Already Pitt had seen Talleyrand. He reminded him in a friendly way of their meeting at Rheims, remarked on the unofficial character of the ex-bishop's "mission," but expressed his willingness to discuss French affairs, about which he even showed "curiosity." Grenville afterwards spoke to the envoy in the same courteous but non-committal manner. Talleyrand was, however, charmed. He wrote to Delessart, the Foreign Minister at Paris: "Your best ground is England; ... Believe me the rumours current in France about the disposition of England towards us are false."[62] He urged the need of showing a bold front; for "it is with a fleet that you must speak to England."
Talleyrand throughout showed the sagacity which earned him fame in diplomacy. He was not depressed by the King's frigid reception of him at St. James's on 1st February, or by the Queen refusing even to notice him. Even the escapades of Biron did not dash his hopes. That envoy ran up debts and bargained about horses avec un nommé Tattersall, qui tient dans sa main tous les chevaux d'Angleterre, until he was arrested for debt and immured in a "sponging house," whence the appeals of the ex-bishop failed to rescue him. As Biron had come with an official order to buy horses with a view to the impending war with Austria, we may infer that his arrest was the work of some keen-witted émigré.
Even this, however, was better than the fortunes of Ségur, who found himself openly flouted both by King and courtiers at Berlin. For Frederick William was still bent on a vigorous policy. On 7th February his Ministers signed with Prince Reuss, the Austrian envoy, a secret treaty of defensive alliance, mainly for the settlement of French affairs, but also with a side glance at Poland. The Prussian Ministers probably hoped for a peaceful but profitable settlement, which would leave them free for a decisive intervention in the Polish troubles now coming to a crisis; but Frederick William was in a more warlike mood, and longed to overthrow the "rebels" in France. Ségur's mission to Berlin was therefore an utter failure. That of Talleyrand, on the other hand, achieved its purpose, mainly because Pitt and Grenville never had any other desire than to remain strictly neutral. It was therefore superfluous for Talleyrand to hint delicately at the desirability of the friendship of France for England, in view of the war with Tippoo Sahib in India, and the increasing ferment in Ireland.[63]
On 1st March Grenville again assured him of the earnest desire of the British Government to see the end of the troubles in France, and declared that Pitt and he had been deeply wounded by the oft-repeated insinuations that they had sought to foment them. All such charges were absurd; for "a commercial people stands only to gain by the freedom of all those who surround it." We may reasonably conclude that these were the words of Pitt; for they recall that noble passage of the "Wealth of Nations": "A nation that would enrich itself by trade is certainly most likely to do so when its neighbours are all rich, industrious, and commercial nations."[64] For the rest, Grenville defied the calumniators of England to adduce a single proof in support of their slanders, and requested Talleyrand to remain some time in England for the purpose of observing public opinion. He warned him, however, that the Cabinet could not give an answer to his main proposal.
More than this Talleyrand could scarcely expect. He had already divined the important secret that the Cabinet was divided on this subject, the King, Thurlow, and Camden being hostile to France, while Pitt, Grenville, and Dundas were friendly. When Talleyrand ventured to ascribe those sentiments to Pitt and Grenville, the latter did not deny it, and he at once echoed the desire expressed by the envoy for the conclusion of an Anglo-French alliance. That the greater part of the British people would have welcomed such a compact admits of no doubt. On the walls were often chalked the words: "No war with the French." Talleyrand advised the Foreign Minister, Delessart, to send immediately to London a fully accredited ambassador; for the talk often was: "We have an ambassador at Paris. Why have not you one here?" Nevertheless, a despatch of Grenville to Gower, on 9th March, shows that Pitt and he keenly felt the need of caution. They therefore enjoined complete silence on Gower. In truth, Grenville's expressions, quoted above, were merely the outcome of the good will which he and Pitt felt towards France. But these words from the two powerful Ministers meant safety for France on her coasts, whatever might betide her on the Meuse and the Rhine.
On the day when Grenville spoke these words of peace, two events occurred which portended war. Leopold II died; and an irritating despatch, which he and Kaunitz had recently sent to Paris, was read out to the Legislative Assembly. Thereafter a rupture was inevitable. Francis II, who now ascended the throne of his father, was a shy, proud, delicate youth of twenty-four years, having only a superficial knowledge of public affairs, scarcely known to the Ministers, and endowed with a narrow pedantic nature which was to be the bane of his people. He lacked alike the sagacity, the foresight, and the suppleness of Leopold. Further, though his inexperience should have inspired him with a dread of war for his storm-tossed States, yet that same misfortune subjected him to the advice of the veteran Chancellor, Kaunitz. That crabbed old man advised the maintenance of a stiff attitude towards France; and this, in her present temper, entailed war.
The last despatch from Vienna to Paris contained strongly worded advice to the French Government and Assembly to adopt a less provocative attitude, to withdraw its troops from the northern frontier, and, above all, to rid itself of the factious minority which controlled its counsels. If Leopold had hoped to intimidate France or to strengthen the peace-party at Paris, he made the greatest mistake of his reign. The war party at once gained the ascendancy, decreed the arrest of Delessart for his tame reply to Vienna, and broke up the constitutional Ministry. Their successors were mainly Girondins. The most noteworthy are Roland, who took the Home Office; Clavière, Finance; and Dumouriez, Foreign Affairs. The last was a man of great energy and resource. A soldier by training, and with a dash of the adventurer in his nature, he now leapt to the front, and astonished France by his zeal and activity. He was not devoid of prudence; for, as appears from Gower's despatch of 30th March, he persuaded the Assembly to postpone action until an answer arrived to his last despatch to Vienna. Gower found from conversation with Dumouriez that a rupture must ensue if a satisfactory reply did not arrive by 15th April.[65] Four days later, as no answer came, the Council of Ministers decided on war; and on the next day Louis formally proposed it to the Assembly, which assented with acclamation.
Secondary causes helped on the rupture. Frederick William encouraged the young Emperor to draw the sword, and led him to expect Alsace and Lorraine as his share of the spoil, the duchies of Jülich and Berg falling to Prussia. Catharine also fanned the crusading zeal at Berlin and Vienna in the hope of having "more elbow-room," obviously in Poland.[66] Further, the news from Madrid and Stockholm indisposed the French Assembly to endure any dictation from Vienna. At the end of February Floridablanca fell from power at Madrid, and his successor, Aranda, showed a peaceful front. And, on 16th March Gustavus of Sweden was assassinated by Anckarström, a tool of the revengeful nobles. This loss was severely felt. The royalist crusade now had no Tancred, only an uninspiring Duke of Brunswick.
Though France took the final step of declaring war, it is now known that Austria had done much to provoke it and nothing to prevent it. The young Emperor refused to withdraw a word of the provocative despatch; and in his letter to Thugut at Brussels, he declared he was weary of the state of things in France and had decided to act and put an end to it; "that he should march his troops at once, and the French must be amused for two months until the troops arrived; then, whether the French attacked him or not, he should attack them."[67] Keith also wrote from Vienna to Grenville on 2nd May, that the French declaration of war had come in the nick of time to furnish the Hapsburgs with the opportunity of throwing the odium of the war upon France.[68] Other proofs might be cited; and it seems certain that, if France had not thrown down the gauntlet, both the German Powers would have attacked her in the early summer of 1792. Pitt and Grenville, looking on at these conflicting schemes, formed the perfectly correct surmise that both sides were bent on war, and that little or nothing could be done to avert it.