the
world, who had been the best of Liberals and the purest of
revolutionary statesmen, Edmund Burke. It was not as a reactionist,
but as a Whig who had drunk success to Washington, who had dressed in
blue and buff, who had rejoiced over the British surrender at
Saratoga, who had drawn up the address to the Colonists, which is the
best State paper in the language, that he told them that it was lawful
to invade their own country, and to shed the blood of their
countrymen.

The _emigres_ of every grade of opinion were united in dislike of the
queen and in depreciation of the king, and they wished to supersede
him by declaring his brother Regent. They hoped to save them both; but
they thought more of principles than of persons, and were not to be
diverted from their projects by consideration of what might happen at
Paris. When the emperor spoke of the danger his sister and her husband
were running, Castelnau replied, "What does it matter, provided the
royal authority is preserved in the person of d'Artois?" They not only
refused obedience to Lewis, but they assiduously compromised him, and
proclaimed that he meant the contrary of what he said, making a
reconciliation between him and his people impossible. Even his
brothers defied him when in this extremity, he entreated them to
return. It was the _emigre_ policy to magnify the significance of what
was done at Pilnitz; and as they have convinced posterity that it was
the announcement of an intended attack, it was easy to convince their
contemporaries at home. The language of menace was there, and France
believed itself in danger. How little the Princes concerned meant to
give effect to it remained a secret.

The French democracy might have found its advantage in the
disappearance of so many nobles; but as they were working, with
apparent effect, to embroil the country with its neighbours, attempts
were made to compel their return, first by a threefold taxation, then
by confiscation, and at last, November 9, by threatening with death
those who did not return. The nonjuring clergy were associated with
the _emigres_ in the public mind as enemies and conspirators who were
the more dangerous because they remained at home. The First Assembly
had provoked the hostility on the frontier; the Second provoked
hostilities at home. The First had left nonjuring priests with a
pension, and the use of parish churches where successors had not been
appointed. The Legislative Assembly decr