all its inmates know that it is the King alone who is inviolable, that
the Law will strike the guilty without distinction, and that no head on
which guilt reposes can escape its sword."

The thunders of Vergniaud and the other Jacobin orators rolled not in
vain. By March the Drissotins dominated the situation. They
frightened the King into acquiescence in their war policy and they
drove Narbonne and the Fayettists, their temporary allies, from office,
installing a new ministry made up of their own adherents. That new
ministry included Roland, Claviere and Dumouriez;--Roland, a
hard-headed, hard-working man of business, whose young wife with her
beauty and enthusiasm was to be the soul of the unfortunate Girondin
party; Claviere, a banker, speculator, {135} friend of Mirabeau, and
generally doubtful liberal; Dumouriez, a soldier, able, adventurous, of
large instincts political and human, ambitious and forceful beyond his
colleagues.

The Brissotin ministry was well equipped with talent, and was intended
to carry through the war, which was voted by the assembly on the 20th
of April. This step had been gradually led up to by an acrimonious
exchange of diplomatic votes. The war, now that it had broken out, was
found to involve more powers than Austria. The king of Prussia,
unwilling to let Austria pose as the sole defender of the Germanic
princes of the Rhineland, had in August 1791 joined the Emperor in the
declaration of Pillnitz, threatening France with coercion. He now
acted up to this, and joined in the war as the ally of the Emperor.
Leopold died in March, and was succeeded by his son, Marie Antoinette's
nephew, Francis II.

Three armies were formed by France for the conflict, and were placed
under the orders of Rochambeau, La Fayette, and Luckner. They were
weak in numbers, as the fortresses soaked up many thousands of men, and
unprepared for war. The allies concentrated their troops in the
neighbourhood of Coblenz. The {136} Duke of Brunswick was placed in
command, and by the end of July perfected arrangements for marching on
Paris with an Austro-Prussian army of 80,000 men.

The breaking out of war inflamed still further the political excitement
of France. In April a festival, or demonstration, was held in honour
of the soldiers of Chateauvieux' Swiss regiment, now released from the
galleys. Angry protests arose from the moderates, an echo of the
assembly's vote of thanks to Bouille for repressing t