the Revolution, now joined the cause of the king, believing a constitutional monarchy, and not a republic, to be the best form of government for France. He now exerted himself to his utmost to prevent any encroachment on the authority of the king; but, unfortunately for Louis XVI., Mirabeau died in April, 1791; and the timid and irresolute king was no longer able to resist the increasing influence of the Jacobins. A short time before his death, Mirabeau said: "Before long neither the king nor the National Assembly will rule, but a vile faction will overspread the land with its horrors." Mirabeau had been a man of conservative views and loose principles and of most licentious and corrupt morals, having squandered his fortune by his dissipation and profligacy. The refusal of the king to declare the Emigrants traitors led to a prevalent belief among the French people that he was not a true supporter of the constitution then framing. This belief excited the fears of the king, and he resolved upon leaving the country. Leaving behind him a letter in which he protested against all the measures which had been forced from him since October, 1789, he fled with his family from Paris in a large carriage, in June, 1791; but did not succeed in escaping from the kingdom. Imprudently putting his head out of the window of the carriage, Louis was recognized by Drouet, the postmaster of St. Menehould, who immediately rode off to Varennes to give the alarm. When the royal family arrived at Varennes the road was barricaded, and the carriage was soon surrounded by a tumultuous mob. At this moment a party of soldiers rode up to the carriage and asked Louis if they should force a passage for him through the crowd. The king asked if it would cost many lives, and, being told that it probably would, he forbade the attempt and surrendered himself a prisoner. The royal family were conducted in triumph to Paris by an insolent mob and again compelled to resume their residence in the palace of the Tuileries. The Count de Mira beau's Defection and Death. Attempted Escape of the Royal Family. of the New tion. The National Assembly, in obedience to the demands of the French Adoption people, temporarily suspended the royal authority until the king should swear to the new constitution, which was now almost completed. ConstituOn the 14th of September, 1791, Louis XVI. took an oath to defend the constitution against internal and external enemies and to enforce its provisions to the best of his ability. After the adoption of the constitution, the National Assembly passed an ordinance declaring that none of its members should be elected to the next Assembly, and then declared itself dissolved. This self-denying ordinance was a very unwise proceeding, as the members of the National Assembly were generally men of more than average ability, while the members of the next Assembly were less able men. Parities in the New tive Assembly. SECTION III.-FRENCH LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY AND THE elections for representatives in the new Assembly, called the Legislative Assembly, had resulted in a complete success of the reLegisla publicans. The royalists had exercised no influence in the elections whatever. The Assembly was thoroughly democratic. The French Legislative Assembly-which convened at Paris, October 1, 1791was divided between three parties. The Feuillants, or Constitutionalists, then an insignificant party, upheld the constitution and the Girond- monarchy. The moderate republicans-called Girondists, or Gironand the dins, because their leading orators were from Bordeaux and the DeMountain. partment of the Gironde comprised the best men in the Assembly, ists The Assembly's King. such as Brissot, Roland, Barbaroux, Condorcet, Vergniaud, Dumouriez and others. This party was opposed to unnecessary bloodshed and in favor of a federal republic like the United States. The violent republicans, or Jacobins-called the Mountain, or Montagnards, because they occupied the highest seats in the Assembly-were controlled by the Jacobin and Cordeliers clubs, whose chiefs were Robespierre, Marat, Danton, Camille Desmoulins, St. Just, Couthon, Duke Philip of Orleans and others. These Red Republicans, or blood-thirsty Revolutionists, were anarchists, and were upheld by the Paris Commune and the Paris mob. The first measures of the French Legislative Assembly were directed Measures against the priests who refused to take the Revolutionary oath, and Vetoed against the Emigrants, who had gathered at Coblentz and were makby the ing every effort to stir up foreign powers to make war on France for the purpose of effecting the restoration of the former despotism. The Assembly took measures for the arrest of the unsworn priests, and declared the Emigrants to be traitors and conspirators and endeavored to effect the confiscation of their estates. These measures were vetoed by the king, and their execution was thus prevented. This excited the indignation of the French people, who believed that the royal family were plotting with the Emigrants and with Leopold II. of Austria, Emperor of Germany, the brother of the queen, for the overthrow of the new system and for the reëstablishment of the old state of things in France. Edmund Stand From the beginning of the Revolution the crowned heads of Europe Burke's had looked with alarm upon the rising tide of republicanism in France; against and Edmund Burke, the great Irish-English statesman, had done all in the his power to excite a European crusade against this mighty disturb Revolu tion. ance of the social and political institutions which Europe had re ceived from mediæval and feudal times. As the British