fety;
blows as unforeseen as terrible beat down the combinations on which she
had built her hopes. Within a fortnight she was to see the two
sovereigns disappear from whom she had expected succor: her brother,
the Emperor Leopold, and Gustavus III., the King of Sweden. Leopold
had not been equal to all the illusions which his sister had cherished
with regard to him, but, nevertheless, he showed great interest in
French affairs, and a lively desire to be useful to Louis XVI. Pacific
by disposition, he had temporized at first, and adopted a conciliatory
policy. He desired a reconciliation with the new principles, and,
moreover, he was not blind to the inexperience and levity of the
_emigres_. But the obligation, to which he was bound by treaties, to
defend the rights of princes holding property in Alsace, his fear of
the propaganda of sedition, the aggressive language of the National
Assembly and the Parisian press, had ended by determining him to take a
more resolute attitude, and it was at the moment when he was {24}
seriously intending to come to his sister's aid that he was carried off
by sudden death. Though she did not desire a war between Austria and
France, the Queen had persisted in wishing for an armed congress, which
would have been a compromise between peace and war, but which the
National Assembly would have regarded as an intolerable humiliation.
It must not be denied, the situation was a false one. Between the true
sentiments of Louis XVI. and his new role as a constitutional
sovereign, there was a real incompatibility. As to the Queen, she was
on good terms neither with the _emigres_ nor with the Assembly.

In order to get a just idea of the sentiments shown by the _emigres_,
it is necessary to read a letter written from Treves, October 16, 1791,
by Madame de Raigecourt, the friend of Madame Elisabeth, to another
friend of the Princess, the Marquise de Bombelles: "I see with pain
that Paris and Coblentz are not on good terms. The Emperor treats the
Princes like children.... The Princes cannot avoid suspecting that it
is the influence of the Queen and her agents which thwarts their plans
and causes the Emperor to behave so strangely.... Some trickery on the
part of the Tuileries is still suspected in this country. They ought
to explain themselves to each other once for all. Is the Queen afraid
lest the Count d'Artois should arrogate an authority in the realm which
would diminish her own? Let h