Vienna, attached though he was to the system of policy
which he had inaugurated under Maria Teresa, could not avoid replying in a
similar strain, until at last, on the 20th of April, Louis, sorely against
his will, was compelled to announce to the Assembly that all his efforts
for the preservation of peace had failed, and to propose an instant
declaration of war.

The declaration was voted with enthusiasm; but for some time it brought
nothing but disaster. The campaign was opened in the Netherlands, where
the Austrians, taken by surprise, were so weak in numbers that it seemed
certain that they would be driven from the country without difficulty or
delay. Marshal Beaulieu, their commander-in-chief, had scarcely twenty
thousand men, while the Count de Narbonne had left the French army in so
good a condition that Degraves, his successor, was able to send a hundred
and thirty thousand men against him; and Dumouriez furnished him with a
plan for an invasion of the Netherlands, which, if properly carried out,
would have made the French masters of the whole country in a few days. But
the largest division of the army, to which the execution of the most
important portions of the intended operations was intrusted, had been
placed under the command of La Fayette, who proved equally devoid of
resolution and of skill. Some of his regiments showed a disorderly and
insubordinate temper. One battalion first mutinied and murdered some of
its officers, and then disgraced itself by cowardice in the field. Another
displayed an almost equal want of courage; and La Fayette, disheartened
and perplexed, though the number of his troops still more than doubled
those opposed to him, retreated into France, and remained there in a state
of complete inactivity.

But, as has been said before, disaster was almost as favorable to the
political views of the Girondins as success, while it added to the dangers
of the sovereigns by encouraging the Jacobins, who were elated at the
failure of a general so hateful to them as La Fayette. They now adopted a
party emblem, a red cap; and the Duc d'Orleans and his son, the Duc de
Chartres,[6] assumed it, and with studied insult paraded in it up and down
the gardens of the palace, under the queen's windows; and if the two
factions did not formally coalesce, they both proceeded with greater
boldness than ever toward their desired object, not greatly differing as
to the means by which it was to be attained.

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