Parliament and the Ministry of the younger William Pitt were deaf to his appeals, he appealed to England and to Europe through his pen by publishing his Reflections on the French Revolution in October, 1790, as already noticed. We have also seen that he sent his son to join the army of the Emigrants at Coblentz, and that he wrote to them: "Be alarmists; diffuse terror." It was now evident that a foreign war must soon break out. The Emperor Leopold II. of Germany and such Bourbon kings as Charles IV. of Spain and Ferdinand IV. of Naples were moved by ties of kindred to protect the royal family of France. The Empress Catharine the Great of Russia hastened to end her second war with Turkey in order to further her designs against Poland by embroiling Austria and Prussia in the rescue of the French monarchy from the menacing hands of the Revolutionists of Paris. The divided jurisdiction of the border provinces between France and Germany demanded immediate action on the part of the Emperor Leopold II. and the German Imperial Diet. By the famous Act of August 4, 1789, several German princes had been deprived of their feudal claims in Franche-Comté, Alsace and Lorraine; while the Archbishop-Electors of Treves and Mayence had lost their spiritual rights over the cities of Spires, Strassbourg, Metz, Toul and Verdun. Austria and The Emperor Leopold II. of Germany and King Frederick William Action of II. of Prussia, after their conference at Pilnitz, in Saxony, in August, 1791, united in a demand that the French should indemnify the German Prussia. princes and nobles who had suffered losses by the abolition of tithes and feudal dues in France; restore to the Pope the province of Avignon, which they had wrested from him, and reform their government upon the plan proposed by their king in June, 1789, and appealed to the other European powers to join them in an effort to reestablish Louis XVI. in his former authority. Accordingly Austria, Prussia, Spain and Sardinia assembled troops to suppress the Revolution in France; but Great Britain hesitated, as the peaceful Mr. Pitt was unwilling to interfere in the internal affairs of France until he was forced to do so as an act of self-defense, and he was supported by the Tories, while the Whigs followed Mr. Fox in his applause of the French Revolution, so that Mr. Burke was left alone in his anti-Revolutionary sentiment. Great Britain's tion. The Forces. The Count of Provence, a brother of King Louis XVI., having fled from France, assumed the command of the Emigrant forces at Cob- Emigrant lentz, where he established a little court, which became the headquarters of these refugee French nobles. The movements of the Coalition were delayed by the death of the Emperor Leopold II. of Germany and the Deaths of Sover eigns. French assassination of King Gustavus III. of Sweden, both of which occurred in March, 1792. The French people were exasperated that foreign powers should dictate to them what form of government they should have, and they resolved never to submit to such insolence. The ablest men of the LegisGirondist lative Assembly-which was inferior in talent to the National Assembly-were in the Girondist party, which gained the ascendency upon the first hostile movement of Austria and Prussia. Ascend ency. War against Austria The preparations of Austria and Prussia to interfere in the affairs of France, and Austria's ultimatum demanding the restoration of the former despotism in France, caused the French Legislative Assembly to Prussia. declare war, April 20, 1792. King Louis XVI., unable to resist the and will of the Assembly and the people of France, accepted a Girondist Ministry headed by Roland, and with tears yielded his assent to the Roland's declaration of war against the sovereign who had armed in his behalf— Girondist his own nephew, Francis II. of Austria, who had succeeded his father Leopold II. as King of Hungary and Bohemia, and who was afterward also elected Emperor of Germany. Ministry. Three French Armies. Lafay ette's Efforts Girond ists and The confiscations of ecclesiastical and royal property had filled the treasury of the Assembly; and three French armies-commanded respectively by Lafayette, Rochambeau and Luckner-were sent to guard the northern and eastern frontiers of France. Rochambeau's army, forty-eight thousand strong, held the line from Dunkirk to Philippeville; Lafayette's force, numbering fifty-two thousand men, occupied the line from Philippeville to Lauterbourg; and Luckner's forty-two thousand troops were stationed in the district between Lauterbourg and Basle. The French military operations were unsuccessful, and two strong French detachments were routed by the Austrians near Lille and Valenciennes. The Girondists were now obliged to make additional bids for the support of the mob by decreeing the banishment of the priests who to Check refused to take the Revolutionary oath, the dismissal of the royal guards and the formation of a "federal army" to be encamped near Jacobins. Paris. Lafayette, who was disgusted and alarmed by these movements, wrote to the Legislative Assembly from his camp on the northern frontier, demanding the suppression of the Jacobin faction and its clubs; but his efforts only hastened the catastrophe which he sought to prevent. The Federates and Fall of the Girondist Ministry. To secure the Legislative Assembly against any attack, it was determined to call twenty thousand of the federates from the northern provinces of France to Paris, with the professed object of celebrating the capture of the Bastile and to entrust the defense of Paris to them. But Louis XVI. refused his approval of this measure; whereupon the |