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.
We must now trace the policy of Pitt somewhat closely. The question at issue is, whether he favoured the royalist or the democratic cause, and was responsible for the ensuing friction between England and France, which culminated in the long and disastrous strifes of 1793–1801.
Dumouriez, as we have seen, threw down the gauntlet to Austria in the hope of securing the neutrality of Prussia and the friendship of England. Accordingly he decided to send Talleyrand on a second mission to London. That skilful diplomat had recently returned to Paris; and the Foreign Minister drew up, perhaps in concert with him, a Memoir entitled "Reflections on a Negotiation with England in case of War," which provided the text for Talleyrand's discourse to Pitt and Grenville. The gist of it is that Talleyrand must convince the British Government of the need of a French attack on the Belgic provinces of Austria as the sole means of safety. For, while offensive in appearance, it is in reality defensive. France does not intend to keep those provinces; and, even if her conquest of them brings about the collapse of the Stadholder's power in Holland, England will do well not to intervene in favour of the Orange régime. For what good can the Island Power gain by war with France? She may take the French colonies; but that will mean a tiresome struggle with the revolted negroes in the West Indies. France, meanwhile, with her new-born strength, will conquer Central Europe and then throw her energy into her fleet. The better course, then, for England will be to remain neutral, even if Holland be revolutionized, and the estuary of the Scheldt be thrown open to all nations. Or, still better, England may help France to keep in check the King of Prussia and the Prince of Orange. In that case the two free Powers will march hand in hand and "become the arbiters of peace or war for the whole world."
This remarkable pronouncement claims attention for several reasons. Firstly, it proves that Dumouriez and Talleyrand believed their sole chance of safety to lie in the conquest of Austria's Belgic provinces, where a cognate people would receive them with open arms. That is to say, they desired war with Austria, and they did not dread the prospect of war with Prussia, provided that England remained neutral and friendly. Pitt and Grenville were well aware of this from Gower's despatches. Our ambassador had warned them that France recked little of a war with the whole of Europe, provided that England held aloof. Secondly, this fact disposes of the subsequent charge of Fox against Pitt, that he ought to have sided with France in 1792 and thereby to have prevented the attack of the German Powers. For, as we have seen, it was she who took the irrevocable step of declaring war on Austria; and further, the details given above prove that all that Frenchmen expected from Pitt was neutrality. By remaining neutral, while the French overran Belgium, Pitt was favouring the French plans more than any British statesman had done since the time of James II. Thirdly, we notice in the closing sentences of these Reflections signs of that extraordinary self-confidence which led Girondins and Jacobins to face without flinching even the prospect of war with England.
What was Pitt's conduct at this crisis? He knew enough of the politics of Berlin and Vienna to see that those Courts would almost certainly make war on France. He adopted therefore the line of conduct which prudence and love of peace dictated, a strict neutrality. But he refused to proclaim it to the world, as it would encourage France to attack Austria. At the same time Grenville let it be known that Austria must not be deprived of her Belgic lands, which England