at the Foreign Office, Delessart, was obstinately
pacific. On December 14 Lewis came down to the Legislature, and
announced that he would insist that the _emigres_ should receive no
encouragement beyond the frontier. It was the first act of hostility
and defiance, and it showed that the king was parting with his
Feuillant friends. But Delessart spoilt the effect by keeping back the
note to the emperor for ten days, and communicating it then with
precautions.

* * * * *

Leopold II. was one of the shrewdest and most cautious of men. He knew
how to wait, and how to give way. He had no wish that his
brother-in-law should again be powerful, and he was not sorry that
France should be disabled by civil dissension. But he could not
abandon his sister without dishonour; and he was afraid of the
contagion of French principles in Belgium, which he had reconciled and
pacified with difficulty. Moreover, a common action in French affairs,
action which might eventually be warlike, was a means of closing the
long enmity with Prussia, and obtaining a substitute for the family
alliance with France, which had become futile. Therefore he was
prepared, if they had escaped, to risk war for their restoration, and
induced the Prussian agent to sign an undertaking which went beyond
his instructions.

When the disastrous news reached him from Varennes, Leopold appealed
to the Powers, drew up an alliance with Prussia, and joined in the
declaration of Pilnitz, by which France was threatened with the
combined action of all Europe unless the king was restored to a
position worthy of kings. The threat implied no danger, because it was
made conditional on the unanimity of the Powers. There was one Power
that was sure not to consent. England was waiting an opportunity to
profit by French troubles. It had already been seriously proposed by
Bouille, with the approval of Lewis, to purchase aid from George III.
by the surrender of all the colonies of France. Therefore Leopold
thought that he risked nothing by a demonstration which the _emigres_
made the most of to alarm and irritate the French people. But when the
king freely accepted the Constitution, the manifesto of Pilnitz fell
to the ground. If he was content with his position, it could not be
the duty of the Powers to waste blood and treasure in attempting to
alter it. The best thing was that things should settle down in France.
Then there would be no excitement sp