t the maddest singeing:
scandalous to consider! In which same days, as we can remark, high
Potentates, Austrian and Prussian, with Emigrants, were faring towards
Pilnitz in Saxony; there, on the 27th of August, they, keeping to
themselves what further 'secret Treaty' there might or might not be, did
publish their hopes and their threatenings, their Declaration that it
was 'the common cause of Kings.'

Where a will to quarrel is, there is a way. Our readers remember that
Pentecost-Night, Fourth of August 1789, when Feudalism fell in a few
hours? The National Assembly, in abolishing Feudalism, promised
that 'compensation' should be given; and did endeavour to give it.
Nevertheless the Austrian Kaiser answers that his German Princes, for
their part, cannot be unfeudalised; that they have Possessions in French
Alsace, and Feudal Rights secured to them, for which no conceivable
compensation will suffice. So this of the Possessioned Princes, 'Princes
Possessiones' is bandied from Court to Court; covers acres of diplomatic
paper at this day: a weariness to the world. Kaunitz argues from Vienna;
Delessart responds from Paris, though perhaps not sharply enough. The
Kaiser and his Possessioned Princes will too evidently come and take
compensation--so much as they can get. Nay might one not partition
France, as we have done Poland, and are doing; and so pacify it with a
vengeance?

From South to North! For actually it is 'the common cause of Kings.'
Swedish Gustav, sworn Knight of the Queen of France, will lead Coalised
Armies;--had not Ankarstrom treasonously shot him; for, indeed, there
were griefs nearer home. (30th March 1792 Annual Register, p. 11).
Austria and Prussia speak at Pilnitz; all men intensely listening:
Imperial Rescripts have gone out from Turin; there will be secret
Convention at Vienna. Catherine of Russia beckons approvingly; will
help, were she ready. Spanish Bourbon stirs amid his pillows; from him
too, even from him, shall there come help. Lean Pitt, 'the Minister of
Preparatives,' looks out from his watch-tower in Saint-James's, in a
suspicious manner. Councillors plotting, Calonnes dim-hovering;--alas,
Serjeants rub-a-dubbing openly through all manner of German
market-towns, collecting ragged valour! (Toulongeon, ii. 100-117.) Look
where you will, immeasurable Obscurantism is girdling this fair France;
which, again, will not be girdled by it. Europe is in travail; pang
after pang; what a shriek was that