In Austria, one Hebenstreit formed a conspiracy, which brought him to the gallows, A.D. 1793. That formed by Martinowits, for the establishment of the sovereignty of the people in Hungary and for the expulsion of the magnates, was of a more dangerous character. Martinowits was beheaded, A.D. 1793, with four of his associates.[17] These attempts so greatly excited the apprehensions of the government that the reaction, already begun on the death of Joseph II., was brought at once to a climax; Thugut, the minister, established an extremely active secret police and a system of surveillance, which spread terror throughout Austria and was utterly uncalled for, no one, with the exception of a few crack-brained individuals, being in the slightest degree infected with the revolutionary mania.[18]
It may be recorded as a matter of curiosity that, during the bloodstained year of 1793, the petty prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt held, as though in the most undisturbed time of peace, a magnificent tournament, and the fetes customary on such an occasion.
[Footnote 1: Oberlin, the celebrated philologist, an ornament to German learning, a professor at Strasburg, rescued, at the risk of his life, a great portion of the ancient city archives, which had been thrown out of the windows, by re-collecting the documents with the aid of the students. On account of this sample of old German pedantry he pined, until 1793, in durance vile at Metz, and narrowly escaped being guillotined.]
[Footnote 2: At Bonn he had the impudence to say to the elector, "I cannot pay you a higher compliment than by asserting you to be no Catholic."—Van Alpen, History of Rhenish Franconia.]
[Footnote 3: He mulcted the brewers to the amount of 255,000 livres, "on account of their well-known avarice," the bakers and millers to that of 314,000, a publican to that of 40,000, a baker to that of 30,000, "because he was an enemy of mankind," etc.—Vide Friese's History of Strasburg.]
[Footnote 4: It was asserted that the Jacobins had formed a plan to depopulate the whole of Alsace, and to partition the country among the bravest soldiers belonging to the republican armies.]
[Footnote 5: John Müller played a remarkable part. This thoroughly deceptive person had, by his commendation of the ancient Swiss in his affectedly written History of Switzerland, gained the favor of the friends of liberty, and, at the same time, that of the nobility by his encomium on the degenerate Swiss aristocracy. While with sentimental phrases and fine words he pretended to be one of the noblest of mankind, he was addicted to the lowest and most monstrous vices. His immorality brought him into trouble in Switzerland, and the man, who had been, apparently, solely inspired with the love of republican liberty, now paid court, for the sake of gain, to foreign princes; the adulation that had succeeded so well with all the lordlings of Switzerland was poured into the ears of all the potentates of Europe. He even rose to great favor at Rome by his flattery of the pope in a work entitled "The Travels of the Popes." He published the most virulent sophisms against the beneficial reforms of the emperor Joseph, and cried up the League, for which he was well paid. He contrived, at the same time, to creep into favor with the Illuminati. He was employed by the elector of Mayence to carry on negotiations with Dumouriez, got into office under the French republic, and afterward revisited Mayence for the express purpose of calling upon the citizens, at that time highly dissatisfied with the conduct of the French, to unite themselves with France. Vide Forster's Correspondence. Dumouriez shortly afterward went over to the Austrians, and Müller suddenly appeared at Vienna, adorned with a title and in the character of an Aulic councillor.]
[Footnote 6: While in his proclamations he swore by all that was sacred (what was so to a Frenchman?) to respect the property of the citizens and that France coveted no extension of territory.]
[Footnote 7: Forster was so blinded at that time by his enthusiasm that he wrote, "all of those among us who refuse the citizenship of France are to be expelled the city, even if complete depopulation should be the result." He relates: "I summoned, at Grunstadt, the Counts von Leiningen to acknowledge themselves citizens of France. They protested against it, caballed, instigated the citizens peasantry to revolt; one of my soldiers was attacked and wounded. I demanded a reinforcement, took possession of both the castles, and placed the counts under guard. To-day I sent them with an escort to Landau. This has been a disagreeable duty, but we must reduce every opponent of the good cause to obedience.">[
[Footnote 8: Where the weak garrison left by the French was disarmed by the workmen.]