strongest motive was the
desire to be released from the religious entanglement; and he hoped to
restore the Church to its lost position on condition of buying up the
_assignats_ with the property of the suppressed orders. It had been
computed that the Church would be able to save the public credit by a
sacrifice of forty millions, or to ruin the revolutionary investor by
refusing it. Therefore the king would not entertain the proposals of
Mirabeau, who was not the man to execute a policy favourable to the
influence of the priesthood. It was committed to a different
politician.

Breteuil, the rival of Necker, was the man preferred to Mirabeau. He
was living at Soleure as the acknowledged head of the Royalists who
served the king, and who declined to follow the princes and the
_emigres_ and their chief intriguer Calonne. Breteuil was now
consulted. He advised the king to depart in secret and to take refuge
in a frontier fortress among faithful regiments, within reach of
Austrian supports. In this way Breteuil, not Mirabeau, would be
master, and the restoration would have been in favour of the old
_regime_, not of the constitutional monarchy. On one point only the
two advisers agreed: Breteuil, like Mirabeau, recommended Bouille as
the man of action. His reply was brought by the Bishop of Pamiers, an
eighteenth-century prelate of the worldly sort, who was afterwards
selected to be the minister of finance if Brunswick had conquered. On
October 23 the bishop was sent to Metz to initiate Bouille.

In point both of talent and renown, Bouille was the first man in the
army as the emigration had left it. He served reluctantly under the
new order, and thought of making himself a new career in Russia. But
he was ambitious, for he had been always successful, and the emissary
from the king and from Breteuil opened a tempting future. He proposed
three alternatives. The king was to choose between Valenciennes, which
would be the safest and swiftest journey; Besancon, within reach of
the friendly Swiss who were under agreement to supply a large force on
demand; and Montmedy, a small fortified town close to the frontier,
and not far from Luxemburg which was the strongest of the imperial
fortresses. All this meant plainly Montmedy. Besancon was so far that
there was time to be overtaken, and Valenciennes was not in Bouille's
territory. Nothing could be done before the spring, for the emperor
was not yet master of his revolted provinces