as inevitable, and directed all his efforts to isolate her. He was a sworn enemy of the Austrian alliance, entered into by the Treaty of 1756, and cemented by the marriage of Marie Antoinette, and his first step was to endeavour to detach Prussia. He was sanguine enough to believe in the possibility of doing this, but he did not understand the character of Frederick William II. It was difficult to induce that monarch to make up his mind, but when he did make it up he was obstinate. The French party at his Court, headed by his uncle Prince Henry, and in his ministry, represented by Haugwitz, was very strong; but, on the other hand, he had been convinced by Leopold that the cause of Louis XVI. was the cause of monarchy, and the German party at Berlin hinted that if he allowed Austria to pose as the defender of the rights of the Empire by herself, the policy of Frederick the Great to make Prussia the leader of Germany would be undone. Frederick William II., therefore, listened coldly to the overtures of Dumouriez, and made preparations to support his ally in the field. On 20th April 1792 the Legislative Assembly assented almost unanimously to the King’s proposition, as read by Dumouriez, to declare war against the King of Hungary and Bohemia, as Francis II. was at this time styled, and the great war, which was to rage with but slight intermissions for twenty-three years, began.

Invasion of the Tuileries. 20th June 1792.

The commencement of the first campaign of 1792 proved how thoroughly the French army had been disorganised and demoralised by the policy of the Constituent Assembly and the general course of the Revolution. An attempt was made to invade the Austrian Netherlands or Belgium on four lines; but one column was seized with panic and rushed back to Lille, murdering its general, Theobald Dillon. The other commanders found their soldiers filled with a spirit of distrust for their officers and hardly amenable to discipline, and it soon became obvious that France would have to stand on the defensive. This news profoundly moved the people of France and especially of Paris. The word treachery was freely used in connection with the Court, and it was asserted that the plan of campaign had been revealed to the Austrians by the Queen. This was true; Marie Antoinette had always looked to Austrian help to rescue her from her position, and Louis XVI. had now entirely come round to her view. At this juncture he dismissed his Girondin ministers on their insisting upon his signing a decree, which had been passed by the Assembly ordering the deportation of priests who had not taken the oath, and even accepted the resignation of the ablest of them, Dumouriez, who had offered to form a new ministry. The populace of Paris was intensely excited by the failure of the attack on Belgium, the concentration of the Prussian army on the frontier, and the dismissal of the popular ministers, and a body of petitioners, after filing through the hall of the Assembly, burst into the Tuileries and for some hours filled the palace, insulting the King and Queen and forcing the former to put on a red cap of liberty. The invasion of the Tuileries marked the final breach between the King and the people. Louis XVI. longed more ardently than ever for the arrival of the allied monarchs; and the Jacobin leaders, who perceived the impossibility that France should be successful in war with an unwilling king at her head, began to plot for his overthrow. His last chance was lost, when he rejected the proffered assistance of Lafayette, who returned from his army without leave and offered to bring the National Guard of Paris to his help.

Francis II. Emperor. 14th July 1792.