n Gower. In truth,
Grenville's expressions, quoted above, were merely the outcome of the
good will which he and Pitt felt towards France. But these words from
the two powerful Ministers meant safety for France on her coasts,
whatever might betide her on the Meuse and the Rhine.

On the day when Grenville spoke these words of peace, two events
occurred which portended war. Leopold II died; and an irritating
despatch, which he and Kaunitz had recently sent to Paris, was read out
to the Legislative Assembly. Thereafter a rupture was inevitable.
Francis II, who now ascended the throne of his father, was a shy, proud,
delicate youth of twenty-four years, having only a superficial knowledge
of public affairs, scarcely known to the Ministers, and endowed with a
narrow pedantic nature which was to be the bane of his people. He lacked
alike the sagacity, the foresight, and the suppleness of Leopold.
Further, though his inexperience should have inspired him with a dread
of war for his storm-tossed States, yet that same misfortune subjected
him to the advice of the veteran Chancellor, Kaunitz. That crabbed old
man advised the maintenance of a stiff attitude towards France; and
this, in her present temper, entailed war.

The last despatch from Vienna to Paris contained strongly worded advice
to the French Government and Assembly to adopt a less provocative
attitude, to withdraw its troops from the northern frontier, and, above
all, to rid itself of the factious minority which controlled its
counsels. If Leopold had hoped to intimidate France or to strengthen the
peace-party at Paris, he made the greatest mistake of his reign. The war
party at once gained the ascendancy, decreed the arrest of Delessart for
his tame reply to Vienna, and broke up the constitutional Ministry.
Their successors were mainly Girondins. The most noteworthy are Roland,
who took the Home Office; Claviere, Finance; and Dumouriez, Foreign
Affairs. The last was a man of great energy and resource. A soldier by
training, and with a dash of the adventurer in his nature, he now leapt
to the front, and astonished France by his zeal and activity. He was not
devoid of prudence; for, as appears from Gower's despatch of 30th March,
he persuaded the Assembly to postpone action until an answer arrived to
his last despatch to Vienna. Gower found from conversation with
Dumouriez that a rupture must ensue if a satisfactory reply did not
arrive by 15th April.[65] Four days la