ate of an armed intervention in the affairs of France, which Leopold
opposed as impracticable, and, if practicable, impolitic), was it easy to
see how a congress could have brought those monarchs to agree on any
united system of action. But all projects of that kind necessarily fell to
the ground in consequence of the death of the emperor, which took place,
after a very short illness, on the 1st of March, 1792; and before the end
of the same month the royal family lost another warm friend in Gustavus of
Sweden, who was assassinated in the very midst of preparations which he
confidently hoped might contribute to deliver his brother sovereign from
his troubles.

Marie Antoinette spoke truly when she said that the enemies of the crown
never lost time. The very prospect of war increased the divisions of the
Assembly, since the Jacobins were undisguisedly averse to it. Not one of
their body had any reputation for skill in arms, so that in the event of
war it was evident that the chief commands, both in army and navy, must be
conferred on persons unconnected with them; while the Girondins, though,
as far as was yet known, equally destitute of members possessed of any
military ability, looked on war as favorable to their designs, whatever
might be the issue of a campaign. They were above all things eager for the
destruction of the monarchy, and they reckoned that if the French army
were victorious, its success would disable those who were most willing and
might be most able to support the throne; while, if the enemy should
prevail, it would be easy to represent their triumph as the fruit of the
mismanagement, if not of the treachery, of the king's generals and
ministers; and the opposition of these two parties was at this time so
notorious that the queen thought it favorable to the king, since each
would be eager to preserve him as a possible ally against its adversaries.
It is for her husband's and her child's safety that she expresses anxiety,
never for her own. With respect to herself her uniform language is that of
fearlessness. She does not for a moment conceal from her correspondents
her sense of the dangers which surround her. She has not only open
hostility to fear, but treachery, which is far worse; and she declares
that "a perpetual imprisonment in a solitary tower on the sea-shore would
be a less cruel fate than that which she daily endures from the wickedness
of her enemies and the weakness of her friends. Every thin